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 27 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
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 67 66
Rank change year-on-year -37 -1 -3
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,090 1,045 1,342
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 3.56% 3.08%
As % of the Vendors category 5.53% 7.50% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 736 661 818
10th Percentile £300 £303 £255
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 £636 £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 19,722 13,937 18,467
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.12% 47.46% 42.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,603 8,767 11,461
10th Percentile £313 £290 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £628
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 991 558 1,081
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.75 £18.13 £14.40
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -48.70%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £79.50 £75.38 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £24.19 £21.50
% change year-on-year +11.62% +12.51% -45.64%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -47 902 £481 -4.83% 410
UK excluding London -29 688 £475 - 382
Work from Home -25 284 £450 -12.20% 128
London -74 273 £500 -0.55% 118
South East -15 208 £500 - 111
North of England -48 182 £478 -4.40% 93
North West -15 147 £481 -2.90% 43
Midlands -18 134 £380 -15.56% 63
West Midlands -7 122 £371 -15.20% 41
Scotland +29 66 £450 +12.78% 20
South West -62 49 £510 -7.27% 36
East of England -9 41 £495 +4.21% 46
Yorkshire -81 36 £450 -14.29% 37
Wales -5 29 £425 - 16
Northern Ireland +10 9 £385 - 7
East Midlands -54 8 £415 -12.63% 22

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 (0.092%) CMS
7 1 (0.092%) JBoss
7 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (3.21%) MS Visio
3 14 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.092%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 17 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 186 (17.06%) Azure
2 147 (13.49%) AWS
3 79 (7.25%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.12%) Entra ID
5 29 (2.66%) GCP
6 15 (1.38%) 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 (0.92%) 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%) OneDrive
13 5 (0.46%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 479 (43.94%) Firewall
2 352 (32.29%) WAN
3 275 (25.23%) BGP
4 262 (24.04%) LAN
5 241 (22.11%) VPN
6 219 (20.09%) Network Security
7 201 (18.44%) OSPF
8 155 (14.22%) SD-WAN
9 150 (13.76%) DNS
10 146 (13.39%) Wireless
11 140 (12.84%) VLAN
12 100 (9.17%) Cisco ISE
12 100 (9.17%) MPLS
13 99 (9.08%) Cisco Nexus
14 91 (8.35%) VXLAN
15 85 (7.80%) Wi-Fi
16 77 (7.06%) DHCP
16 77 (7.06%) IPsec
17 73 (6.70%) Cisco ASA
18 71 (6.51%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
1 5 (0.46%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
3 2 (0.18%) Power BI
4 1 (0.092%) Big Data
4 1 (0.092%) Metadata
4 1 (0.092%) MySQL
4 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.11%) JIRA
2 15 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.83%) Git
4 8 (0.73%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.55%) GitLab
6 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 233 (21.38%) Social Skills
2 120 (11.01%) Finance
3 99 (9.08%) Public Sector
4 72 (6.61%) Telecoms
5 64 (5.87%) Analytical Skills
6 60 (5.50%) Banking
7 52 (4.77%) Legal
8 51 (4.68%) Documentation Skills
9 33 (3.03%) Manufacturing
10 20 (1.83%) Marketing
11 17 (1.56%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.38%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.28%) Electronics
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%) Police
Job Titles
1 483 (44.31%) Network Engineer
2 133 (12.20%) Architect
3 105 (9.63%) Cisco Engineer
4 100 (9.17%) Senior
5 99 (9.08%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 79 (7.25%) Network Architect
6 79 (7.25%) Security Engineer
7 74 (6.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 57 (5.23%) Network Security Engineer
9 52 (4.77%) Senior Network Engineer
10 45 (4.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 42 (3.85%) Data Network Engineer
12 41 (3.76%) Analyst
13 33 (3.03%) Data Engineer
14 32 (2.94%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 30 (2.75%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 25 (2.29%) Network Specialist
17 24 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
18 23 (2.11%) Lead
19 22 (2.02%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (6.15%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.56%) LDAP
3 15 (1.38%) Flash
4 11 (1.01%) SAML
5 9 (0.83%) 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 (0.28%) 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 (26.24%) Data Centre
2 54 (4.95%) PKI
3 44 (4.04%) Replication
4 40 (3.67%) Clustering
5 34 (3.12%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
7 31 (2.84%) Onboarding
7 31 (2.84%) Operational Technology
8 30 (2.75%) Cloud Native
9 23 (2.11%) Linux Command Line
10 20 (1.83%) Driving Licence
11 17 (1.56%) Enterprise Storage
11 17 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.38%) SCADA
12 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
13 14 (1.28%) EMC VMAX
13 14 (1.28%) Video Conferencing
14 12 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
15 11 (1.01%) IoT
15 11 (1.01%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 197 (18.07%) Windows
2 106 (9.72%) Linux
3 67 (6.15%) Windows Server
4 26 (2.39%) Windows 10
5 23 (2.11%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.02%) 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 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.28%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.092%) CentOS
15 1 (0.092%) Debian
15 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (14.95%) Migration
2 129 (11.83%) Problem-Solving
3 113 (10.37%) High Availability
4 111 (10.18%) Load Balancing
5 97 (8.90%) ITIL
6 95 (8.72%) Network Design
7 79 (7.25%) ITSM
8 74 (6.79%) Agile
9 73 (6.70%) Change Management
10 67 (6.15%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
11 64 (5.87%) Disaster Recovery
12 61 (5.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 61 (5.60%) Project Delivery
12 61 (5.60%) Roadmaps
13 59 (5.41%) Network Monitoring
14 53 (4.86%) Technical Leadership
15 52 (4.77%) Observability
16 51 (4.68%) Infrastructure as Code
17 50 (4.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 117 (10.73%) Python
2 52 (4.77%) PowerShell
3 19 (1.74%) Bash
4 10 (0.92%) SQL
5 8 (0.73%) C
6 4 (0.37%) PHP
7 3 (0.28%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) Java
7 3 (0.28%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.28%) Lisp
7 3 (0.28%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.092%) Bicep
9 1 (0.092%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.092%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 393 (36.06%) Security Cleared
2 309 (28.35%) Cisco Certification
3 297 (27.25%) SC Cleared
4 239 (21.93%) CCNP
5 114 (10.46%) CCNA
6 109 (10.00%) DV Cleared
7 77 (7.06%) Degree
8 71 (6.51%) CCIE
9 26 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (1.93%) 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 (1.38%) JNCIP
15 15 (1.38%) VCAP
16 14 (1.28%) JNCIA
16 14 (1.28%) MCSA
17 13 (1.19%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.94%) SLA
2 31 (2.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.57%) NIST
4 23 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.56%) NCSC
6 13 (1.19%) PMO
7 11 (1.01%) GDPR
7 11 (1.01%) QA
8 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.55%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.28%) RMADS
12 2 (0.18%) ISA99
12 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.092%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.092%) GRC
System Software
1 145 (13.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 86 (7.89%) Active Directory
3 58 (5.32%) VMware NSX
3 58 (5.32%) vSphere
4 53 (4.86%) VMware ESXi
5 23 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
6 20 (1.83%) Firmware
7 18 (1.65%) Hyper-V
7 18 (1.65%) NFS
8 15 (1.38%) GPFS
9 9 (0.83%) SRDF
10 7 (0.64%) Docker
11 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.37%) vCloud
12 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 3 (0.28%) KVM
13 3 (0.28%) Snort
13 3 (0.28%) UAG
14 1 (0.092%) Squid
Systems Management
1 118 (10.83%) Ansible
2 101 (9.27%) FortiGate
3 49 (4.50%) Terraform
4 38 (3.49%) vCenter Server
5 28 (2.57%) vRealize
6 24 (2.20%) Grafana
7 20 (1.83%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (1.65%) Prometheus
8 18 (1.65%) SCCM
9 16 (1.47%) Kubernetes
10 15 (1.38%) VxRail
11 13 (1.19%) Cisco Prime
12 10 (0.92%) Nagios
12 10 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.64%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.64%) EMC VPLEX
13 7 (0.64%) SCOM
14 6 (0.55%) Cisco CUCM
14 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 285 (26.15%) Palo Alto
2 194 (17.80%) F5
3 181 (16.61%) VMware
4 173 (15.87%) Microsoft
5 168 (15.41%) Juniper
6 139 (12.75%) Fortinet
7 129 (11.83%) Aruba
8 123 (11.28%) CheckPoint
9 93 (8.53%) Meraki
10 90 (8.26%) ServiceNow
11 86 (7.89%) SolarWinds
12 61 (5.60%) Arista
13 56 (5.14%) Dell
13 56 (5.14%) Splunk
14 44 (4.04%) Zscaler
15 38 (3.49%) IBM
16 35 (3.21%) HP
17 31 (2.84%) EMC
18 28 (2.57%) Extreme Networks
19 26 (2.39%) Broadcom