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 December 2025, 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 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 91 59 56
Rank change year-on-year -32 -3 +37
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,036 1,213 1,612
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.79% 3.58% 3.71%
As % of the Vendors category 5.94% 7.81% 8.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 735 968
10th Percentile £263 £279 £253
25th Percentile £363 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £500 £486
Median % change year-on-year -6.58% +2.88% +2.32%
75th Percentile £552 £580 £588
90th Percentile £600 £649 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £460
% change year-on-year -3.06% +6.52% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 24 90
10th Percentile £21.46 £16.09 £14.47
25th Percentile £25.15 £19.63 £24.00
Median hourly rate £51.86 £26.45 £36.52
Median % change year-on-year +96.07% -27.57% +42.05%
75th Percentile £74.26 £67.19 £65.98
90th Percentile £92.63 £75.00 £76.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £22.50 £43.83
% change year-on-year +230.04% -48.66% +71.80%

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 17,435 15,524 19,480
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.98% 45.80% 44.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,103 9,250 12,348
10th Percentile £294 £285 £250
25th Percentile £409 £410 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.58% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 852 454 656
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.53 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.50 £19.25
Median hourly rate £23.79 £27.75 £45.55
Median % change year-on-year -14.28% -39.07% +76.34%
75th Percentile £44.56 £62.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.18 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.97 £25.60 £45.88
% change year-on-year -14.19% -44.20% +103.91%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025. 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 -33 866 £491 -1.80% 720
UK excluding London -21 673 £475 -3.06% 669
London -47 275 £450 -11.76% 148
Work from Home -28 267 £450 -10.00% 225
South East -9 201 £500 -0.50% 188
Midlands +9 156 £380 -13.14% 124
North of England -54 142 £475 - 151
West Midlands +20 134 £380 -20.00% 80
North West -24 104 £481 -1.79% 79
Scotland +36 75 £425 +13.33% 32
South West -45 48 £550 +16.40% 66
East of England -20 33 £460 -10.24% 91
Yorkshire -71 29 £450 +5.88% 61
East Midlands -21 21 £158 -58.00% 39
Wales 0 17 £170 -56.13% 26
Northern Ireland +4 11 £475 - 10
North East -2 11 £175 -64.10% 12

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 49 (4.73%) SharePoint
2 42 (4.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.93%) Confluence
4 18 (1.74%) Apache
5 14 (1.35%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.35%) WebLogic
6 10 (0.97%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.68%) Appian
7 7 (0.68%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.29%) IIS
9 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.19%) CICS
10 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.097%) JBoss
11 1 (0.097%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 84 (8.11%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (3.57%) MS Visio
3 19 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
4 14 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.29%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.097%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.097%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 19 (1.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.097%) Actimize
3 1 (0.097%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 166 (16.02%) Azure
2 154 (14.86%) AWS
3 97 (9.36%) Microsoft 365
4 43 (4.15%) GCP
5 32 (3.09%) Entra ID
6 18 (1.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.45%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (1.35%) Datadog
9 12 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 12 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
9 12 (1.16%) OpenShift
10 11 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (0.97%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.97%) SaaS
11 10 (0.97%) Serverless
12 9 (0.87%) Nutanix
13 7 (0.68%) Akamai
13 7 (0.68%) GitHub
13 7 (0.68%) IaaS
13 7 (0.68%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 426 (41.12%) Firewall
2 261 (25.19%) WAN
3 214 (20.66%) LAN
4 200 (19.31%) VPN
5 173 (16.70%) BGP
6 167 (16.12%) Wireless
7 153 (14.77%) Network Security
8 146 (14.09%) SD-WAN
9 130 (12.55%) OSPF
10 112 (10.81%) DNS
11 99 (9.56%) Wi-Fi
12 92 (8.88%) MPLS
13 88 (8.49%) Cisco Nexus
14 87 (8.40%) Cisco ISE
15 86 (8.30%) VLAN
16 75 (7.24%) Cisco IOS
17 66 (6.37%) DHCP
18 64 (6.18%) IPsec
19 63 (6.08%) TCP/IP
20 57 (5.50%) Cisco ASA
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%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
4 2 (0.19%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.097%) Metadata
5 1 (0.097%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 20 (1.93%) JIRA
2 16 (1.54%) GitLab
3 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
4 9 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.77%) Git
5 8 (0.77%) Robot Framework
6 7 (0.68%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.68%) Selenium
6 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.097%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.097%) Hudson
8 1 (0.097%) Snyk
General
1 239 (23.07%) Social Skills
2 178 (17.18%) Public Sector
3 134 (12.93%) Telecoms
4 126 (12.16%) Finance
5 78 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
6 60 (5.79%) Manufacturing
7 46 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (4.15%) Banking
8 43 (4.15%) Electronics
8 43 (4.15%) Marketing
9 27 (2.61%) Legal
10 16 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (1.06%) Aerospace
14 10 (0.97%) Investment Banking
15 9 (0.87%) Military
16 7 (0.68%) Retail
17 6 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
18 5 (0.48%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 364 (35.14%) Network Engineer
2 133 (12.84%) Architect
3 91 (8.78%) Network Architect
4 71 (6.85%) Cisco Engineer
5 62 (5.98%) Senior
6 60 (5.79%) Consultant
7 59 (5.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 58 (5.60%) Analyst
8 58 (5.60%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 52 (5.02%) IT Support
10 50 (4.83%) Security Engineer
11 49 (4.73%) Support Engineer
12 48 (4.63%) Network Consultant
13 38 (3.67%) Desktop Support
14 34 (3.28%) Network Security Engineer
15 32 (3.09%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 31 (2.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 30 (2.90%) Senior Network Engineer
18 28 (2.70%) Platform Engineer
19 27 (2.61%) 3rd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (3.57%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.45%) XMPP
3 12 (1.16%) Flash
3 12 (1.16%) Jinja
3 12 (1.16%) RFC 2544
4 11 (1.06%) JSON
4 11 (1.06%) NETCONF
4 11 (1.06%) YANG
5 9 (0.87%) XML
6 8 (0.77%) LDAP
7 6 (0.58%) Node.js
8 4 (0.39%) REST
8 4 (0.39%) VML
9 3 (0.29%) HTML
9 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
9 3 (0.29%) SAML
10 2 (0.19%) ARM Templates
10 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.19%) Regular Expression
10 2 (0.19%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 251 (24.23%) Data Centre
2 38 (3.67%) PKI
3 29 (2.80%) Data Protection Act
4 28 (2.70%) Cloud Native
4 28 (2.70%) Linux Command Line
5 27 (2.61%) Onboarding
6 25 (2.41%) Driving Licence
6 25 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 25 (2.41%) Replication
7 23 (2.22%) Operational Technology
8 16 (1.54%) Video Conferencing
9 14 (1.35%) NHS
9 14 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.16%) Fibre Optics
10 12 (1.16%) Product Ownership
11 11 (1.06%) Management Information System
11 11 (1.06%) Security Posture
12 10 (0.97%) CMDB
13 9 (0.87%) Clustering
13 9 (0.87%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 178 (17.18%) Windows
2 109 (10.52%) Linux
3 70 (6.76%) Windows Server
4 68 (6.56%) Mac OS
5 63 (6.08%) Android
6 35 (3.38%) Windows 10
7 21 (2.03%) Unix
8 20 (1.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.39%) Solaris
11 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.29%) VMS
12 3 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.29%) Windows 8
13 2 (0.19%) CatOS
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.097%) MVS
14 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (12.93%) Problem-Solving
2 123 (11.87%) Migration
3 88 (8.49%) Service Management
4 87 (8.40%) Network Design
5 79 (7.63%) Roadmaps
6 78 (7.53%) ITIL
7 72 (6.95%) Agile
8 71 (6.85%) Project Delivery
9 70 (6.76%) ITSM
10 69 (6.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 63 (6.08%) Business Intelligence
12 62 (5.98%) High Availability
12 62 (5.98%) Network Architecture
13 60 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
14 57 (5.50%) Change Management
14 57 (5.50%) Incident Response
15 55 (5.31%) Load Balancing
16 53 (5.12%) Collaborative Working
16 53 (5.12%) Continuous Improvement
17 51 (4.92%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 123 (11.87%) Python
2 68 (6.56%) PowerShell
3 39 (3.76%) Bash
4 32 (3.09%) SQL
5 23 (2.22%) Perl
6 14 (1.35%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.77%) Lisp
8 6 (0.58%) C++
9 5 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.39%) C
11 3 (0.29%) Java
12 1 (0.097%) Go
12 1 (0.097%) Ruby
12 1 (0.097%) VB
Qualifications
1 448 (43.24%) Security Cleared
2 352 (33.98%) SC Cleared
3 272 (26.25%) Cisco Certification
4 214 (20.66%) CCNP
5 106 (10.23%) DV Cleared
6 99 (9.56%) CCNA
7 77 (7.43%) Degree
8 73 (7.05%) CCIE
9 26 (2.51%) Microsoft Certification
10 25 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (2.41%) ITIL Certification
11 19 (1.83%) CISSP
12 18 (1.74%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.74%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.74%) JNCIE
13 17 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
14 15 (1.45%) CCDP
14 15 (1.45%) JNCIS
15 14 (1.35%) JNCIA
16 12 (1.16%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.76%) SLA
2 32 (3.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (2.03%) GDPR
4 19 (1.83%) NIST
5 17 (1.64%) PCI DSS
6 16 (1.54%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.25%) PMO
8 7 (0.68%) NCSC
9 4 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.29%) QA
11 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.097%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.097%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.097%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.097%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.097%) JTAG
12 1 (0.097%) RMADS
System Software
1 132 (12.74%) Active Directory
2 130 (12.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 65 (6.27%) VMware NSX
4 42 (4.05%) vSphere
5 25 (2.41%) VMware ESXi
6 24 (2.32%) Firmware
7 18 (1.74%) Docker
8 16 (1.54%) Hyper-V
9 15 (1.45%) Virtual Machines
10 13 (1.25%) NFS
11 12 (1.16%) GPFS
12 7 (0.68%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.58%) KVM
13 6 (0.58%) Snort
14 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.39%) Squid
16 3 (0.29%) BitLocker
17 2 (0.19%) Terminal Services
17 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
17 2 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 91 (8.78%) Ansible
2 64 (6.18%) FortiGate
3 48 (4.63%) vCenter Server
4 47 (4.54%) Terraform
5 34 (3.28%) SCCM
6 28 (2.70%) vRealize
7 24 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (1.93%) Kubernetes
9 16 (1.54%) Cisco CUCM
10 14 (1.35%) VxRail
11 11 (1.06%) WSUS
12 10 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.87%) EMC NetWorker
13 9 (0.87%) Nessus
14 8 (0.77%) SCOM
15 7 (0.68%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.68%) HP SiteScope
15 7 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
16 6 (0.58%) Nagios
17 5 (0.48%) Check_MK
Vendors
1 201 (19.40%) Palo Alto
2 188 (18.15%) Juniper
3 185 (17.86%) Microsoft
4 162 (15.64%) VMware
5 138 (13.32%) Fortinet
6 108 (10.42%) F5
6 108 (10.42%) SolarWinds
7 101 (9.75%) Meraki
8 99 (9.56%) CheckPoint
9 88 (8.49%) Aruba
10 80 (7.72%) Dell
11 68 (6.56%) HP
12 66 (6.37%) ServiceNow
13 58 (5.60%) Splunk
14 51 (4.92%) Apple
15 44 (4.25%) SAP
16 40 (3.86%) Zscaler
17 36 (3.47%) AppDynamics
18 35 (3.38%) IBM
19 34 (3.28%) Oracle