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 6 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
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 74 67
Rank change year-on-year -42 -7 -11
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,171 1,103 1,179
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 3.35% 3.01%
As % of the Vendors category 5.30% 7.09% 6.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 770 678 725
10th Percentile £300 £300 £252
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £581
90th Percentile £638 £638 £659
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 22,096 15,563 17,086
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.45% 47.29% 43.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,681 9,530 10,669
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 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,141 788 855
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.50 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.24 £15.62
Median hourly rate £34.85 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.57% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.25 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.32 £27.50
% change year-on-year +45.64% -18.85% -22.54%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -49 997 £500 - 753
UK excluding London -46 694 £477 -4.60% 611
London -46 363 £500 - 270
Work from Home -33 285 £476 -1.35% 157
North of England -30 226 £498 +3.38% 156
South East -46 170 £513 -4.51% 153
North West -8 167 £485 +4.86% 72
Midlands -39 128 £420 -15.15% 78
West Midlands -25 122 £413 -13.16% 39
Scotland +31 90 £419 +0.90% 39
Yorkshire -62 56 £500 - 62
South West -70 55 £500 -11.11% 90
East of England -15 35 £500 -9.09% 69
Wales -9 16 £468 +16.88% 25
Northern Ireland +8 7 £110 -68.71% 13
North East -42 4 £425 +30.77% 22
East Midlands -28 3 £525 -4.55% 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 32 (2.73%) SharePoint
2 27 (2.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.02%) Confluence
4 10 (0.85%) 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 (0.085%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (4.18%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.22%) MS Visio
3 24 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.26%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.085%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 240 (20.50%) Azure
2 151 (12.89%) AWS
3 84 (7.17%) Microsoft 365
4 58 (4.95%) Entra ID
5 24 (2.05%) OneDrive
6 23 (1.96%) GCP
7 22 (1.88%) GitHub
8 21 (1.79%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (1.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 14 (1.20%) Nutanix
12 12 (1.02%) SaaS
13 11 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
14 10 (0.85%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.85%) Power Platform
15 8 (0.68%) IaaS
16 7 (0.60%) Cloudflare
16 7 (0.60%) Rubrik
17 6 (0.51%) Amazon EC2
17 6 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 522 (44.58%) Firewall
2 365 (31.17%) WAN
3 308 (26.30%) BGP
4 289 (24.68%) LAN
5 260 (22.20%) VPN
6 246 (21.01%) Network Security
7 214 (18.27%) OSPF
8 206 (17.59%) Wireless
9 200 (17.08%) DNS
10 177 (15.12%) VLAN
11 147 (12.55%) SD-WAN
12 130 (11.10%) MPLS
13 118 (10.08%) Wi-Fi
14 115 (9.82%) DHCP
15 111 (9.48%) Cisco Nexus
16 109 (9.31%) Cisco ISE
17 102 (8.71%) VXLAN
18 93 (7.94%) TCP/IP
19 88 (7.51%) Cisco ASA
20 83 (7.09%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (2.13%) 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 (0.085%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.085%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 24 (2.05%) Git
2 23 (1.96%) JIRA
3 14 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
4 10 (0.85%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.34%) GitLab
6 1 (0.085%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.085%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.085%) Tricentis qTest
6 1 (0.085%) Zephyr
General
1 277 (23.65%) Social Skills
2 110 (9.39%) Finance
3 95 (8.11%) Telecoms
4 90 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
5 63 (5.38%) Banking
5 63 (5.38%) Public Sector
6 55 (4.70%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (2.99%) Legal
8 23 (1.96%) Financial Institution
8 23 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (1.62%) Investment Banking
10 17 (1.45%) Law
11 16 (1.37%) Military
12 15 (1.28%) Retail
13 11 (0.94%) Police
14 10 (0.85%) Manufacturing
15 9 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
16 7 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 6 (0.51%) Marketing
18 5 (0.43%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 581 (49.62%) Network Engineer
2 160 (13.66%) Senior
3 134 (11.44%) Architect
4 127 (10.85%) Cisco Engineer
5 117 (9.99%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 108 (9.22%) Senior Network Engineer
7 86 (7.34%) Security Engineer
8 74 (6.32%) Network Architect
9 68 (5.81%) Network Security Engineer
10 56 (4.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 49 (4.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 41 (3.50%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (2.90%) Analyst
14 33 (2.82%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.82%) Field Engineer
15 32 (2.73%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 30 (2.56%) Network Specialist
17 27 (2.31%) Automation Engineer
17 27 (2.31%) Lead
18 26 (2.22%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.75%) 802.1X
2 16 (1.37%) REST
3 14 (1.20%) SAML
4 9 (0.77%) Flash
5 8 (0.68%) NETCONF
5 8 (0.68%) XMPP
6 7 (0.60%) OpenConfig
6 7 (0.60%) YANG
7 6 (0.51%) Jinja
7 6 (0.51%) RESTCONF
8 5 (0.43%) JSON
8 5 (0.43%) LDAP
8 5 (0.43%) YAML
9 3 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.26%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.26%) LAMP
9 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
9 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.26%) Middleware
10 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 280 (23.91%) Data Centre
2 61 (5.21%) PKI
3 52 (4.44%) Hybrid Cloud
4 40 (3.42%) Clustering
4 40 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 34 (2.90%) Replication
6 33 (2.82%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (2.82%) Driving Licence
7 32 (2.73%) Operational Technology
7 32 (2.73%) Video Conferencing
8 21 (1.79%) Enterprise Storage
9 20 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.62%) Cloud Native
11 18 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
11 18 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
12 17 (1.45%) Public Cloud
13 15 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (1.20%) SCADA
14 14 (1.20%) Security Posture
15 12 (1.02%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 220 (18.79%) Windows
2 129 (11.02%) Linux
3 75 (6.40%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.54%) Unix
4 18 (1.54%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.45%) Ubuntu
6 15 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.77%) AIX
8 9 (0.77%) Android
8 9 (0.77%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.43%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.43%) VMS
11 4 (0.34%) CentOS
11 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.085%) CatOS
12 1 (0.085%) Check Point GAiA
12 1 (0.085%) Debian
12 1 (0.085%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (15.29%) Migration
2 134 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
3 133 (11.36%) Load Balancing
4 132 (11.27%) ITIL
5 131 (11.19%) Project Delivery
6 122 (10.42%) High Availability
7 97 (8.28%) Change Management
8 89 (7.60%) Network Design
9 81 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
9 81 (6.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 81 (6.92%) ITSM
10 72 (6.15%) Stakeholder Management
11 69 (5.89%) Technical Leadership
12 67 (5.72%) Infrastructure as Code
13 66 (5.64%) CI/CD
14 62 (5.29%) Validation
15 61 (5.21%) Network Monitoring
16 56 (4.78%) Service Management
17 54 (4.61%) Agile
17 54 (4.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 137 (11.70%) Python
2 57 (4.87%) PowerShell
3 29 (2.48%) Bash
4 24 (2.05%) 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 (0.085%) Bicep
9 1 (0.085%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.085%) PHP
Qualifications
1 343 (29.29%) Cisco Certification
2 306 (26.13%) Security Cleared
3 241 (20.58%) CCNP
4 207 (17.68%) SC Cleared
5 140 (11.96%) CCNA
6 97 (8.28%) DV Cleared
7 72 (6.15%) Degree
8 61 (5.21%) CCIE
9 27 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.96%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 22 (1.88%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (1.62%) MCSE
13 17 (1.45%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.45%) Server+ Certification
14 15 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
15 13 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (1.11%) JNCIP
15 13 (1.11%) JNCIS
16 12 (1.02%) AWS Certification
16 12 (1.02%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (3.93%) SLA
2 29 (2.48%) NIST
3 22 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 20 (1.71%) QA
5 19 (1.62%) Cyber Essentials
6 16 (1.37%) NCSC
7 6 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.51%) PMO
8 5 (0.43%) GDPR
8 5 (0.43%) JSP 440
8 5 (0.43%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 4 (0.34%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
11 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.085%) GRC
12 1 (0.085%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 140 (11.96%) VMware Infrastructure
2 112 (9.56%) Active Directory
3 42 (3.59%) VMware ESXi
4 41 (3.50%) vSphere
5 40 (3.42%) VMware NSX
6 31 (2.65%) Firmware
7 29 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
8 28 (2.39%) Hyper-V
9 13 (1.11%) Docker
9 13 (1.11%) NFS
10 12 (1.02%) SRDF
11 9 (0.77%) GPFS
12 6 (0.51%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 5 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.26%) Postfix
15 2 (0.17%) FreeRADIUS
15 2 (0.17%) Snort
15 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 137 (11.70%) Ansible
2 95 (8.11%) FortiGate
3 69 (5.89%) Terraform
4 30 (2.56%) Kubernetes
5 29 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (1.96%) Grafana
7 21 (1.79%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.79%) SCCM
8 19 (1.62%) vCenter Server
9 18 (1.54%) Cisco CUCM
10 17 (1.45%) Cisco Prime
11 10 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.77%) vRealize
13 8 (0.68%) WMI
13 8 (0.68%) WSUS
14 7 (0.60%) EMC VPLEX
14 7 (0.60%) Nagios
14 7 (0.60%) Puppet
15 6 (0.51%) EMC TimeFinder
15 6 (0.51%) VxRail
Vendors
1 266 (22.72%) Palo Alto
2 232 (19.81%) F5
3 213 (18.19%) Microsoft
4 203 (17.34%) Fortinet
5 198 (16.91%) VMware
6 160 (13.66%) Juniper
7 105 (8.97%) CheckPoint
8 98 (8.37%) ServiceNow
9 97 (8.28%) Meraki
10 96 (8.20%) Aruba
11 95 (8.11%) SolarWinds
12 74 (6.32%) Arista
13 60 (5.12%) Splunk
14 53 (4.53%) Zscaler
15 38 (3.25%) Dell
16 30 (2.56%) Red Hat
17 29 (2.48%) Extreme Networks
18 25 (2.13%) EMC
18 25 (2.13%) Infoblox
19 24 (2.05%) Brocade