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 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
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 81 66
Rank change year-on-year -36 -15 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,242 992 1,202
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.26% 3.03% 3.19%
As % of the Vendors category 5.42% 6.38% 7.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 806 627 717
10th Percentile £266 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £381
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 £672 £642 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -4.85% -2.10% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 41 37
10th Percentile £27.49 - £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 £57.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +69.23% -13.33% -21.33%

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 22,914 15,542 16,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.77% 47.53% 44.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,985 9,534 10,004
10th Percentile £311 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £616 £613 £625
90th Percentile £706 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,302 796 645
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.72 £14.50
25th Percentile £16.53 £17.59 £15.62
Median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -20.16% -28.21%
75th Percentile £60.25 £43.38 £64.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.75 £21.18 £30.00
% change year-on-year +21.61% -29.42% -29.41%

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 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 23 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 23 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 -36 1,026 £498 -0.50% 1,199
UK excluding London -35 732 £466 -4.85% 930
London -35 379 £500 - 388
Work from Home -31 294 £475 +2.70% 291
North of England -3 242 £484 +1.89% 193
North West +12 164 £483 +1.68% 90
South East -68 135 £450 -10.00% 236
Midlands -40 127 £450 -2.70% 125
West Midlands -18 121 £450 -8.86% 72
Scotland +13 99 £413 -2.94% 57
Yorkshire -24 71 £500 +1.63% 69
South West -33 66 £525 -4.55% 141
East of England -9 53 £500 +3.63% 138
Wales +11 29 £390 +95.00% 26
Northern Ireland +2 9 £145 -69.47% 29
North East -33 9 £375 -31.82% 34
East Midlands -31 4 £525 +83.73% 53
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 (3.22%) SharePoint
2 37 (2.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.05%) CMS
3 13 (1.05%) Confluence
4 11 (0.89%) OpenStack
5 8 (0.64%) SAS
6 7 (0.56%) Apache
6 7 (0.56%) IIS
7 6 (0.48%) 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 (3.95%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (1.77%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.56%) 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 (20.05%) Azure
2 155 (12.48%) AWS
3 101 (8.13%) Microsoft 365
4 67 (5.39%) Entra ID
5 38 (3.06%) GitHub
6 30 (2.42%) OneDrive
7 29 (2.33%) GCP
8 20 (1.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 18 (1.45%) 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 (0.72%) AWS Direct Connect
15 8 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (0.64%) Azure Sentinel
15 8 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
16 6 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
16 6 (0.48%) Cloudflare
16 6 (0.48%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 509 (40.98%) Firewall
2 366 (29.47%) WAN
3 305 (24.56%) BGP
4 279 (22.46%) LAN
5 267 (21.50%) VPN
6 262 (21.10%) Network Security
7 215 (17.31%) Wireless
8 191 (15.38%) OSPF
9 184 (14.81%) DNS
9 184 (14.81%) VLAN
10 151 (12.16%) SD-WAN
11 135 (10.87%) Wi-Fi
12 132 (10.63%) MPLS
13 117 (9.42%) Cisco Nexus
14 108 (8.70%) DHCP
15 102 (8.21%) TCP/IP
16 94 (7.57%) Cisco ISE
17 90 (7.25%) Cisco IOS
18 89 (7.17%) VXLAN
19 86 (6.92%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.17%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.56%) Power BI
3 6 (0.48%) 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 (2.90%) Git
2 19 (1.53%) JIRA
3 14 (1.13%) GitLab
4 13 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.64%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.16%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.081%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.081%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.081%) Zephyr
General
1 285 (22.95%) Social Skills
2 128 (10.31%) Telecoms
3 126 (10.14%) Finance
4 105 (8.45%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (5.31%) Banking
6 62 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (4.99%) Public Sector
7 45 (3.62%) Legal
8 22 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (1.69%) Investment Banking
10 20 (1.61%) Retail
11 17 (1.37%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.21%) Law
13 14 (1.13%) Military
14 11 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.72%) Manufacturing
15 9 (0.72%) Police
16 6 (0.48%) Marketing
17 5 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 615 (49.52%) Network Engineer
2 182 (14.65%) Senior
3 149 (12.00%) Architect
4 147 (11.84%) Cisco Engineer
5 131 (10.55%) Senior Network Engineer
6 126 (10.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 87 (7.00%) Security Engineer
8 79 (6.36%) Network Architect
9 68 (5.48%) Network Security Engineer
10 63 (5.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 52 (4.19%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 44 (3.54%) Lead
13 43 (3.46%) Field Engineer
14 40 (3.22%) Analyst
15 39 (3.14%) Support Engineer
16 35 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
16 35 (2.82%) Telecoms Engineer
17 33 (2.66%) Data Network Engineer
18 30 (2.42%) Consultant
19 28 (2.25%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (7.17%) Terraform
2 56 (4.51%) 802.1X
3 34 (2.74%) REST
4 20 (1.61%) YAML
5 18 (1.45%) JSON
5 18 (1.45%) XMPP
6 13 (1.05%) NETCONF
7 12 (0.97%) SAML
8 9 (0.72%) YANG
9 7 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
9 7 (0.56%) RESTCONF
10 6 (0.48%) Flash
11 5 (0.40%) OpenConfig
12 3 (0.24%) .NET
12 3 (0.24%) Django
12 3 (0.24%) Elastic Stack
12 3 (0.24%) LAMP
12 3 (0.24%) LDAP
12 3 (0.24%) Middleware
12 3 (0.24%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 298 (23.99%) Data Centre
2 55 (4.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 50 (4.03%) Onboarding
4 48 (3.86%) Driving Licence
5 43 (3.46%) PKI
5 43 (3.46%) Video Conferencing
6 35 (2.82%) Operational Technology
7 34 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (2.01%) Management Information System
8 25 (2.01%) Replication
9 23 (1.85%) Clustering
9 23 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (1.69%) Cloud Native
10 21 (1.69%) Public Cloud
11 20 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.45%) Private Cloud
13 16 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
13 16 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
14 14 (1.13%) IoT
15 13 (1.05%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 240 (19.32%) Windows
2 125 (10.06%) Linux
3 97 (7.81%) Windows Server
4 23 (1.85%) Mac OS
5 22 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.45%) Ubuntu
6 18 (1.45%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.89%) Android
8 9 (0.72%) Unix
8 9 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (0.56%) AIX
10 7 (0.56%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.48%) CentOS
12 4 (0.32%) VMS
12 4 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.081%) CatOS
13 1 (0.081%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.081%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 199 (16.02%) Migration
2 160 (12.88%) Project Delivery
3 144 (11.59%) Problem-Solving
4 133 (10.71%) ITIL
5 110 (8.86%) High Availability
6 105 (8.45%) Load Balancing
7 102 (8.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 102 (8.21%) Stakeholder Management
8 95 (7.65%) Change Management
9 91 (7.33%) Network Design
10 90 (7.25%) Infrastructure as Code
11 89 (7.17%) Validation
12 86 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
13 75 (6.04%) Technical Leadership
14 73 (5.88%) Zero Trust
15 69 (5.56%) Data Protection
16 67 (5.39%) ITSM
17 64 (5.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 62 (4.99%) CI/CD
19 60 (4.83%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 147 (11.84%) Python
2 59 (4.75%) PowerShell
3 33 (2.66%) Bash
4 27 (2.17%) 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
1 335 (26.97%) Cisco Certification
2 308 (24.80%) Security Cleared
3 237 (19.08%) CCNP
4 227 (18.28%) SC Cleared
5 132 (10.63%) CCNA
6 77 (6.20%) DV Cleared
7 75 (6.04%) Degree
8 63 (5.07%) CCIE
9 27 (2.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 19 (1.53%) 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 (3.14%) SLA
2 27 (2.17%) NIST
3 22 (1.77%) QA
4 21 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.64%) GDPR
8 7 (0.56%) 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
1 150 (12.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 132 (10.63%) Active Directory
3 49 (3.95%) vSphere
4 42 (3.38%) VMware NSX
5 38 (3.06%) VMware ESXi
6 36 (2.90%) Hyper-V
7 30 (2.42%) Firmware
8 29 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
9 18 (1.45%) Docker
10 10 (0.81%) NFS
11 6 (0.48%) EMC RecoverPoint
11 6 (0.48%) 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
1 153 (12.32%) Ansible
2 77 (6.20%) FortiGate
3 33 (2.66%) Cisco CUCM
3 33 (2.66%) Kubernetes
4 30 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 21 (1.69%) Cisco Prime
5 21 (1.69%) SCCM
5 21 (1.69%) vCenter Server
6 10 (0.81%) Grafana
6 10 (0.81%) Nagios
7 9 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.72%) WMI
7 9 (0.72%) WSUS
8 8 (0.64%) Failover Clustering
8 8 (0.64%) Puppet
9 7 (0.56%) EMC VPLEX
9 7 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.48%) Red Hat Satellite
10 6 (0.48%) vRealize
11 5 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 261 (21.01%) Palo Alto
2 243 (19.57%) Microsoft
3 210 (16.91%) VMware
4 208 (16.75%) Fortinet
5 185 (14.90%) F5
6 131 (10.55%) Juniper
7 127 (10.23%) Meraki
8 107 (8.62%) CheckPoint
9 88 (7.09%) Aruba
10 84 (6.76%) SolarWinds
11 83 (6.68%) ServiceNow
12 76 (6.12%) Arista
13 58 (4.67%) Zscaler
14 41 (3.30%) Splunk
15 40 (3.22%) Red Hat
16 36 (2.90%) Dell
17 31 (2.50%) NetApp
18 30 (2.42%) Nokia
19 23 (1.85%) Infoblox
20 22 (1.77%) EMC