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 10 July 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
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 69 66
Rank change year-on-year -46 -3 -9
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,181 1,171 1,347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.24% 3.62% 3.12%
As % of the Vendors category 5.44% 7.62% 7.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 792 728 827
10th Percentile £296 £312 £250
25th Percentile £400 £407 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £569 £588 £575
90th Percentile £634 £649 £660
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 33 39
10th Percentile £26.72 £24.73 £17.30
25th Percentile £36.25 £25.15 £23.53
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% +9.09% -45.00%
75th Percentile £72.00 £43.25 £46.39
90th Percentile £78.60 £60.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £41.95
% change year-on-year +83.33% -28.48% -11.69%

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 21,701 15,371 18,628
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.23% 47.50% 43.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,508 9,423 11,588
10th Percentile £313 £281 £267
25th Percentile £413 £403 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,110 733 1,141
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.75 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £34.61 £25.15 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.62% +0.60% -38.34%
75th Percentile £63.94 £52.16 £60.00
90th Percentile £82.55 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £24.18
% change year-on-year +43.61% -6.41% -22.00%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 -47 997 £477 -4.60% 683
UK excluding London -46 714 £475 -5.00% 653
London -58 340 £500 - 183
Work from Home -42 294 £463 -7.50% 128
North of England -39 221 £483 -1.83% 152
South East -35 184 £500 -4.76% 173
North West -10 168 £477 +0.42% 68
Midlands -32 137 £420 -6.67% 86
West Midlands -25 130 £416 -2.06% 42
Scotland +21 89 £450 +12.50% 40
South West -61 58 £525 -4.55% 89
Yorkshire -60 50 £500 - 61
East of England -34 33 £500 -9.09% 74
Wales -18 19 £468 +61.21% 26
Northern Ireland +10 9 £145 -58.57% 20
East Midlands -34 4 £458 -10.73% 44
North East -40 4 £425 +30.77% 23
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 28 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 20 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (0.93%) Confluence
4 9 (0.76%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.59%) Apache
6 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
6 3 (0.25%) IIS
6 3 (0.25%) nginx
6 3 (0.25%) SAS
6 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.17%) CMS
8 1 (0.085%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.085%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.71%) MS Visio
3 27 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.085%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 5 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 217 (18.37%) Azure
2 153 (12.96%) AWS
3 71 (6.01%) Microsoft 365
4 45 (3.81%) Entra ID
5 22 (1.86%) GCP
6 19 (1.61%) OpenShift
7 17 (1.44%) GitHub
7 17 (1.44%) OneDrive
8 16 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 15 (1.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 15 (1.27%) Nutanix
10 13 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
11 11 (0.93%) SaaS
12 10 (0.85%) Power Platform
13 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Purview
14 7 (0.59%) Cloudflare
14 7 (0.59%) IaaS
15 6 (0.51%) Azure DevOps
16 5 (0.42%) GitHub Actions
16 5 (0.42%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 511 (43.27%) Firewall
2 376 (31.84%) WAN
3 310 (26.25%) BGP
4 302 (25.57%) LAN
5 261 (22.10%) VPN
6 251 (21.25%) Network Security
7 217 (18.37%) OSPF
8 202 (17.10%) Wireless
9 185 (15.66%) DNS
10 166 (14.06%) VLAN
11 155 (13.12%) SD-WAN
12 130 (11.01%) MPLS
13 118 (9.99%) Cisco Nexus
14 112 (9.48%) Cisco ISE
14 112 (9.48%) Wi-Fi
15 99 (8.38%) DHCP
15 99 (8.38%) VXLAN
16 85 (7.20%) Cisco ASA
17 82 (6.94%) TCP/IP
18 81 (6.86%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (1.61%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.25%) MySQL
2 3 (0.25%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.25%) Power BI
3 2 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.085%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.085%) Big Data
4 1 (0.085%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.085%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.085%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 19 (1.61%) JIRA
2 16 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
3 14 (1.19%) Git
4 9 (0.76%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.25%) GitLab
6 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 276 (23.37%) Social Skills
2 109 (9.23%) Finance
3 82 (6.94%) Telecoms
4 80 (6.77%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (5.59%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.17%) Banking
7 60 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
8 45 (3.81%) Legal
9 23 (1.95%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (1.69%) Investment Banking
11 19 (1.61%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.27%) Retail
13 13 (1.10%) Law
13 13 (1.10%) Manufacturing
14 12 (1.02%) Military
15 9 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.76%) Police
16 7 (0.59%) Marketing
16 7 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.42%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 563 (47.67%) Network Engineer
2 137 (11.60%) Architect
3 131 (11.09%) Senior
4 122 (10.33%) Cisco Engineer
5 111 (9.40%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 94 (7.96%) Security Engineer
7 77 (6.52%) Senior Network Engineer
8 76 (6.44%) Network Architect
9 70 (5.93%) Network Security Engineer
10 57 (4.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 54 (4.57%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 49 (4.15%) Data Network Engineer
13 36 (3.05%) Data Engineer
14 35 (2.96%) Analyst
14 35 (2.96%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 29 (2.46%) Field Engineer
16 27 (2.29%) Lead
17 26 (2.20%) Network Specialist
18 25 (2.12%) Solutions Architect
19 24 (2.03%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (6.27%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.52%) SAML
3 14 (1.19%) LDAP
3 14 (1.19%) REST
4 12 (1.02%) Flash
5 7 (0.59%) NETCONF
6 6 (0.51%) Jinja
6 6 (0.51%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.51%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.51%) XMPP
6 6 (0.51%) YANG
7 4 (0.34%) Django
7 4 (0.34%) JSON
8 3 (0.25%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.25%) LAMP
8 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (0.25%) YAML
9 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.17%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 301 (25.49%) Data Centre
2 57 (4.83%) PKI
3 44 (3.73%) Hybrid Cloud
4 43 (3.64%) Replication
5 42 (3.56%) Clustering
6 40 (3.39%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (3.22%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.62%) Driving Licence
9 30 (2.54%) Operational Technology
10 29 (2.46%) Video Conferencing
11 19 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.61%) Enterprise Storage
12 18 (1.52%) EMC VMAX
12 18 (1.52%) Security Posture
13 17 (1.44%) Cloud Native
14 16 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
15 15 (1.27%) Public Cloud
15 15 (1.27%) Virtual Team
16 14 (1.19%) SCADA
17 13 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 216 (18.29%) Windows
2 125 (10.58%) Linux
3 67 (5.67%) Windows Server
4 17 (1.44%) Unix
5 16 (1.35%) Ubuntu
5 16 (1.35%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 10 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.76%) Android
9 8 (0.68%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.59%) AIX
10 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.42%) Data ONTAP
11 5 (0.42%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) CentOS
13 3 (0.25%) CatOS
13 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.085%) Check Point GAiA
14 1 (0.085%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.085%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (15.50%) Migration
2 135 (11.43%) Load Balancing
3 125 (10.58%) High Availability
4 123 (10.41%) Problem-Solving
5 114 (9.65%) ITIL
6 109 (9.23%) Project Delivery
7 91 (7.71%) Network Design
8 84 (7.11%) ITSM
9 82 (6.94%) Change Management
10 75 (6.35%) Continuous Improvement
11 72 (6.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 68 (5.76%) Stakeholder Management
13 66 (5.59%) Infrastructure as Code
14 65 (5.50%) Agile
15 63 (5.33%) Cybersecurity
15 63 (5.33%) Technical Leadership
16 62 (5.25%) Disaster Recovery
16 62 (5.25%) Network Monitoring
16 62 (5.25%) Validation
17 61 (5.17%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 142 (12.02%) Python
2 60 (5.08%) PowerShell
3 24 (2.03%) SQL
4 23 (1.95%) Bash
5 6 (0.51%) C
6 4 (0.34%) Java
6 4 (0.34%) Perl
6 4 (0.34%) PHP
7 3 (0.25%) C++
7 3 (0.25%) Lisp
7 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Korn
9 1 (0.085%) Bicep
9 1 (0.085%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.085%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 349 (29.55%) Cisco Certification
2 322 (27.27%) Security Cleared
3 251 (21.25%) CCNP
4 230 (19.48%) SC Cleared
5 137 (11.60%) CCNA
6 99 (8.38%) DV Cleared
7 73 (6.18%) Degree
8 69 (5.84%) CCIE
9 28 (2.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 27 (2.29%) Microsoft Certification
11 22 (1.86%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (1.61%) MCSE
13 18 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
14 17 (1.44%) Azure Certification
14 17 (1.44%) Server+ Certification
15 14 (1.19%) CCSE
16 13 (1.10%) VCAP
17 12 (1.02%) AWS Certification
17 12 (1.02%) MCSA
18 11 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.64%) SLA
2 32 (2.71%) NIST
3 29 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (1.78%) QA
6 20 (1.69%) NCSC
7 8 (0.68%) PMO
8 7 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 7 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
9 5 (0.42%) GDPR
9 5 (0.42%) JSP 440
9 5 (0.42%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.25%) Data Quality
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%) GRC
11 2 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 2 (0.17%) RMADS
System Software
1 151 (12.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 104 (8.81%) Active Directory
3 58 (4.91%) vSphere
4 57 (4.83%) VMware ESXi
5 50 (4.23%) VMware NSX
6 35 (2.96%) Virtual Machines
7 31 (2.62%) Firmware
8 24 (2.03%) Hyper-V
9 16 (1.35%) NFS
10 12 (1.02%) GPFS
10 12 (1.02%) SRDF
11 8 (0.68%) Docker
12 7 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.51%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.25%) Postfix
15 3 (0.25%) UAG
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 2 (0.17%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 150 (12.70%) Ansible
2 96 (8.13%) FortiGate
3 61 (5.17%) Terraform
4 31 (2.62%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.37%) Grafana
6 23 (1.95%) Kubernetes
6 23 (1.95%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (1.95%) SCCM
7 21 (1.78%) Prometheus
8 16 (1.35%) vRealize
9 15 (1.27%) Cisco Prime
10 13 (1.10%) Cisco CUCM
10 13 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (0.76%) VxRail
12 8 (0.68%) WMI
13 7 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
13 7 (0.59%) WSUS
14 6 (0.51%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.51%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.51%) SCOM
Vendors
1 280 (23.71%) Palo Alto
2 231 (19.56%) F5
3 209 (17.70%) Microsoft
4 201 (17.02%) VMware
5 198 (16.77%) Fortinet
6 163 (13.80%) Juniper
7 111 (9.40%) CheckPoint
8 103 (8.72%) Aruba
9 97 (8.21%) ServiceNow
10 96 (8.13%) Meraki
10 96 (8.13%) SolarWinds
11 78 (6.60%) Arista
12 61 (5.17%) Splunk
13 48 (4.06%) Zscaler
14 42 (3.56%) Dell
15 30 (2.54%) EMC
15 30 (2.54%) Extreme Networks
16 28 (2.37%) Brocade
16 28 (2.37%) IBM
17 26 (2.20%) Infoblox