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 25 April 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
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 66 66
Rank change year-on-year -34 0 0
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,093 1,048 1,358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.34% 3.55% 3.11%
As % of the Vendors category 5.55% 7.48% 7.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 738 663 831
10th Percentile £300 £304 £250
25th Percentile £400 £408 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% +0.52%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £600
90th Percentile £635 £650 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 19 46
10th Percentile £21.46 £17.55 £13.65
25th Percentile £36.25 £21.58 £23.34
Median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.92% +36.36% -48.45%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.88 £41.25
90th Percentile £88.50 £75.00 £72.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £33.52 £30.00
% change year-on-year +112.78% +11.74% -45.77%

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 19,692 14,016 18,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.23% 47.49% 42.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,581 8,810 11,522
10th Percentile £313 £290 £260
25th Percentile £413 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.48% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £703 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 990 559 1,077
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.75 £18.17 £14.36
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -48.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.83 £75.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.25 £24.18 £21.46
% change year-on-year +12.70% +12.67% -47.11%

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 25 April 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 25 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 16 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 25 April 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 -45 907 £481 -4.70% 405
UK excluding London -29 690 £475 - 387
Work from Home -23 284 £450 -10.00% 136
London -67 275 £500 -0.55% 115
South East -12 211 £500 - 109
North of England -46 182 £478 -4.40% 94
North West -14 147 £481 -2.90% 43
Midlands -13 134 £380 -15.56% 63
West Midlands -4 122 £371 -15.20% 40
Scotland +28 65 £450 +12.78% 25
South West -72 49 £510 -7.27% 37
East of England -15 41 £495 +4.21% 45
Yorkshire -77 36 £450 -14.29% 38
Wales -5 29 £425 - 18
Northern Ireland +11 9 £385 - 8
East Midlands -51 8 £415 -12.63% 23

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 31 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 25 (2.29%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.19%) Confluence
4 7 (0.64%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
5 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.18%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.091%) CMS
7 1 (0.091%) JBoss
7 1 (0.091%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.091%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.84%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (3.20%) MS Visio
3 15 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.091%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 17 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.091%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 186 (17.02%) Azure
2 147 (13.45%) AWS
3 80 (7.32%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.11%) Entra ID
5 29 (2.65%) GCP
6 15 (1.37%) OpenShift
7 13 (1.19%) Nutanix
7 13 (1.19%) SaaS
7 13 (1.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 11 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (0.91%) GitHub
10 8 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.73%) Datadog
11 7 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (0.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
12 6 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.55%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.46%) IaaS
13 5 (0.46%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 478 (43.73%) Firewall
2 351 (32.11%) WAN
3 275 (25.16%) BGP
4 261 (23.88%) LAN
5 240 (21.96%) VPN
6 218 (19.95%) Network Security
7 201 (18.39%) OSPF
8 154 (14.09%) SD-WAN
9 150 (13.72%) DNS
10 146 (13.36%) Wireless
11 140 (12.81%) VLAN
12 101 (9.24%) Cisco ISE
13 100 (9.15%) MPLS
14 98 (8.97%) Cisco Nexus
15 91 (8.33%) VXLAN
16 84 (7.69%) Wi-Fi
17 77 (7.04%) DHCP
18 76 (6.95%) IPsec
19 73 (6.68%) Cisco ASA
20 72 (6.59%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
1 5 (0.46%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
3 2 (0.18%) Power BI
4 1 (0.091%) Big Data
4 1 (0.091%) Metadata
4 1 (0.091%) MySQL
4 1 (0.091%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.091%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.10%) JIRA
2 15 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.82%) Git
4 8 (0.73%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.55%) GitLab
6 1 (0.091%) Bitbucket
General
1 234 (21.41%) Social Skills
2 121 (11.07%) Finance
3 102 (9.33%) Public Sector
4 73 (6.68%) Telecoms
5 64 (5.86%) Analytical Skills
6 60 (5.49%) Banking
7 52 (4.76%) Legal
8 51 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
9 34 (3.11%) Manufacturing
10 21 (1.92%) Marketing
11 17 (1.56%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.37%) Electronics
12 15 (1.37%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.28%) Law
13 14 (1.28%) Retail
14 12 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.64%) Aerospace
15 7 (0.64%) Military
16 6 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 482 (44.10%) Network Engineer
2 133 (12.17%) Architect
3 104 (9.52%) Cisco Engineer
4 100 (9.15%) Senior
5 98 (8.97%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 79 (7.23%) Network Architect
6 79 (7.23%) Security Engineer
7 74 (6.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 57 (5.22%) Network Security Engineer
9 52 (4.76%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 42 (3.84%) Data Network Engineer
12 41 (3.75%) Analyst
13 33 (3.02%) Data Engineer
13 33 (3.02%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 30 (2.74%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 25 (2.29%) Network Specialist
16 24 (2.20%) Consultant
16 24 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
17 23 (2.10%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (6.13%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.56%) LDAP
3 15 (1.37%) Flash
4 11 (1.01%) SAML
5 9 (0.82%) REST
6 8 (0.73%) XMPP
7 6 (0.55%) Jinja
7 6 (0.55%) NETCONF
8 5 (0.46%) Node.js
8 5 (0.46%) YANG
9 4 (0.37%) HTML
9 4 (0.37%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.37%) VML
10 3 (0.27%) JSON
11 2 (0.18%) ADO
11 2 (0.18%) CSS
11 2 (0.18%) Django
11 2 (0.18%) Middleware
11 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 286 (26.17%) Data Centre
2 54 (4.94%) PKI
3 44 (4.03%) Replication
4 40 (3.66%) Clustering
5 34 (3.11%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (3.02%) Hybrid Cloud
7 32 (2.93%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.84%) Operational Technology
9 30 (2.74%) Cloud Native
10 23 (2.10%) Linux Command Line
11 20 (1.83%) Driving Licence
12 17 (1.56%) Enterprise Storage
12 17 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.37%) SCADA
13 15 (1.37%) Security Posture
14 14 (1.28%) EMC VMAX
14 14 (1.28%) Video Conferencing
15 12 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
16 11 (1.01%) IoT
16 11 (1.01%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 198 (18.12%) Windows
2 105 (9.61%) Linux
3 68 (6.22%) Windows Server
4 26 (2.38%) Windows 10
5 23 (2.10%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.01%) Android
7 20 (1.83%) Unix
8 17 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.37%) CatOS
12 4 (0.37%) Solaris
13 3 (0.27%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.27%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.091%) CentOS
15 1 (0.091%) Debian
15 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (15.10%) Migration
2 129 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
3 112 (10.25%) High Availability
4 110 (10.06%) Load Balancing
5 97 (8.87%) ITIL
6 95 (8.69%) Network Design
7 80 (7.32%) ITSM
8 75 (6.86%) Agile
9 73 (6.68%) Change Management
10 67 (6.13%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (5.86%) Cybersecurity
11 64 (5.86%) Disaster Recovery
12 62 (5.67%) Roadmaps
13 61 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 61 (5.58%) Project Delivery
14 58 (5.31%) Network Monitoring
15 53 (4.85%) Technical Leadership
16 52 (4.76%) Observability
16 52 (4.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 51 (4.67%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 117 (10.70%) Python
2 52 (4.76%) PowerShell
3 19 (1.74%) Bash
4 10 (0.91%) SQL
5 8 (0.73%) C
6 4 (0.37%) PHP
7 3 (0.27%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.27%) Lisp
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.091%) Bicep
9 1 (0.091%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.091%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.091%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 396 (36.23%) Security Cleared
2 308 (28.18%) Cisco Certification
3 299 (27.36%) SC Cleared
4 239 (21.87%) CCNP
5 113 (10.34%) CCNA
6 110 (10.06%) DV Cleared
7 78 (7.14%) Degree
8 71 (6.50%) CCIE
9 26 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (1.92%) JNCIS
12 20 (1.83%) MCSE
12 20 (1.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 18 (1.65%) Network+ Certification
14 17 (1.56%) Azure Certification
15 15 (1.37%) JNCIP
15 15 (1.37%) VCAP
16 14 (1.28%) JNCIA
16 14 (1.28%) MCSA
17 13 (1.19%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.93%) SLA
2 31 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.56%) NIST
4 23 (2.10%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.56%) NCSC
6 14 (1.28%) PMO
7 11 (1.01%) GDPR
8 10 (0.91%) QA
9 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.55%) JSP 440
11 5 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.27%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 3 (0.27%) RMADS
14 2 (0.18%) ISA99
14 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
15 1 (0.091%) Data Quality
15 1 (0.091%) GRC
System Software
1 145 (13.27%) VMware Infrastructure
2 88 (8.05%) Active Directory
3 59 (5.40%) VMware NSX
4 58 (5.31%) vSphere
5 53 (4.85%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (2.10%) Virtual Machines
7 20 (1.83%) Firmware
8 18 (1.65%) Hyper-V
8 18 (1.65%) NFS
9 15 (1.37%) GPFS
10 9 (0.82%) SRDF
11 7 (0.64%) Docker
12 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.37%) vCloud
13 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.27%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.27%) KVM
14 3 (0.27%) Snort
14 3 (0.27%) UAG
15 1 (0.091%) Squid
Systems Management
1 118 (10.80%) Ansible
2 101 (9.24%) FortiGate
3 49 (4.48%) Terraform
4 39 (3.57%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.56%) vRealize
6 24 (2.20%) Grafana
7 20 (1.83%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (1.74%) SCCM
9 18 (1.65%) Prometheus
10 16 (1.46%) Kubernetes
11 15 (1.37%) VxRail
12 13 (1.19%) Cisco Prime
13 10 (0.91%) Nagios
13 10 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
14 7 (0.64%) EMC NetWorker
14 7 (0.64%) EMC VPLEX
14 7 (0.64%) SCOM
15 6 (0.55%) Cisco CUCM
15 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
15 6 (0.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 284 (25.98%) Palo Alto
2 193 (17.66%) F5
3 181 (16.56%) VMware
4 174 (15.92%) Microsoft
5 168 (15.37%) Juniper
6 139 (12.72%) Fortinet
7 131 (11.99%) Aruba
8 123 (11.25%) CheckPoint
9 93 (8.51%) Meraki
10 91 (8.33%) ServiceNow
11 87 (7.96%) SolarWinds
12 61 (5.58%) Arista
13 56 (5.12%) Dell
13 56 (5.12%) Splunk
14 44 (4.03%) Zscaler
15 38 (3.48%) IBM
16 35 (3.20%) HP
17 31 (2.84%) EMC
18 28 (2.56%) Extreme Networks
19 26 (2.38%) Broadcom