Cisco Contract Job Trends

Cisco
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of Cisco products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cisco over the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within Cisco Systems, Inc.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 71 68
Rank change year-on-year -45 -3 -12
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,161 1,108 1,186
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 3.37% 3.03%
As % of the Vendors category 5.31% 7.14% 6.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 763 681 727
10th Percentile £300 £300 £252
25th Percentile £401 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.60% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £582
90th Percentile £638 £638 £658
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £500 £479
% change year-on-year -4.60% +4.44% +6.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 36 34
10th Percentile £26.98 £25.08 £15.70
25th Percentile £42.68 £25.15 £22.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% +9.09% -45.00%
75th Percentile £72.87 £57.81 £54.69
90th Percentile £78.70 £86.32 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +83.33% -40.00% -13.78%

All Vendors
UK

Cisco falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 21,875 15,518 17,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.39% 47.16% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,551 9,508 10,703
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £605 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,112 786 855
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.48 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.58 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £27.25
% change year-on-year +52.32% -18.11% -23.24%

Cisco
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cisco relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Cisco job vacancy trend in the UK

Cisco
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cisco.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cisco

Cisco
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cisco over the 6 months to 4 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cisco.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cisco

Cisco
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cisco over the 6 months to 4 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cisco within the UK over the 6 months to 4 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -49 989 £500 - 738
UK excluding London -45 690 £477 -4.60% 605
London -47 357 £500 - 256
Work from Home -32 283 £484 -0.77% 179
North of England -30 223 £497 +3.23% 149
South East -48 172 £513 -4.51% 156
North West -6 165 £485 +2.11% 66
Midlands -41 127 £416 -12.37% 79
West Midlands -28 122 £413 -10.81% 40
Scotland +23 88 £425 +2.41% 36
Yorkshire -60 55 £500 - 62
South West -70 55 £500 -11.11% 96
East of England -13 34 £500 -9.09% 67
Wales -13 16 £468 +16.88% 22
Northern Ireland +9 7 £110 -68.71% 13
North East -42 4 £425 +30.77% 22
East Midlands -30 2 - - 39
Channel Islands +1 1 £550 -24.14%

Cisco
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 31 (2.67%) SharePoint
2 27 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.03%) Confluence
4 9 (0.78%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.60%) Apache
6 3 (0.26%) CloudStack
6 3 (0.26%) IIS
6 3 (0.26%) JBoss
6 3 (0.26%) nginx
6 3 (0.26%) SAS
6 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.17%) CMS
8 1 (0.086%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.086%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (4.22%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.15%) MS Visio
3 24 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.26%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 3 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 238 (20.50%) Azure
2 151 (13.01%) AWS
3 82 (7.06%) Microsoft 365
4 57 (4.91%) Entra ID
5 23 (1.98%) GCP
6 22 (1.89%) GitHub
6 22 (1.89%) OneDrive
7 21 (1.81%) OpenShift
8 18 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 17 (1.46%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 14 (1.21%) Nutanix
11 12 (1.03%) SaaS
12 11 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (0.86%) Power Platform
14 9 (0.78%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (0.69%) IaaS
16 7 (0.60%) Cloudflare
16 7 (0.60%) Rubrik
17 6 (0.52%) Amazon EC2
17 6 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 521 (44.88%) Firewall
2 366 (31.52%) WAN
3 309 (26.61%) BGP
4 292 (25.15%) LAN
5 260 (22.39%) VPN
6 245 (21.10%) Network Security
7 217 (18.69%) OSPF
8 206 (17.74%) Wireless
9 199 (17.14%) DNS
10 178 (15.33%) VLAN
11 146 (12.58%) SD-WAN
12 129 (11.11%) MPLS
13 118 (10.16%) Wi-Fi
14 115 (9.91%) DHCP
15 110 (9.47%) Cisco Nexus
16 109 (9.39%) Cisco ISE
17 101 (8.70%) VXLAN
18 93 (8.01%) TCP/IP
19 86 (7.41%) Cisco ASA
20 83 (7.15%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (2.15%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.26%) Big Data
3 3 (0.26%) Hadoop
3 3 (0.26%) MySQL
3 3 (0.26%) Power BI
4 2 (0.17%) Metadata
4 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.086%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.086%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 23 (1.98%) Git
1 23 (1.98%) JIRA
2 15 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
3 10 (0.86%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.34%) GitLab
5 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.086%) Robot Framework
General
1 275 (23.69%) Social Skills
2 108 (9.30%) Finance
3 94 (8.10%) Telecoms
4 88 (7.58%) Analytical Skills
5 62 (5.34%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.25%) Banking
7 56 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (3.01%) Legal
9 23 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
10 22 (1.89%) Financial Institution
11 18 (1.55%) Investment Banking
12 17 (1.46%) Law
13 16 (1.38%) Military
14 15 (1.29%) Retail
15 11 (0.95%) Police
16 10 (0.86%) Manufacturing
17 9 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 6 (0.52%) Marketing
20 5 (0.43%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 579 (49.87%) Network Engineer
2 158 (13.61%) Senior
3 133 (11.46%) Architect
4 124 (10.68%) Cisco Engineer
5 114 (9.82%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 106 (9.13%) Senior Network Engineer
7 85 (7.32%) Security Engineer
8 73 (6.29%) Network Architect
9 67 (5.77%) Network Security Engineer
10 56 (4.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 50 (4.31%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 40 (3.45%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (2.93%) Analyst
14 33 (2.84%) Field Engineer
15 32 (2.76%) Data Engineer
16 31 (2.67%) Cisco Security Engineer
17 30 (2.58%) Network Specialist
18 27 (2.33%) Automation Engineer
18 27 (2.33%) Lead
19 26 (2.24%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.80%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.29%) REST
3 14 (1.21%) SAML
4 9 (0.78%) Flash
5 7 (0.60%) NETCONF
5 7 (0.60%) XMPP
6 6 (0.52%) Jinja
6 6 (0.52%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.52%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.52%) YANG
7 5 (0.43%) JSON
7 5 (0.43%) LDAP
7 5 (0.43%) YAML
8 3 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.26%) Java RMI
8 3 (0.26%) LAMP
8 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.17%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 281 (24.20%) Data Centre
2 61 (5.25%) PKI
3 51 (4.39%) Hybrid Cloud
4 40 (3.45%) Clustering
5 39 (3.36%) Onboarding
6 34 (2.93%) Replication
7 33 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
8 32 (2.76%) Driving Licence
8 32 (2.76%) Operational Technology
9 30 (2.58%) Video Conferencing
10 21 (1.81%) Enterprise Storage
11 20 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (1.64%) Cloud Native
12 19 (1.64%) Linux Command Line
13 18 (1.55%) EMC VMAX
14 17 (1.46%) Public Cloud
15 15 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
16 14 (1.21%) SCADA
16 14 (1.21%) Security Posture
17 12 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 217 (18.69%) Windows
2 130 (11.20%) Linux
3 75 (6.46%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.55%) Unix
5 17 (1.46%) Ubuntu
5 17 (1.46%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.86%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.78%) AIX
8 9 (0.78%) Android
9 8 (0.69%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.43%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.43%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) CentOS
12 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.086%) CatOS
13 1 (0.086%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.086%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.086%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 178 (15.33%) Migration
2 133 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
3 132 (11.37%) Load Balancing
4 130 (11.20%) ITIL
5 128 (11.02%) Project Delivery
6 122 (10.51%) High Availability
7 96 (8.27%) Change Management
8 89 (7.67%) Network Design
9 82 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
10 81 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 80 (6.89%) ITSM
12 71 (6.12%) Stakeholder Management
13 67 (5.77%) Infrastructure as Code
13 67 (5.77%) Technical Leadership
14 66 (5.68%) CI/CD
15 62 (5.34%) Network Monitoring
15 62 (5.34%) Validation
16 56 (4.82%) Service Management
17 54 (4.65%) Agile
17 54 (4.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 135 (11.63%) Python
2 57 (4.91%) PowerShell
3 29 (2.50%) Bash
4 24 (2.07%) SQL
5 5 (0.43%) Shell Script
6 4 (0.34%) C
6 4 (0.34%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.086%) Bicep
9 1 (0.086%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.086%) PHP
Qualifications
1 342 (29.46%) Cisco Certification
2 309 (26.61%) Security Cleared
3 241 (20.76%) CCNP
4 210 (18.09%) SC Cleared
5 141 (12.14%) CCNA
6 97 (8.35%) DV Cleared
7 71 (6.12%) Degree
8 59 (5.08%) CCIE
9 27 (2.33%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.98%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 22 (1.89%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (1.64%) MCSE
13 17 (1.46%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.46%) Server+ Certification
14 15 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
15 13 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (1.12%) JNCIP
15 13 (1.12%) JNCIS
16 12 (1.03%) AWS Certification
16 12 (1.03%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (3.88%) SLA
2 29 (2.50%) NIST
3 22 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 19 (1.64%) Cyber Essentials
4 19 (1.64%) QA
5 17 (1.46%) NCSC
6 6 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
6 6 (0.52%) PMO
7 5 (0.43%) GDPR
7 5 (0.43%) JSP 440
7 5 (0.43%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (0.34%) Data Quality
9 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.17%) ISA99
10 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.086%) GRC
11 1 (0.086%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 139 (11.97%) VMware Infrastructure
2 111 (9.56%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.62%) VMware ESXi
4 41 (3.53%) VMware NSX
4 41 (3.53%) vSphere
5 31 (2.67%) Firmware
6 29 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
7 28 (2.41%) Hyper-V
8 13 (1.12%) Docker
8 13 (1.12%) NFS
9 12 (1.03%) SRDF
10 9 (0.78%) GPFS
11 6 (0.52%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 5 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
12 5 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.26%) Postfix
14 2 (0.17%) FreeRADIUS
14 2 (0.17%) Snort
14 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 136 (11.71%) Ansible
2 94 (8.10%) FortiGate
3 69 (5.94%) Terraform
4 29 (2.50%) Kubernetes
5 28 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (1.98%) Grafana
7 21 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.81%) SCCM
8 19 (1.64%) vCenter Server
9 17 (1.46%) Cisco CUCM
10 16 (1.38%) Cisco Prime
11 10 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.78%) vRealize
13 8 (0.69%) WMI
13 8 (0.69%) WSUS
14 7 (0.60%) EMC VPLEX
14 7 (0.60%) Nagios
14 7 (0.60%) Puppet
15 6 (0.52%) EMC TimeFinder
15 6 (0.52%) VxRail
Vendors
1 265 (22.83%) Palo Alto
2 231 (19.90%) F5
3 210 (18.09%) Microsoft
4 202 (17.40%) Fortinet
5 198 (17.05%) VMware
6 161 (13.87%) Juniper
7 104 (8.96%) CheckPoint
8 97 (8.35%) Aruba
9 96 (8.27%) ServiceNow
9 96 (8.27%) SolarWinds
10 93 (8.01%) Meraki
11 74 (6.37%) Arista
12 60 (5.17%) Splunk
13 52 (4.48%) Zscaler
14 38 (3.27%) Dell
15 30 (2.58%) Red Hat
16 29 (2.50%) Extreme Networks
17 25 (2.15%) EMC
18 24 (2.07%) Brocade
18 24 (2.07%) Citrix