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 23 May 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
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 64 68
Rank change year-on-year -42 +4 -6
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,115 1,038 1,293
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.30% 3.63% 3.05%
As % of the Vendors category 5.60% 7.61% 7.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 764 646 797
10th Percentile £300 £301 £240
25th Percentile £401 £413 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £571 £588 £588
90th Percentile £643 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £455
% change year-on-year -5.00% +9.89% +1.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 20 36
10th Percentile £28.00 £17.53 £13.29
25th Percentile £44.00 £18.41 £16.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.52 £26.25
Median % change year-on-year +64.07% +27.70% -47.50%
75th Percentile £73.13 £45.63 £41.25
90th Percentile £79.50 £69.25 £46.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £22.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +150.00% - -54.87%

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 19,908 13,646 17,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.98% 47.70% 42.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,584 8,512 11,217
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £492 £500
% change year-on-year - -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,014 555 1,097
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.41
Median hourly rate £32.36 £25.50 £22.15
Median % change year-on-year +26.91% +15.12% -47.88%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £75.40 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £22.50 £21.46
% change year-on-year +31.11% +4.85% -45.74%

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 23 May 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 23 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 17 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 23 May 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 -46 938 £475 -5.00% 558
UK excluding London -37 691 £475 -5.00% 556
Work from Home -19 295 £450 -10.00% 126
London -63 291 £500 - 155
North of England -42 201 £480 -4.00% 125
South East -25 195 £500 - 149
North West -4 166 £481 -3.75% 54
Midlands -30 135 £400 -11.11% 75
West Midlands -16 127 £397 -9.29% 49
Scotland +15 65 £450 +12.78% 44
South West -63 53 £513 -6.82% 73
East of England -5 42 £495 +15.45% 52
Yorkshire -85 34 £477 -5.27% 47
Wales -14 24 £468 +11.64% 25
Northern Ireland +7 8 £385 +10.00% 22
East Midlands -52 4 £458 -10.73% 25
North East -33 2 £425 +30.77% 26

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 27 (2.42%) SharePoint
2 21 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.35%) Confluence
4 8 (0.72%) Apache
5 5 (0.45%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.36%) IIS
7 2 (0.18%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.18%) CMS
8 1 (0.090%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.090%) nginx
8 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (3.59%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (2.96%) MS Visio
3 16 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.36%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.090%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 12 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.090%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 202 (18.12%) Azure
2 146 (13.09%) AWS
3 67 (6.01%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.05%) Entra ID
5 24 (2.15%) GCP
6 15 (1.35%) SaaS
7 14 (1.26%) Nutanix
8 13 (1.17%) OpenShift
9 12 (1.08%) GitHub
10 11 (0.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 11 (0.99%) Azure Sentinel
10 11 (0.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 10 (0.90%) OneDrive
12 8 (0.72%) IaaS
13 7 (0.63%) Power Platform
14 6 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (0.54%) Datadog
14 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
15 5 (0.45%) Rubrik
16 4 (0.36%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 495 (44.39%) Firewall
2 372 (33.36%) WAN
3 287 (25.74%) LAN
4 285 (25.56%) BGP
5 245 (21.97%) VPN
6 231 (20.72%) Network Security
7 207 (18.57%) OSPF
8 159 (14.26%) DNS
9 158 (14.17%) Wireless
10 154 (13.81%) VLAN
11 150 (13.45%) SD-WAN
12 105 (9.42%) Cisco Nexus
13 99 (8.88%) MPLS
14 98 (8.79%) Cisco ISE
14 98 (8.79%) Wi-Fi
15 96 (8.61%) VXLAN
16 83 (7.44%) DHCP
17 81 (7.26%) IPsec
18 71 (6.37%) Multicast
19 67 (6.01%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (0.90%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
2 2 (0.18%) Metadata
2 2 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.090%) Apache Hive
3 1 (0.090%) Big Data
3 1 (0.090%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.090%) Hadoop
3 1 (0.090%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.090%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 25 (2.24%) JIRA
2 15 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
3 10 (0.90%) Git
4 8 (0.72%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.54%) GitLab
6 2 (0.18%) Bitbucket
General
1 230 (20.63%) Social Skills
2 117 (10.49%) Finance
3 65 (5.83%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (5.56%) Public Sector
5 60 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
6 58 (5.20%) Telecoms
7 54 (4.84%) Banking
8 52 (4.66%) Legal
9 24 (2.15%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.70%) Investment Banking
11 17 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
12 16 (1.43%) Retail
13 15 (1.35%) Financial Institution
14 14 (1.26%) Law
15 10 (0.90%) Marketing
16 9 (0.81%) Military
17 8 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
18 7 (0.63%) Police
19 4 (0.36%) Aerospace
19 4 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 511 (45.83%) Network Engineer
2 134 (12.02%) Architect
3 119 (10.67%) Cisco Engineer
4 113 (10.13%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 109 (9.78%) Senior
6 85 (7.62%) Security Engineer
7 83 (7.44%) Network Architect
8 78 (7.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 61 (5.47%) Network Security Engineer
10 60 (5.38%) Senior Network Engineer
11 49 (4.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 46 (4.13%) Data Network Engineer
13 36 (3.23%) Analyst
14 35 (3.14%) Data Engineer
15 34 (3.05%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 26 (2.33%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 26 (2.33%) Lead
17 25 (2.24%) Network Specialist
17 25 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
18 23 (2.06%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (6.37%) 802.1X
2 19 (1.70%) LDAP
3 16 (1.43%) Flash
4 14 (1.26%) SAML
5 9 (0.81%) REST
6 7 (0.63%) XMPP
7 6 (0.54%) Jinja
8 5 (0.45%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.36%) HTML
9 4 (0.36%) YANG
10 3 (0.27%) JSON
10 3 (0.27%) OpenConfig
10 3 (0.27%) RESTCONF
10 3 (0.27%) VML
11 2 (0.18%) Django
11 2 (0.18%) Elastic Stack
11 2 (0.18%) Kafka
11 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Graph
11 2 (0.18%) Middleware
11 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 311 (27.89%) Data Centre
2 51 (4.57%) PKI
3 48 (4.30%) Replication
4 42 (3.77%) Clustering
5 35 (3.14%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (2.96%) Hybrid Cloud
7 31 (2.78%) Onboarding
7 31 (2.78%) Operational Technology
8 21 (1.88%) Linux Command Line
8 21 (1.88%) Video Conferencing
9 20 (1.79%) Security Posture
10 18 (1.61%) Cloud Native
11 16 (1.43%) SCADA
12 15 (1.35%) Driving Licence
13 14 (1.26%) EMC VMAX
13 14 (1.26%) Enterprise Storage
14 13 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
14 13 (1.17%) Virtual Team
15 12 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
16 9 (0.81%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 210 (18.83%) Windows
2 119 (10.67%) Linux
3 68 (6.10%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.88%) Unix
5 20 (1.79%) Windows 10
6 14 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.99%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.90%) Mac OS
9 8 (0.72%) Android
10 6 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.45%) CatOS
12 4 (0.36%) AIX
12 4 (0.36%) Solaris
12 4 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.27%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) CentOS
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
15 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (14.35%) Migration
2 128 (11.48%) Problem-Solving
3 125 (11.21%) Load Balancing
4 119 (10.67%) High Availability
5 93 (8.34%) ITIL
5 93 (8.34%) Network Design
6 84 (7.53%) ITSM
7 76 (6.82%) Project Delivery
8 72 (6.46%) Agile
9 68 (6.10%) Change Management
10 67 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 65 (5.83%) Technical Leadership
12 61 (5.47%) Disaster Recovery
13 60 (5.38%) Continuous Improvement
13 60 (5.38%) Network Monitoring
14 58 (5.20%) Cybersecurity
15 55 (4.93%) Infrastructure as Code
16 54 (4.84%) Zero Trust
17 53 (4.75%) Validation
18 49 (4.39%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 112 (10.04%) Python
2 53 (4.75%) PowerShell
3 24 (2.15%) SQL
4 20 (1.79%) Bash
5 8 (0.72%) C
6 4 (0.36%) PHP
7 3 (0.27%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.090%) Bicep
9 1 (0.090%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.090%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.090%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 370 (33.18%) Security Cleared
2 334 (29.96%) Cisco Certification
3 279 (25.02%) SC Cleared
4 257 (23.05%) CCNP
5 121 (10.85%) CCNA
6 106 (9.51%) DV Cleared
7 77 (6.91%) Degree
8 65 (5.83%) CCIE
9 31 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 26 (2.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 23 (2.06%) MCSE
12 22 (1.97%) Network+ Certification
13 17 (1.52%) JNCIS
13 17 (1.52%) VCAP
14 16 (1.43%) Azure Certification
14 16 (1.43%) MCSA
15 15 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
15 15 (1.35%) CCSE
15 15 (1.35%) Server+ Certification
16 14 (1.26%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.87%) SLA
2 30 (2.69%) NIST
3 28 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.15%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.52%) NCSC
6 16 (1.43%) QA
7 10 (0.90%) PMO
8 7 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
8 7 (0.63%) GDPR
8 7 (0.63%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.27%) NIST 800
10 3 (0.27%) RMADS
11 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.18%) GRC
11 2 (0.18%) ISA99
11 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 2 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 147 (13.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 81 (7.26%) Active Directory
3 63 (5.65%) vSphere
4 60 (5.38%) VMware ESXi
5 51 (4.57%) VMware NSX
6 32 (2.87%) Virtual Machines
7 25 (2.24%) Firmware
8 19 (1.70%) NFS
9 16 (1.43%) GPFS
9 16 (1.43%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.81%) SRDF
11 7 (0.63%) Docker
12 5 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.36%) vCloud
13 4 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.27%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.27%) Snort
14 3 (0.27%) UAG
15 2 (0.18%) KVM
16 1 (0.090%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 131 (11.75%) Ansible
2 102 (9.15%) FortiGate
3 51 (4.57%) Terraform
4 34 (3.05%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.42%) Grafana
6 25 (2.24%) vRealize
7 20 (1.79%) Prometheus
8 19 (1.70%) Microsoft Intune
9 18 (1.61%) Kubernetes
10 16 (1.43%) SCCM
11 14 (1.26%) Cisco Prime
12 13 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (1.17%) VxRail
13 11 (0.99%) Cisco CUCM
14 10 (0.90%) Nagios
15 7 (0.63%) SCOM
16 6 (0.54%) EMC TimeFinder
16 6 (0.54%) WMI
16 6 (0.54%) WSUS
17 5 (0.45%) Salt
Vendors
1 298 (26.73%) Palo Alto
2 214 (19.19%) F5
3 187 (16.77%) Microsoft
3 187 (16.77%) VMware
4 158 (14.17%) Fortinet
5 157 (14.08%) Juniper
6 125 (11.21%) Aruba
7 122 (10.94%) CheckPoint
8 102 (9.15%) ServiceNow
9 89 (7.98%) Meraki
10 86 (7.71%) SolarWinds
11 70 (6.28%) Arista
12 56 (5.02%) Splunk
13 49 (4.39%) Zscaler
14 42 (3.77%) Dell
15 35 (3.14%) IBM
16 28 (2.51%) Extreme Networks
17 27 (2.42%) EMC
18 25 (2.24%) Brocade
19 23 (2.06%) Infoblox