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 19 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
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 75 68
Rank change year-on-year -44 -7 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,194 1,058 1,214
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.23% 3.22% 3.12%
As % of the Vendors category 5.33% 6.82% 7.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 782 650 747
10th Percentile £300 £300 £252
25th Percentile £400 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.76% -1.26% +8.11%
75th Percentile £575 £579 £575
90th Percentile £653 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 41 33
10th Percentile £26.63 - £15.43
25th Percentile £34.44 £25.15 £22.40
Median hourly rate £53.75 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.17% +9.09% -42.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.53 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +83.33% -40.00% -

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 22,385 15,513 17,023
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.79% 47.27% 43.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,864 9,479 10,592
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £610 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,146 809 818
10th Percentile £14.56 £14.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £31.96 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.09% -10.18% -31.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.43 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.70 £27.50
% change year-on-year +38.28% -21.11% -21.43%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -44 1,010 £500 - 866
UK excluding London -43 716 £475 -5.00% 718
London -43 367 £500 - 308
Work from Home -25 285 £475 -0.78% 175
North of England -16 248 £498 +2.58% 170
North West +8 177 £485 +2.11% 79
South East -61 156 £475 -9.52% 176
Midlands -27 134 £425 -10.53% 99
West Midlands -20 128 £423 -11.05% 50
Scotland +18 92 £413 -2.94% 56
Yorkshire -42 66 £500 +1.63% 65
South West -57 57 £505 -9.21% 95
East of England -24 35 £500 -9.09% 88
Wales -6 21 £440 +120.00% 28
Northern Ireland +10 8 £115 -67.14% 18
North East -38 6 £350 -36.36% 28
East Midlands -31 3 £525 +6.33% 49
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 35 (2.93%) SharePoint
2 29 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.01%) Confluence
4 10 (0.84%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.59%) Apache
5 7 (0.59%) SAS
6 6 (0.50%) JBoss
7 4 (0.34%) nginx
8 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.25%) IIS
8 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.17%) CMS
10 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.084%) FactoryTalk
10 1 (0.084%) Mendix
10 1 (0.084%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 48 (4.02%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 26 (2.18%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.084%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.084%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 244 (20.44%) Azure
2 150 (12.56%) AWS
3 90 (7.54%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (5.03%) Entra ID
5 30 (2.51%) GitHub
6 28 (2.35%) OneDrive
7 22 (1.84%) GCP
8 19 (1.59%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 14 (1.17%) Power Platform
12 12 (1.01%) Nutanix
13 11 (0.92%) SaaS
14 10 (0.84%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
15 7 (0.59%) Cloudflare
15 7 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (0.59%) IaaS
15 7 (0.59%) Rubrik
16 6 (0.50%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 510 (42.71%) Firewall
2 357 (29.90%) WAN
3 311 (26.05%) BGP
4 283 (23.70%) LAN
5 256 (21.44%) VPN
6 247 (20.69%) Network Security
7 208 (17.42%) OSPF
8 202 (16.92%) Wireless
9 193 (16.16%) DNS
10 183 (15.33%) VLAN
11 146 (12.23%) SD-WAN
12 129 (10.80%) Wi-Fi
13 125 (10.47%) MPLS
14 119 (9.97%) Cisco Nexus
15 111 (9.30%) DHCP
16 99 (8.29%) Cisco ISE
16 99 (8.29%) VXLAN
17 97 (8.12%) Cisco ASA
17 97 (8.12%) TCP/IP
18 81 (6.78%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.50%) Big Data
2 6 (0.50%) Hadoop
2 6 (0.50%) Power BI
3 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.25%) MySQL
5 2 (0.17%) Metadata
5 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.084%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.084%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 30 (2.51%) Git
2 21 (1.76%) JIRA
3 12 (1.01%) GitLab
3 12 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (0.92%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.084%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.084%) Tricentis qTest
6 1 (0.084%) Zephyr
General
1 273 (22.86%) Social Skills
2 115 (9.63%) Finance
3 112 (9.38%) Telecoms
4 98 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (5.36%) Public Sector
6 59 (4.94%) Banking
7 55 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.93%) Legal
9 21 (1.76%) Financial Institution
9 21 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
10 18 (1.51%) Investment Banking
11 16 (1.34%) Retail
12 14 (1.17%) Law
13 12 (1.01%) Military
13 12 (1.01%) Police
14 11 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 9 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.50%) Marketing
17 4 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 597 (50.00%) Network Engineer
2 171 (14.32%) Senior
3 145 (12.14%) Architect
4 138 (11.56%) Cisco Engineer
5 125 (10.47%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 121 (10.13%) Senior Network Engineer
7 86 (7.20%) Security Engineer
8 74 (6.20%) Network Architect
9 67 (5.61%) Network Security Engineer
10 59 (4.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 52 (4.36%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 41 (3.43%) Field Engineer
13 39 (3.27%) Data Network Engineer
14 34 (2.85%) Analyst
15 32 (2.68%) Lead
16 31 (2.60%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 31 (2.60%) Data Engineer
17 30 (2.51%) Telecoms Engineer
18 29 (2.43%) Automation Engineer
18 29 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (5.78%) 802.1X
2 25 (2.09%) REST
3 12 (1.01%) JSON
3 12 (1.01%) SAML
3 12 (1.01%) YAML
4 9 (0.75%) Flash
4 9 (0.75%) NETCONF
5 8 (0.67%) XMPP
6 7 (0.59%) OpenConfig
6 7 (0.59%) RESTCONF
6 7 (0.59%) YANG
7 6 (0.50%) Jinja
7 6 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.34%) LDAP
9 3 (0.25%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.25%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.25%) LAMP
9 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
9 3 (0.25%) Middleware
10 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 282 (23.62%) Data Centre
2 53 (4.44%) PKI
3 50 (4.19%) Hybrid Cloud
4 43 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 38 (3.18%) Data Protection Act
6 34 (2.85%) Driving Licence
7 33 (2.76%) Operational Technology
8 31 (2.60%) Clustering
8 31 (2.60%) Replication
9 30 (2.51%) Video Conferencing
10 23 (1.93%) Cloud Native
11 22 (1.84%) Analytical Mindset
12 20 (1.68%) Enterprise Storage
13 18 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
14 17 (1.42%) Public Cloud
14 17 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (1.34%) SCADA
16 14 (1.17%) EMC VMAX
16 14 (1.17%) Management Information System
17 12 (1.01%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 217 (18.17%) Windows
2 127 (10.64%) Linux
3 80 (6.70%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.51%) Ubuntu
6 17 (1.42%) Windows 10
7 12 (1.01%) Unix
8 10 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.75%) AIX
9 9 (0.75%) Android
9 9 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.50%) CentOS
11 5 (0.42%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.34%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.084%) CatOS
13 1 (0.084%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.084%) Debian
13 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (15.16%) Migration
2 142 (11.89%) Project Delivery
3 140 (11.73%) ITIL
4 132 (11.06%) Problem-Solving
5 122 (10.22%) Load Balancing
6 116 (9.72%) High Availability
7 95 (7.96%) Change Management
8 91 (7.62%) Network Design
9 89 (7.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 86 (7.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 83 (6.95%) Stakeholder Management
12 82 (6.87%) Infrastructure as Code
13 76 (6.37%) ITSM
14 74 (6.20%) Validation
15 71 (5.95%) CI/CD
16 67 (5.61%) Technical Leadership
17 61 (5.11%) Network Monitoring
18 58 (4.86%) Data Protection
18 58 (4.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 58 (4.86%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 144 (12.06%) Python
2 60 (5.03%) PowerShell
3 32 (2.68%) Bash
4 24 (2.01%) SQL
5 5 (0.42%) Shell Script
6 4 (0.34%) C
6 4 (0.34%) Java
7 3 (0.25%) C++
7 3 (0.25%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.084%) ActionScript
9 1 (0.084%) Bicep
9 1 (0.084%) Go
9 1 (0.084%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 334 (27.97%) Cisco Certification
2 300 (25.13%) Security Cleared
3 235 (19.68%) CCNP
4 213 (17.84%) SC Cleared
5 137 (11.47%) CCNA
6 83 (6.95%) DV Cleared
7 70 (5.86%) Degree
8 64 (5.36%) CCIE
9 25 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 19 (1.59%) MCSE
11 19 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
12 17 (1.42%) Azure Certification
13 15 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (1.26%) Server+ Certification
14 13 (1.09%) AWS Certification
14 13 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (1.01%) CCSE
16 11 (0.92%) CISSP
17 10 (0.84%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.94%) SLA
2 28 (2.35%) NIST
3 22 (1.84%) QA
4 18 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
6 13 (1.09%) NCSC
7 6 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.50%) PCI DSS
7 6 (0.50%) PMO
8 5 (0.42%) GDPR
8 5 (0.42%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.34%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 1 (0.084%) GRC
12 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 149 (12.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 114 (9.55%) Active Directory
3 45 (3.77%) vSphere
4 44 (3.69%) VMware ESXi
5 43 (3.60%) VMware NSX
6 34 (2.85%) Firmware
7 29 (2.43%) Hyper-V
7 29 (2.43%) Virtual Machines
8 16 (1.34%) Docker
9 13 (1.09%) NFS
10 9 (0.75%) GPFS
11 8 (0.67%) SRDF
12 6 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 5 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
14 4 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
15 3 (0.25%) Postfix
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 146 (12.23%) Ansible
2 87 (7.29%) FortiGate
3 74 (6.20%) Terraform
4 32 (2.68%) Kubernetes
5 29 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.76%) SCCM
7 20 (1.68%) Cisco CUCM
7 20 (1.68%) vCenter Server
8 16 (1.34%) Cisco Prime
9 15 (1.26%) Grafana
10 14 (1.17%) Prometheus
11 10 (0.84%) Puppet
12 9 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.75%) vRealize
13 8 (0.67%) Failover Clustering
13 8 (0.67%) WMI
13 8 (0.67%) WSUS
14 7 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
15 6 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
15 6 (0.50%) VxRail
Vendors
1 255 (21.36%) Palo Alto
2 225 (18.84%) Microsoft
3 214 (17.92%) F5
4 206 (17.25%) Fortinet
5 205 (17.17%) VMware
6 141 (11.81%) Juniper
7 110 (9.21%) CheckPoint
8 102 (8.54%) Meraki
9 99 (8.29%) ServiceNow
10 88 (7.37%) Aruba
11 83 (6.95%) SolarWinds
12 71 (5.95%) Arista
13 51 (4.27%) Zscaler
14 49 (4.10%) Splunk
15 38 (3.18%) Red Hat
16 35 (2.93%) Dell
17 26 (2.18%) Infoblox
18 24 (2.01%) Nokia
19 23 (1.93%) EMC
19 23 (1.93%) NetApp