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 May 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 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 65 66
Rank change year-on-year -38 +1 -5
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,134 1,041 1,310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 3.64% 3.07%
As % of the Vendors category 5.67% 7.63% 7.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 778 649 808
10th Percentile £302 £300 £240
25th Percentile £403 £413 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £573 £588 £588
90th Percentile £645 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £460
% change year-on-year -5.00% +8.70% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 19 36
10th Percentile £26.44 £17.28 £13.29
25th Percentile £44.00 £21.40 £16.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £36.65 £26.25
Median % change year-on-year +50.09% +39.60% -47.50%
75th Percentile £74.26 £46.25 £41.25
90th Percentile £79.28 £69.75 £55.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £25.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year +120.00% +31.58% -62.00%

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 20,005 13,641 18,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.05% 47.74% 42.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,636 8,503 11,247
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £621 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.51% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,034 563 1,105
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.01
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.00 £22.30
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% +12.11% -47.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.62 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.29 £22.00 £21.46
% change year-on-year +33.11% +2.52% -45.74%

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 May 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 May 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 27 May 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 -46 949 £476 -4.90% 621
UK excluding London -37 703 £475 -5.00% 608
London -63 298 £500 - 168
Work from Home -24 296 £450 -10.00% 132
North of England -42 203 £479 -4.20% 141
South East -15 199 £500 - 160
North West -5 166 £481 -3.75% 58
Midlands -35 134 £401 -10.89% 82
West Midlands -17 126 £400 -8.57% 48
Scotland +21 72 £450 +12.78% 47
South West -63 53 £513 -6.82% 83
East of England -4 41 £495 +15.45% 64
Yorkshire -75 36 £475 -5.57% 54
Wales -19 23 £468 +13.33% 28
Northern Ireland +9 9 £380 +8.57% 16
East Midlands -53 4 £458 -10.73% 33
North East -31 2 £425 +30.77% 31
Channel Islands -1 1 £550 +22.22%

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 28 (2.47%) SharePoint
2 19 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.23%) Confluence
4 10 (0.88%) Apache
5 6 (0.53%) IIS
5 6 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.26%) nginx
6 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.18%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.18%) CMS
8 1 (0.088%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 41 (3.62%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (2.91%) MS Visio
3 16 (1.41%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.35%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.088%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 12 (1.06%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 209 (18.43%) Azure
2 150 (13.23%) AWS
3 69 (6.08%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.00%) Entra ID
5 22 (1.94%) GCP
6 16 (1.41%) SaaS
7 15 (1.32%) Nutanix
8 13 (1.15%) OpenShift
9 11 (0.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
9 11 (0.97%) GitHub
9 11 (0.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (0.79%) OneDrive
11 8 (0.71%) IaaS
12 7 (0.62%) Power Platform
13 6 (0.53%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Purview
14 5 (0.44%) Cloudflare
14 5 (0.44%) Datadog
14 5 (0.44%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 500 (44.09%) Firewall
2 377 (33.25%) WAN
3 295 (26.01%) LAN
4 289 (25.49%) BGP
5 244 (21.52%) VPN
6 233 (20.55%) Network Security
7 211 (18.61%) OSPF
8 167 (14.73%) DNS
9 164 (14.46%) Wireless
10 159 (14.02%) VLAN
11 151 (13.32%) SD-WAN
12 107 (9.44%) Cisco Nexus
13 103 (9.08%) VXLAN
14 102 (8.99%) MPLS
15 97 (8.55%) Cisco ISE
15 97 (8.55%) Wi-Fi
16 90 (7.94%) DHCP
17 84 (7.41%) IPsec
18 71 (6.26%) Multicast
19 68 (6.00%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.23%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.35%) MySQL
3 2 (0.18%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.088%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.088%) Big Data
4 1 (0.088%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.088%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.088%) MariaDB
4 1 (0.088%) Metadata
4 1 (0.088%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.088%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 24 (2.12%) JIRA
2 15 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
3 11 (0.97%) Git
4 7 (0.62%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.44%) GitLab
6 2 (0.18%) Bitbucket
General
1 241 (21.25%) Social Skills
2 120 (10.58%) Finance
3 67 (5.91%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (5.64%) Public Sector
5 61 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
5 61 (5.38%) Telecoms
6 55 (4.85%) Banking
7 52 (4.59%) Legal
8 26 (2.29%) Manufacturing
9 19 (1.68%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
10 17 (1.50%) Retail
11 16 (1.41%) Financial Institution
12 14 (1.23%) Law
13 10 (0.88%) Marketing
14 9 (0.79%) Military
15 8 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.62%) Police
17 4 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 4 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 515 (45.41%) Network Engineer
2 139 (12.26%) Architect
3 123 (10.85%) Cisco Engineer
4 113 (9.96%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 112 (9.88%) Senior
6 85 (7.50%) Network Architect
7 84 (7.41%) Security Engineer
8 78 (6.88%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 61 (5.38%) Senior Network Engineer
10 60 (5.29%) Network Security Engineer
11 50 (4.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.14%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (3.00%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 34 (3.00%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.91%) Analyst
15 27 (2.38%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 27 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
16 25 (2.20%) Lead
16 25 (2.20%) Network Specialist
17 23 (2.03%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (6.26%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.59%) LDAP
3 15 (1.32%) Flash
3 15 (1.32%) SAML
4 11 (0.97%) REST
5 7 (0.62%) XMPP
6 6 (0.53%) Jinja
7 4 (0.35%) NETCONF
8 3 (0.26%) HTML
8 3 (0.26%) LAMP
8 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.26%) VML
8 3 (0.26%) YAML
8 3 (0.26%) YANG
9 2 (0.18%) ADO
9 2 (0.18%) CSS
9 2 (0.18%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (0.18%) Middleware
9 2 (0.18%) OpenID
9 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 317 (27.95%) Data Centre
2 53 (4.67%) PKI
3 48 (4.23%) Replication
4 42 (3.70%) Clustering
5 34 (3.00%) Data Protection Act
6 33 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
7 32 (2.82%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.73%) Operational Technology
9 21 (1.85%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.76%) Linux Command Line
10 20 (1.76%) Security Posture
11 18 (1.59%) Cloud Native
12 17 (1.50%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.41%) SCADA
14 15 (1.32%) EMC VMAX
14 15 (1.32%) Enterprise Storage
15 13 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.15%) Virtual Team
16 12 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
17 10 (0.88%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 218 (19.22%) Windows
2 123 (10.85%) Linux
3 72 (6.35%) Windows Server
4 21 (1.85%) Unix
5 20 (1.76%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (1.15%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.88%) Mac OS
8 8 (0.71%) Android
9 7 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.44%) AIX
11 5 (0.44%) CatOS
12 4 (0.35%) CentOS
12 4 (0.35%) Solaris
13 3 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.26%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.088%) Windows 7
15 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (14.37%) Migration
2 128 (11.29%) Problem-Solving
3 125 (11.02%) High Availability
3 125 (11.02%) Load Balancing
4 94 (8.29%) ITIL
5 90 (7.94%) Network Design
6 87 (7.67%) ITSM
7 79 (6.97%) Project Delivery
8 71 (6.26%) Agile
8 71 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 67 (5.91%) Change Management
10 66 (5.82%) Technical Leadership
11 65 (5.73%) Network Monitoring
12 63 (5.56%) Disaster Recovery
13 62 (5.47%) Continuous Improvement
14 58 (5.11%) Cybersecurity
15 54 (4.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 53 (4.67%) Zero Trust
17 52 (4.59%) Network Segmentation
18 49 (4.32%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 116 (10.23%) Python
2 54 (4.76%) PowerShell
3 23 (2.03%) SQL
4 22 (1.94%) Bash
5 7 (0.62%) C
6 4 (0.35%) PHP
7 3 (0.26%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.26%) Lisp
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.088%) Bicep
9 1 (0.088%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 374 (32.98%) Security Cleared
2 346 (30.51%) Cisco Certification
3 282 (24.87%) SC Cleared
4 269 (23.72%) CCNP
5 126 (11.11%) CCNA
6 107 (9.44%) DV Cleared
7 79 (6.97%) Degree
8 66 (5.82%) CCIE
9 32 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
10 26 (2.29%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 24 (2.12%) Network+ Certification
12 23 (2.03%) MCSE
13 18 (1.59%) CCSE
14 17 (1.50%) JNCIS
14 17 (1.50%) Server+ Certification
14 17 (1.50%) VCAP
15 16 (1.41%) Azure Certification
15 16 (1.41%) MCSA
16 15 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
17 14 (1.23%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (3.09%) SLA
2 32 (2.82%) NIST
3 28 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.12%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (1.59%) QA
6 17 (1.50%) NCSC
7 10 (0.88%) PMO
8 7 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
8 7 (0.62%) JSP 440
9 6 (0.53%) GDPR
10 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.26%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.26%) RMADS
12 2 (0.18%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.18%) GRC
12 2 (0.18%) ISA99
12 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 1 (0.088%) JTAG
System Software
1 151 (13.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 87 (7.67%) Active Directory
3 61 (5.38%) vSphere
4 59 (5.20%) VMware ESXi
5 52 (4.59%) VMware NSX
6 32 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
7 25 (2.20%) Firmware
8 18 (1.59%) NFS
9 17 (1.50%) Hyper-V
10 15 (1.32%) GPFS
11 10 (0.88%) SRDF
12 5 (0.44%) Docker
12 5 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.35%) vCloud
13 4 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.26%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.26%) Postfix
14 3 (0.26%) UAG
15 2 (0.18%) Snort
Systems Management
1 134 (11.82%) Ansible
2 101 (8.91%) FortiGate
3 53 (4.67%) Terraform
4 33 (2.91%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.38%) Grafana
6 23 (2.03%) vRealize
7 20 (1.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (1.76%) Prometheus
8 17 (1.50%) Kubernetes
9 16 (1.41%) SCCM
10 14 (1.23%) Cisco Prime
10 14 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (1.06%) Cisco CUCM
11 12 (1.06%) VxRail
12 10 (0.88%) Nagios
13 7 (0.62%) SCOM
14 6 (0.53%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.53%) HAProxy
14 6 (0.53%) WMI
15 5 (0.44%) EMC VPLEX
Vendors
1 298 (26.28%) Palo Alto
2 219 (19.31%) F5
3 191 (16.84%) VMware
4 190 (16.75%) Microsoft
5 163 (14.37%) Fortinet
6 160 (14.11%) Juniper
7 131 (11.55%) Aruba
8 125 (11.02%) CheckPoint
9 102 (8.99%) ServiceNow
10 88 (7.76%) SolarWinds
11 83 (7.32%) Meraki
12 72 (6.35%) Arista
13 55 (4.85%) Splunk
14 48 (4.23%) Zscaler
15 43 (3.79%) Dell
16 34 (3.00%) IBM
17 29 (2.56%) EMC
18 28 (2.47%) Extreme Networks
19 26 (2.29%) Brocade
20 23 (2.03%) Infoblox