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 January 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 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 59 57
Rank change year-on-year -34 -2 +33
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,039 1,143 1,570
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.74% 3.61% 3.61%
As % of the Vendors category 5.97% 7.86% 8.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 709 698 944
10th Percentile £260 £296 £253
25th Percentile £356 £406 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £550 £588 £600
90th Percentile £615 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -0.72% - +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 25 88
10th Percentile £21.40 £16.38 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.00 £23.00
Median hourly rate £63.00 £24.66 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year +155.46% -24.70% +27.38%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £93.88 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 £20.38 £33.44
% change year-on-year +253.37% -39.07% +35.06%

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 17,397 14,533 19,152
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.88% 45.86% 43.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,221 8,607 12,058
10th Percentile £300 £283 £252
25th Percentile £411 £409 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 821 429 822
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.15
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.50 £34.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.36% -20.29% +8.12%
75th Percentile £48.75 £61.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.02 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.30 £25.00 £34.50
% change year-on-year -14.80% -27.54% +32.69%

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 January 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 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 17 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 January 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 -41 854 £475 -5.00% 480
UK excluding London -15 698 £472 -0.72% 443
Work from Home -28 283 £450 -14.29% 147
London -70 244 £475 -8.65% 120
South East -2 200 £500 - 163
Midlands +4 161 £380 -14.37% 66
North of England -51 150 £475 -3.06% 82
West Midlands +8 140 £385 -13.24% 35
North West -18 120 £481 -1.79% 35
Scotland +44 87 £425 +13.33% 29
South West -39 50 £550 +15.79% 43
East of England -15 34 £445 +1.71% 52
Yorkshire -79 23 £450 -2.70% 36
East Midlands -27 20 £158 -61.82% 31
Wales -1 17 £170 -49.82% 11
Northern Ireland +7 13 £475 - 7
North East -13 9 £175 -64.10% 13

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 51 (4.91%) SharePoint
2 40 (3.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 22 (2.12%) Confluence
4 20 (1.92%) Apache
5 14 (1.35%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.35%) WebLogic
6 8 (0.77%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.67%) Appian
7 7 (0.67%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.19%) CICS
10 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.096%) JBoss
11 1 (0.096%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 74 (7.12%) Microsoft Office
2 46 (4.43%) MS Visio
3 23 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
4 16 (1.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.096%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.096%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (1.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.096%) Actimize
3 1 (0.096%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 173 (16.65%) Azure
2 158 (15.21%) AWS
3 89 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (4.23%) GCP
5 31 (2.98%) Entra ID
6 19 (1.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (1.35%) Datadog
9 12 (1.15%) SaaS
10 11 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 10 (0.96%) OpenShift
11 10 (0.96%) Serverless
12 9 (0.87%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (0.87%) Nutanix
13 8 (0.77%) OneDrive
14 7 (0.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 7 (0.67%) GitHub
14 7 (0.67%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 397 (38.21%) Firewall
2 285 (27.43%) WAN
3 205 (19.73%) VPN
4 200 (19.25%) LAN
5 180 (17.32%) BGP
6 160 (15.40%) Network Security
7 157 (15.11%) Wireless
8 134 (12.90%) SD-WAN
9 129 (12.42%) OSPF
10 109 (10.49%) DNS
11 92 (8.85%) MPLS
12 91 (8.76%) VLAN
13 83 (7.99%) Cisco ISE
14 74 (7.12%) Wi-Fi
15 71 (6.83%) IPsec
16 70 (6.74%) Cisco Nexus
17 69 (6.64%) Cisco IOS
18 63 (6.06%) TCP/IP
19 58 (5.58%) Cisco ASA
20 53 (5.10%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.06%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.48%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.48%) Power BI
3 3 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.29%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.096%) Metadata
5 1 (0.096%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 21 (2.02%) JIRA
2 17 (1.64%) GitLab
3 12 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
4 10 (0.96%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.77%) Robot Framework
6 7 (0.67%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.67%) Selenium
6 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.58%) Git
8 2 (0.19%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
General
1 234 (22.52%) Social Skills
2 174 (16.75%) Public Sector
3 146 (14.05%) Finance
4 123 (11.84%) Telecoms
5 74 (7.12%) Analytical Skills
6 63 (6.06%) Manufacturing
7 53 (5.10%) Documentation Skills
8 46 (4.43%) Legal
9 45 (4.33%) Electronics
9 45 (4.33%) Marketing
10 41 (3.95%) Banking
11 14 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (1.15%) Investment Banking
13 9 (0.87%) Aerospace
13 9 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.77%) Law
15 7 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
15 7 (0.67%) Retail
16 6 (0.58%) Military
Job Titles
1 370 (35.61%) Network Engineer
2 118 (11.36%) Architect
3 78 (7.51%) Cisco Engineer
4 75 (7.22%) Network Architect
5 65 (6.26%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 62 (5.97%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 59 (5.68%) Analyst
8 57 (5.49%) Senior
9 54 (5.20%) Consultant
10 53 (5.10%) IT Support
11 50 (4.81%) Security Engineer
12 46 (4.43%) Network Consultant
13 44 (4.23%) Support Engineer
14 37 (3.56%) Desktop Support
15 36 (3.46%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 34 (3.27%) Solutions Architect
17 33 (3.18%) Network Security Engineer
18 30 (2.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 28 (2.69%) Platform Engineer
19 28 (2.69%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (3.75%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.64%) Flash
3 16 (1.54%) XMPP
4 15 (1.44%) LDAP
5 11 (1.06%) JSON
5 11 (1.06%) NETCONF
5 11 (1.06%) YANG
6 10 (0.96%) Jinja
7 9 (0.87%) XML
8 8 (0.77%) RFC 2544
9 7 (0.67%) SAML
10 5 (0.48%) Node.js
11 4 (0.38%) HTML
11 4 (0.38%) VML
12 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
12 3 (0.29%) REST
13 2 (0.19%) Django
13 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
13 2 (0.19%) Regular Expression
13 2 (0.19%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 265 (25.51%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.85%) PKI
3 35 (3.37%) Replication
4 33 (3.18%) Linux Command Line
5 29 (2.79%) Onboarding
6 28 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
6 28 (2.69%) Hybrid Cloud
7 27 (2.60%) Cloud Native
8 24 (2.31%) Driving Licence
9 21 (2.02%) Operational Technology
10 17 (1.64%) Security Posture
10 17 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (1.35%) Clustering
12 13 (1.25%) NHS
13 12 (1.15%) Product Ownership
14 11 (1.06%) CMDB
14 11 (1.06%) Fibre Optics
14 11 (1.06%) Video Conferencing
15 9 (0.87%) Public Cloud
15 9 (0.87%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 194 (18.67%) Windows
2 124 (11.93%) Linux
3 82 (7.89%) Windows Server
4 55 (5.29%) Mac OS
5 53 (5.10%) Android
6 36 (3.46%) Windows 10
7 24 (2.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 24 (2.31%) Unix
8 6 (0.58%) Solaris
8 6 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
8 6 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.38%) CatOS
9 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.29%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.29%) VMS
10 3 (0.29%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.29%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.19%) CentOS
11 2 (0.19%) zOS
12 1 (0.096%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (12.99%) Migration
2 126 (12.13%) Problem-Solving
3 91 (8.76%) Agile
4 84 (8.08%) Network Design
5 79 (7.60%) Roadmaps
6 78 (7.51%) ITIL
6 78 (7.51%) Project Delivery
7 74 (7.12%) High Availability
8 73 (7.03%) Service Management
9 72 (6.93%) ITSM
10 67 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
11 66 (6.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 65 (6.26%) Business Intelligence
13 64 (6.16%) Change Management
14 63 (6.06%) Network Architecture
15 56 (5.39%) Collaborative Working
16 55 (5.29%) Continuous Improvement
16 55 (5.29%) Incident Response
17 54 (5.20%) Disaster Recovery
18 53 (5.10%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 123 (11.84%) Python
2 67 (6.45%) PowerShell
3 39 (3.75%) Bash
4 33 (3.18%) SQL
5 25 (2.41%) Perl
6 15 (1.44%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.77%) Lisp
8 6 (0.58%) C++
9 5 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.38%) C
11 3 (0.29%) Java
12 2 (0.19%) Korn
13 1 (0.096%) Go
13 1 (0.096%) PHP
13 1 (0.096%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 443 (42.64%) Security Cleared
2 353 (33.97%) SC Cleared
3 262 (25.22%) Cisco Certification
4 217 (20.89%) CCNP
5 102 (9.82%) DV Cleared
6 96 (9.24%) CCNA
7 75 (7.22%) CCIE
8 74 (7.12%) Degree
9 26 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (2.41%) ITIL Certification
11 24 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (1.73%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.73%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.64%) JNCIE
13 17 (1.64%) JNCIS
14 16 (1.54%) MCSE
15 15 (1.44%) CISSP
16 14 (1.35%) CCSE
17 13 (1.25%) JNCIP
17 13 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (3.18%) SLA
2 31 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.12%) NIST
4 18 (1.73%) GDPR
5 16 (1.54%) PCI DSS
5 16 (1.54%) PMO
6 14 (1.35%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.48%) NCSC
8 4 (0.38%) QA
9 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.29%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.19%) RMADS
11 1 (0.096%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.096%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.096%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.096%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.096%) JTAG
11 1 (0.096%) MiFID
System Software
1 158 (15.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 128 (12.32%) Active Directory
3 81 (7.80%) VMware NSX
4 58 (5.58%) vSphere
5 35 (3.37%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
7 20 (1.92%) Firmware
8 19 (1.83%) Docker
9 18 (1.73%) Hyper-V
9 18 (1.73%) NFS
10 17 (1.64%) GPFS
11 7 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.58%) KVM
12 6 (0.58%) Snort
13 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.38%) Squid
14 4 (0.38%) vCloud
14 4 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
15 3 (0.29%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 95 (9.14%) Ansible
2 70 (6.74%) FortiGate
3 54 (5.20%) vCenter Server
4 47 (4.52%) Terraform
5 36 (3.46%) vRealize
6 31 (2.98%) SCCM
7 19 (1.83%) Kubernetes
8 17 (1.64%) Microsoft Intune
9 15 (1.44%) VxRail
10 13 (1.25%) Cisco CUCM
11 11 (1.06%) WSUS
12 10 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.96%) Nessus
12 10 (0.96%) SCOM
13 9 (0.87%) EMC NetWorker
13 9 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
14 8 (0.77%) Grafana
15 7 (0.67%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
15 7 (0.67%) Nagios
Vendors
1 237 (22.81%) Palo Alto
2 191 (18.38%) VMware
3 187 (18.00%) Microsoft
4 167 (16.07%) Juniper
5 114 (10.97%) SolarWinds
6 112 (10.78%) Aruba
6 112 (10.78%) F5
7 106 (10.20%) Fortinet
8 100 (9.62%) Meraki
9 99 (9.53%) CheckPoint
10 77 (7.41%) Dell
11 71 (6.83%) ServiceNow
12 62 (5.97%) HP
13 52 (5.00%) Splunk
14 45 (4.33%) IBM
15 44 (4.23%) Apple
15 44 (4.23%) SAP
16 41 (3.95%) Zscaler
17 40 (3.85%) Oracle
18 38 (3.66%) AppDynamics