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 11 March 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
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 57 58
Rank change year-on-year -42 +1 +15
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,086 1,101 1,534
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.55% 3.74% 3.43%
As % of the Vendors category 5.80% 7.95% 7.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 735 703 900
10th Percentile £250 £313 £252
25th Percentile £374 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £594 £600
90th Percentile £619 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £475
% change year-on-year -4.04% +4.21% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 18 63
10th Percentile £21.40 £17.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.88 £19.60
Median hourly rate £68.17 £33.52 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.34% +34.09% -35.28%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.75 £41.25
90th Percentile £93.88 £75.00 £67.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £33.52 £24.50
% change year-on-year +121.52% +36.83% -49.54%

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 18,722 13,856 19,311
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.99% 47.01% 43.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,984 8,610 12,045
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +0.97% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 946 445 1,032
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.63%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.56
90th Percentile £75.20 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.81 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.05% +19.57% -30.30%

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 11 March 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 11 March 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 11 March 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 -44 891 £475 -5.47% 514
UK excluding London -27 696 £475 -4.04% 479
Work from Home -36 283 £445 -11.00% 112
London -51 267 £492 -2.14% 110
South East 0 219 £500 -0.25% 140
North of England -55 170 £481 -3.75% 102
Midlands -24 147 £345 -23.33% 82
North West -16 138 £481 -3.75% 47
West Midlands -8 133 £350 -20.00% 36
Scotland +39 78 £425 +6.25% 24
East of England -9 40 £475 - 65
South West -62 40 £538 -0.65% 57
Yorkshire -92 26 £450 -14.29% 36
Wales -8 23 £380 -7.88% 22
East Midlands -49 12 £158 -65.00% 44
North East -17 8 £175 -58.82% 19
Northern Ireland - 8 £475 - 6

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 46 (4.24%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (1.57%) Confluence
4 7 (0.64%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
6 4 (0.37%) Appian
7 3 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
7 3 (0.28%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.092%) JBoss
9 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 69 (6.35%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (4.33%) MS Visio
3 22 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
4 16 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
3 1 (0.092%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 166 (15.29%) Azure
2 140 (12.89%) AWS
3 98 (9.02%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (3.59%) Entra ID
4 39 (3.59%) GCP
5 17 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.29%) Datadog
7 13 (1.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 12 (1.10%) Nutanix
9 9 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 9 (0.83%) SaaS
10 8 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (0.74%) OneDrive
10 8 (0.74%) OpenShift
11 7 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.64%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.64%) Serverless
12 6 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 440 (40.52%) Firewall
2 328 (30.20%) WAN
3 241 (22.19%) LAN
4 236 (21.73%) BGP
5 232 (21.36%) VPN
6 195 (17.96%) Network Security
7 169 (15.56%) OSPF
8 163 (15.01%) Wireless
9 139 (12.80%) SD-WAN
10 127 (11.69%) DNS
11 111 (10.22%) MPLS
12 104 (9.58%) VLAN
13 99 (9.12%) Cisco ISE
14 82 (7.55%) Wi-Fi
15 78 (7.18%) Cisco Nexus
16 76 (7.00%) Cisco IOS
17 74 (6.81%) Cisco ASA
18 73 (6.72%) DHCP
19 72 (6.63%) IPsec
20 69 (6.35%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.64%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.46%) Power BI
3 3 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.092%) Metadata
5 1 (0.092%) MySQL
5 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (2.03%) JIRA
2 14 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
3 12 (1.10%) GitLab
4 11 (1.01%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.83%) Git
6 4 (0.37%) Cucumber
6 4 (0.37%) Robot Framework
6 4 (0.37%) Selenium
6 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 231 (21.27%) Social Skills
2 159 (14.64%) Finance
3 158 (14.55%) Public Sector
4 111 (10.22%) Telecoms
5 76 (7.00%) Analytical Skills
6 64 (5.89%) Manufacturing
7 59 (5.43%) Banking
8 55 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
9 53 (4.88%) Legal
10 46 (4.24%) Marketing
11 45 (4.14%) Electronics
12 17 (1.57%) Investment Banking
12 17 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
13 15 (1.38%) Financial Institution
14 14 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 10 (0.92%) Law
17 9 (0.83%) Aerospace
17 9 (0.83%) Retail
18 8 (0.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 413 (38.03%) Network Engineer
2 129 (11.88%) Architect
3 90 (8.29%) Cisco Engineer
4 78 (7.18%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 77 (7.09%) Network Architect
6 73 (6.72%) Senior
7 67 (6.17%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 60 (5.52%) Security Engineer
9 54 (4.97%) Analyst
10 51 (4.70%) Consultant
10 51 (4.70%) IT Support
11 47 (4.33%) Network Consultant
12 40 (3.68%) Network Security Engineer
13 35 (3.22%) Desktop Support
13 35 (3.22%) Senior Network Engineer
14 34 (3.13%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 33 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 33 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
16 30 (2.76%) Data Network Engineer
17 28 (2.58%) Infrastructure Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (5.71%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.57%) LDAP
3 16 (1.47%) Flash
4 14 (1.29%) XMPP
5 10 (0.92%) NETCONF
5 10 (0.92%) SAML
6 9 (0.83%) YANG
7 8 (0.74%) Jinja
8 7 (0.64%) JSON
9 6 (0.55%) XML
10 5 (0.46%) Node.js
10 5 (0.46%) OpenConfig
10 5 (0.46%) RFC 2544
11 4 (0.37%) HTML
11 4 (0.37%) REST
11 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
11 4 (0.37%) VML
12 2 (0.18%) CSS
12 2 (0.18%) Django
12 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 293 (26.98%) Data Centre
2 49 (4.51%) PKI
3 33 (3.04%) Replication
4 32 (2.95%) Linux Command Line
5 31 (2.85%) Data Protection Act
6 28 (2.58%) Clustering
6 28 (2.58%) Onboarding
7 27 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
8 24 (2.21%) Cloud Native
8 24 (2.21%) Operational Technology
9 23 (2.12%) Driving Licence
10 18 (1.66%) Product Ownership
10 18 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 15 (1.38%) Video Conferencing
12 13 (1.20%) NHS
13 12 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
14 11 (1.01%) CMDB
14 11 (1.01%) SCADA
15 10 (0.92%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 181 (16.67%) Windows
2 102 (9.39%) Linux
3 64 (5.89%) Windows Server
4 52 (4.79%) Mac OS
5 51 (4.70%) Android
6 30 (2.76%) Windows 10
7 22 (2.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (1.47%) Unix
9 6 (0.55%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.37%) CatOS
11 4 (0.37%) Solaris
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 1 (0.092%) CentOS
14 1 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (14.27%) Migration
2 135 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
3 97 (8.93%) Load Balancing
4 91 (8.38%) Agile
5 89 (8.20%) Network Design
6 87 (8.01%) High Availability
6 87 (8.01%) ITIL
7 82 (7.55%) Roadmaps
8 76 (7.00%) Cybersecurity
9 75 (6.91%) ITSM
10 73 (6.72%) Project Delivery
11 70 (6.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 67 (6.17%) Change Management
13 59 (5.43%) Collaborative Working
14 58 (5.34%) Stakeholder Management
15 57 (5.25%) Service Management
16 54 (4.97%) Network Architecture
17 53 (4.88%) Continuous Improvement
17 53 (4.88%) Network Monitoring
18 51 (4.70%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 121 (11.14%) Python
2 52 (4.79%) PowerShell
3 28 (2.58%) Bash
4 16 (1.47%) Perl
5 9 (0.83%) JavaScript
5 9 (0.83%) SQL
6 8 (0.74%) Lisp
7 4 (0.37%) C
7 4 (0.37%) PHP
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.092%) C++
9 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 427 (39.32%) Security Cleared
2 335 (30.85%) SC Cleared
3 291 (26.80%) Cisco Certification
4 235 (21.64%) CCNP
5 107 (9.85%) CCNA
6 104 (9.58%) DV Cleared
7 85 (7.83%) Degree
8 74 (6.81%) CCIE
9 24 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 21 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
11 20 (1.84%) JNCIS
12 18 (1.66%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
13 17 (1.57%) CISSP
14 16 (1.47%) JNCIP
15 14 (1.29%) ITIL Certification
15 14 (1.29%) JNCIA
16 13 (1.20%) AWS Certification
16 13 (1.20%) CCSE
16 13 (1.20%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (3.04%) NIST
3 32 (2.95%) SLA
4 22 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (1.66%) GDPR
5 18 (1.66%) PMO
6 14 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.20%) NCSC
8 6 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 6 (0.55%) QA
9 4 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
10 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.28%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.28%) RMADS
11 2 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.092%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.092%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.092%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 1 (0.092%) JTAG
12 1 (0.092%) MiFID
System Software
1 139 (12.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 100 (9.21%) Active Directory
3 63 (5.80%) VMware NSX
4 59 (5.43%) vSphere
5 42 (3.87%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (1.66%) Firmware
7 16 (1.47%) GPFS
7 16 (1.47%) NFS
8 15 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
9 13 (1.20%) Docker
10 11 (1.01%) Hyper-V
11 8 (0.74%) SRDF
12 4 (0.37%) vCloud
12 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.18%) KVM
14 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 2 (0.18%) Snort
14 2 (0.18%) Squid
15 1 (0.092%) Xen
Systems Management
1 101 (9.30%) Ansible
2 94 (8.66%) FortiGate
3 42 (3.87%) Terraform
3 42 (3.87%) vCenter Server
4 36 (3.31%) vRealize
5 25 (2.30%) SCCM
6 20 (1.84%) Grafana
7 19 (1.75%) VxRail
8 16 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
9 14 (1.29%) Prometheus
10 12 (1.10%) Cisco CUCM
10 12 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
11 10 (0.92%) Kubernetes
12 9 (0.83%) Nagios
13 8 (0.74%) WSUS
14 7 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.64%) Nessus
15 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
16 5 (0.46%) SCOM
Vendors
1 270 (24.86%) Palo Alto
2 181 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 179 (16.48%) Juniper
4 176 (16.21%) VMware
5 155 (14.27%) F5
6 138 (12.71%) Aruba
7 108 (9.94%) Fortinet
8 107 (9.85%) CheckPoint
9 103 (9.48%) SolarWinds
10 100 (9.21%) Meraki
11 91 (8.38%) ServiceNow
12 76 (7.00%) Dell
13 65 (5.99%) HP
14 53 (4.88%) Splunk
15 50 (4.60%) Arista
16 45 (4.14%) IBM
16 45 (4.14%) Zscaler
17 44 (4.05%) SAP
18 42 (3.87%) Apple
19 30 (2.76%) Citrix