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 22 September 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
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 82 67
Rank change year-on-year -36 -15 -14
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,237 988 1,205
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.27% 3.04% 3.17%
As % of the Vendors category 5.43% 6.40% 7.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 803 623 718
10th Percentile £271 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.96% -2.10% +8.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £583
90th Percentile £674 £647 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -4.75% -2.05% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 40 37
10th Percentile £27.49 £25.14 £19.40
25th Percentile £44.00 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% +9.09% -42.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.81 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £83.66 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +69.23% -13.33% -23.34%

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 22,776 15,426 16,872
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.74% 47.50% 44.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,912 9,454 10,092
10th Percentile £310 £275 £285
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £701 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,288 793 656
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.69 £14.46
25th Percentile £16.62 £17.44 £15.62
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -18.87% -30.34%
75th Percentile £60.75 £43.75 £63.84
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.05 £30.00
% change year-on-year +22.33% -29.83% -29.82%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -38 1,021 £500 - 1,323
UK excluding London -38 730 £467 -4.75% 939
London -34 377 £500 - 520
Work from Home -22 293 £475 +4.11% 388
North of England +3 242 £484 +1.63% 199
North West +15 164 £483 +1.68% 96
South East -64 134 £450 -10.00% 238
Midlands -39 127 £450 -2.70% 126
West Midlands -25 121 £450 -8.86% 70
Scotland +10 99 £413 -2.94% 54
Yorkshire -23 71 £500 +1.63% 73
South West -33 66 £525 -4.55% 143
East of England -12 52 £500 +3.63% 135
Wales +13 29 £390 +95.00% 30
Northern Ireland +3 9 £145 -69.47% 30
North East -30 9 £375 -31.82% 31
East Midlands -26 4 £525 +83.73% 56
Channel Islands -4 3 £600 -17.24%

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 40 (3.23%) SharePoint
2 36 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.05%) CMS
3 13 (1.05%) Confluence
4 11 (0.89%) OpenStack
5 8 (0.65%) SAS
6 7 (0.57%) Apache
6 7 (0.57%) IIS
7 6 (0.49%) JBoss
8 4 (0.32%) nginx
9 3 (0.24%) CloudStack
9 3 (0.24%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.16%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.081%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.081%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.081%) Mendix
11 1 (0.081%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 49 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (1.78%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.24%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.081%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.081%) Monis
1 1 (0.081%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.081%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 249 (20.13%) Azure
2 155 (12.53%) AWS
3 100 (8.08%) Microsoft 365
4 66 (5.34%) Entra ID
5 38 (3.07%) GitHub
6 30 (2.43%) OneDrive
7 29 (2.34%) GCP
8 20 (1.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 18 (1.46%) OpenShift
10 16 (1.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 14 (1.13%) Power Platform
12 13 (1.05%) Nutanix
13 12 (0.97%) SaaS
14 9 (0.73%) AWS Direct Connect
15 8 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (0.65%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
16 6 (0.49%) Amazon EC2
16 6 (0.49%) Cloudflare
16 6 (0.49%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 509 (41.15%) Firewall
2 364 (29.43%) WAN
3 303 (24.49%) BGP
4 278 (22.47%) LAN
5 266 (21.50%) VPN
6 261 (21.10%) Network Security
7 214 (17.30%) Wireless
8 189 (15.28%) OSPF
9 184 (14.87%) VLAN
10 183 (14.79%) DNS
11 151 (12.21%) SD-WAN
12 135 (10.91%) Wi-Fi
13 130 (10.51%) MPLS
14 116 (9.38%) Cisco Nexus
15 108 (8.73%) DHCP
16 102 (8.25%) TCP/IP
17 93 (7.52%) Cisco ISE
18 89 (7.19%) Cisco IOS
19 88 (7.11%) VXLAN
20 86 (6.95%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.18%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.57%) Power BI
3 6 (0.49%) Hadoop
4 5 (0.40%) Big Data
5 4 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.24%) Metadata
6 3 (0.24%) MySQL
7 2 (0.16%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.16%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.081%) Apache Hive
8 1 (0.081%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 36 (2.91%) Git
2 19 (1.54%) JIRA
3 14 (1.13%) GitLab
4 13 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.65%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.16%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.081%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.081%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.081%) Zephyr
General
1 283 (22.88%) Social Skills
2 128 (10.35%) Telecoms
3 125 (10.11%) Finance
4 105 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (5.34%) Banking
6 62 (5.01%) Public Sector
7 61 (4.93%) Documentation Skills
8 44 (3.56%) Legal
9 22 (1.78%) Organisational Skills
10 21 (1.70%) Investment Banking
11 20 (1.62%) Retail
12 17 (1.37%) Financial Institution
13 15 (1.21%) Law
14 14 (1.13%) Military
15 11 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.73%) Manufacturing
16 9 (0.73%) Police
17 6 (0.49%) Marketing
18 5 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 613 (49.56%) Network Engineer
2 181 (14.63%) Senior
3 149 (12.05%) Architect
4 147 (11.88%) Cisco Engineer
5 130 (10.51%) Senior Network Engineer
6 126 (10.19%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 86 (6.95%) Security Engineer
8 79 (6.39%) Network Architect
9 67 (5.42%) Network Security Engineer
10 63 (5.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 52 (4.20%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 43 (3.48%) Field Engineer
12 43 (3.48%) Lead
13 40 (3.23%) Analyst
14 39 (3.15%) Support Engineer
15 35 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
15 35 (2.83%) Telecoms Engineer
16 33 (2.67%) Data Network Engineer
17 30 (2.43%) Consultant
18 28 (2.26%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (7.11%) Terraform
2 56 (4.53%) 802.1X
3 33 (2.67%) REST
4 20 (1.62%) YAML
5 18 (1.46%) JSON
5 18 (1.46%) XMPP
6 12 (0.97%) NETCONF
6 12 (0.97%) SAML
7 8 (0.65%) YANG
8 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
8 7 (0.57%) RESTCONF
9 6 (0.49%) Flash
10 5 (0.40%) OpenConfig
11 3 (0.24%) .NET
11 3 (0.24%) Django
11 3 (0.24%) Java RMI
11 3 (0.24%) LAMP
11 3 (0.24%) LDAP
11 3 (0.24%) Middleware
11 3 (0.24%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 297 (24.01%) Data Centre
2 55 (4.45%) Hybrid Cloud
3 50 (4.04%) Onboarding
4 47 (3.80%) Driving Licence
5 43 (3.48%) PKI
6 41 (3.31%) Video Conferencing
7 35 (2.83%) Operational Technology
8 34 (2.75%) Data Protection Act
9 25 (2.02%) Management Information System
9 25 (2.02%) Replication
10 23 (1.86%) Clustering
10 23 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (1.70%) Cloud Native
11 21 (1.70%) Public Cloud
12 20 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (1.46%) Private Cloud
14 16 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
14 16 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
15 14 (1.13%) IoT
16 13 (1.05%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 239 (19.32%) Windows
2 125 (10.11%) Linux
3 97 (7.84%) Windows Server
4 22 (1.78%) Mac OS
4 22 (1.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.46%) Ubuntu
5 18 (1.46%) Windows 10
6 11 (0.89%) Android
7 9 (0.73%) Unix
7 9 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
8 8 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.57%) AIX
9 7 (0.57%) Data ONTAP
10 6 (0.49%) CentOS
11 4 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.24%) VMS
13 1 (0.081%) Debian
13 1 (0.081%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.081%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.081%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (15.93%) Migration
2 159 (12.85%) Project Delivery
3 143 (11.56%) Problem-Solving
4 132 (10.67%) ITIL
5 110 (8.89%) High Availability
6 105 (8.49%) Load Balancing
7 102 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 101 (8.16%) Stakeholder Management
9 95 (7.68%) Change Management
10 91 (7.36%) Network Design
11 89 (7.19%) Infrastructure as Code
11 89 (7.19%) Validation
12 85 (6.87%) Continuous Improvement
13 75 (6.06%) Technical Leadership
14 72 (5.82%) Zero Trust
15 68 (5.50%) Data Protection
16 67 (5.42%) ITSM
17 64 (5.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 62 (5.01%) CI/CD
19 60 (4.85%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 146 (11.80%) Python
2 59 (4.77%) PowerShell
3 33 (2.67%) Bash
4 27 (2.18%) SQL
5 5 (0.40%) Java
6 4 (0.32%) C
6 4 (0.32%) C++
7 3 (0.24%) Lisp
7 3 (0.24%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.16%) Go
8 2 (0.16%) Perl
9 1 (0.081%) Bicep
9 1 (0.081%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.081%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.081%) R
Qualifications
1 334 (27.00%) Cisco Certification
2 308 (24.90%) Security Cleared
3 236 (19.08%) CCNP
4 227 (18.35%) SC Cleared
5 132 (10.67%) CCNA
6 77 (6.22%) DV Cleared
7 74 (5.98%) Degree
8 62 (5.01%) CCIE
9 27 (2.18%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 19 (1.54%) MCSE
12 17 (1.37%) CISSP
13 15 (1.21%) AWS Certification
14 14 (1.13%) Azure Certification
14 14 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
14 14 (1.13%) Network+ Certification
15 13 (1.05%) CCSE
16 12 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (0.89%) ISTQB
17 11 (0.89%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.15%) SLA
2 27 (2.18%) NIST
3 22 (1.78%) QA
4 21 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.65%) GDPR
8 7 (0.57%) NCSC
9 5 (0.40%) Data Quality
9 5 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
9 5 (0.40%) GRC
9 5 (0.40%) JSP 440
9 5 (0.40%) PMO
10 4 (0.32%) ISO 31000
10 4 (0.32%) ISO 9001
10 4 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 3 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.24%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.16%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 149 (12.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 130 (10.51%) Active Directory
3 48 (3.88%) vSphere
4 42 (3.40%) VMware NSX
5 38 (3.07%) VMware ESXi
6 36 (2.91%) Hyper-V
7 30 (2.43%) Firmware
8 29 (2.34%) Virtual Machines
9 18 (1.46%) Docker
10 10 (0.81%) NFS
11 6 (0.49%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 6 (0.49%) GPFS
12 5 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.32%) FreeRADIUS
13 4 (0.32%) ISA Server
13 4 (0.32%) SRDF
13 4 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.24%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.24%) Postfix
15 2 (0.16%) UAG
Systems Management
1 152 (12.29%) Ansible
2 77 (6.22%) FortiGate
3 33 (2.67%) Cisco CUCM
3 33 (2.67%) Kubernetes
4 30 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 21 (1.70%) Cisco Prime
5 21 (1.70%) SCCM
5 21 (1.70%) vCenter Server
6 10 (0.81%) Grafana
6 10 (0.81%) Nagios
7 9 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.73%) WMI
7 9 (0.73%) WSUS
8 8 (0.65%) Failover Clustering
8 8 (0.65%) Puppet
9 7 (0.57%) EMC VPLEX
9 7 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.49%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (0.49%) vRealize
11 5 (0.40%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 260 (21.02%) Palo Alto
2 240 (19.40%) Microsoft
3 209 (16.90%) VMware
4 207 (16.73%) Fortinet
5 185 (14.96%) F5
6 131 (10.59%) Juniper
7 127 (10.27%) Meraki
8 107 (8.65%) CheckPoint
9 88 (7.11%) Aruba
10 84 (6.79%) SolarWinds
11 83 (6.71%) ServiceNow
12 74 (5.98%) Arista
13 58 (4.69%) Zscaler
14 41 (3.31%) Splunk
15 40 (3.23%) Red Hat
16 35 (2.83%) Dell
17 31 (2.51%) NetApp
18 30 (2.43%) Nokia
19 23 (1.86%) Infoblox
20 22 (1.78%) EMC