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 30 November 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
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 86 63 57
Rank change year-on-year -23 -6 +31
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,049 1,218 1,690
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.93% 3.36% 3.69%
As % of the Vendors category 6.17% 7.43% 8.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 719 1,024
10th Percentile £263 £283 £263
25th Percentile £369 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +0.37%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £600 £649 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +3.58% +5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 31 83
10th Percentile £24.04 £18.19 £18.19
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.00 £24.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £27.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -37.14% +70.17%
75th Percentile £74.26 £57.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £91.13 £75.00 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 £37.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +92.00% -21.05% +42.86%

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 17,009 16,387 20,763
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.45% 45.19% 45.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,762 9,666 13,267
10th Percentile £288 £300 £255
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.59%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 854 520 668
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.50 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.54 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.75 £63.75 £64.55
90th Percentile £74.11 £75.00 £76.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.43 £44.50
% change year-on-year -19.78% -38.37% +97.78%

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 30 November 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 30 November 2025.

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 30 November 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 -22 883 £500 - 331
UK excluding London -10 665 £492 +3.58% 336
London -31 300 £450 -11.76% 86
Work from Home -39 247 £450 -10.00% 106
South East +2 209 £500 - 151
Midlands +19 157 £413 -6.52% 44
West Midlands +28 136 £450 -10.00% 26
North of England -50 127 £476 +0.26% 57
North West -34 81 £492 +3.58% 34
Scotland +30 69 £425 +6.25% 30
South West -35 47 £550 +18.92% 23
East of England -8 37 £445 -15.24% 26
Yorkshire -52 37 £450 -10.00% 19
East Midlands -19 21 £158 -58.00% 16
Wales +2 17 £170 -56.13% 14
Northern Ireland +3 11 £475 -
North East -1 11 £175 -64.10% 4
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -

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 67 (6.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (4.39%) SharePoint
3 17 (1.62%) Apache
3 17 (1.62%) Confluence
4 15 (1.43%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.33%) WebLogic
6 8 (0.76%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.67%) Appian
7 7 (0.67%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.19%) CICS
10 2 (0.19%) IIS
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.095%) Gunicorn
11 1 (0.095%) JBoss
11 1 (0.095%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 89 (8.48%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.67%) MS Visio
3 21 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.095%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.095%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.095%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 14 (1.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.095%) Actimize
3 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 165 (15.73%) Azure
2 139 (13.25%) AWS
3 117 (11.15%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (4.00%) GCP
5 37 (3.53%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.43%) Azure Monitor
6 15 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (1.33%) Azure Sentinel
8 12 (1.14%) Akamai
8 12 (1.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 11 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (1.05%) Datadog
9 11 (1.05%) GitHub
10 10 (0.95%) AWS Lambda
10 10 (0.95%) OpenShift
10 10 (0.95%) SaaS
10 10 (0.95%) Serverless
11 9 (0.86%) Power Platform
12 8 (0.76%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (0.76%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 428 (40.80%) Firewall
2 235 (22.40%) WAN
3 194 (18.49%) LAN
4 180 (17.16%) Wireless
5 167 (15.92%) BGP
6 165 (15.73%) VPN
7 134 (12.77%) Network Security
7 134 (12.77%) SD-WAN
8 123 (11.73%) OSPF
9 121 (11.53%) DNS
10 102 (9.72%) Cisco IOS
11 97 (9.25%) Cisco ISE
12 92 (8.77%) Cisco Nexus
13 87 (8.29%) Wi-Fi
14 85 (8.10%) MPLS
15 77 (7.34%) DHCP
15 77 (7.34%) VLAN
16 58 (5.53%) IPsec
17 57 (5.43%) TCP/IP
18 53 (5.05%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.05%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.57%) Power BI
3 5 (0.48%) DynamoDB
4 4 (0.38%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.19%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.095%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.095%) Metadata
7 1 (0.095%) MySQL
7 1 (0.095%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 20 (1.91%) JIRA
2 19 (1.81%) GitLab
3 14 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
4 13 (1.24%) Git
5 9 (0.86%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.76%) Robot Framework
7 7 (0.67%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.67%) Selenium
7 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.29%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.19%) Snyk
9 2 (0.19%) Subversion
10 1 (0.095%) Hudson
10 1 (0.095%) Mercurial
General
1 231 (22.02%) Social Skills
2 175 (16.68%) Public Sector
3 133 (12.68%) Telecoms
4 129 (12.30%) Finance
5 74 (7.05%) Analytical Skills
6 66 (6.29%) Manufacturing
7 43 (4.10%) Electronics
7 43 (4.10%) Marketing
8 41 (3.91%) Banking
9 40 (3.81%) Documentation Skills
10 26 (2.48%) Legal
11 22 (2.10%) Games
12 21 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 12 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
14 10 (0.95%) Aerospace
14 10 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (0.76%) Investment Banking
15 8 (0.76%) Military
16 6 (0.57%) Local Government
16 6 (0.57%) Retail
Job Titles
1 363 (34.60%) Network Engineer
2 123 (11.73%) Architect
3 82 (7.82%) Cisco Engineer
4 80 (7.63%) Network Architect
5 68 (6.48%) Analyst
6 67 (6.39%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 65 (6.20%) Consultant
8 64 (6.10%) Senior
9 56 (5.34%) Support Engineer
10 53 (5.05%) Security Engineer
11 52 (4.96%) IT Support
12 50 (4.77%) Network Consultant
13 47 (4.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 46 (4.39%) Platform Engineer
15 38 (3.62%) Desktop Support
16 37 (3.53%) Network Security Engineer
17 31 (2.96%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 31 (2.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 31 (2.96%) Juniper Engineer
18 29 (2.76%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (3.24%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.72%) RFC 2544
2 18 (1.72%) XMPP
3 14 (1.33%) Jinja
4 13 (1.24%) JSON
4 13 (1.24%) NETCONF
4 13 (1.24%) YANG
5 11 (1.05%) Flash
5 11 (1.05%) XML
6 8 (0.76%) REST
7 7 (0.67%) Node.js
8 5 (0.48%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.38%) LDAP
10 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
11 2 (0.19%) ARM Templates
11 2 (0.19%) eBPF
11 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
11 2 (0.19%) Middleware
11 2 (0.19%) Regular Expression
11 2 (0.19%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 244 (23.26%) Data Centre
2 36 (3.43%) PKI
3 30 (2.86%) Driving Licence
3 30 (2.86%) Onboarding
4 27 (2.57%) Data Protection Act
5 24 (2.29%) Cloud Native
5 24 (2.29%) Linux Command Line
6 22 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (2.00%) Replication
8 20 (1.91%) Operational Technology
9 18 (1.72%) Video Conferencing
10 16 (1.53%) Fibre Optics
11 13 (1.24%) Management Information System
11 13 (1.24%) NHS
12 12 (1.14%) Product Ownership
12 12 (1.14%) Security Posture
12 12 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
12 12 (1.14%) Virtual Team
13 11 (1.05%) Enterprise Storage
13 11 (1.05%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 184 (17.54%) Windows
2 111 (10.58%) Linux
3 87 (8.29%) Mac OS
4 83 (7.91%) Android
5 64 (6.10%) Windows Server
6 30 (2.86%) Windows 10
7 22 (2.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (1.91%) Unix
9 7 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.48%) CentOS
10 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.29%) VMS
12 3 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.29%) Windows 8
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.095%) MVS
14 1 (0.095%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (11.73%) Problem-Solving
2 117 (11.15%) Migration
3 94 (8.96%) Service Management
4 87 (8.29%) Network Design
5 78 (7.44%) ITIL
6 74 (7.05%) Roadmaps
7 72 (6.86%) Agile
8 70 (6.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 64 (6.10%) Collaborative Working
10 63 (6.01%) Business Intelligence
11 62 (5.91%) ITSM
12 60 (5.72%) Change Management
13 58 (5.53%) Incident Response
13 58 (5.53%) Network Architecture
13 58 (5.53%) Project Delivery
14 56 (5.34%) Cybersecurity
15 53 (5.05%) High Availability
16 52 (4.96%) Continuous Improvement
17 51 (4.86%) Load Balancing
18 50 (4.77%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 134 (12.77%) Python
2 85 (8.10%) PowerShell
3 41 (3.91%) Bash
4 33 (3.15%) SQL
5 25 (2.38%) Perl
6 13 (1.24%) JavaScript
7 9 (0.86%) C++
8 8 (0.76%) Lisp
9 6 (0.57%) Java
9 6 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.38%) Go
11 3 (0.29%) C
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
12 2 (0.19%) VB
13 1 (0.095%) Ruby
13 1 (0.095%) VBA
Qualifications
1 436 (41.56%) Security Cleared
2 331 (31.55%) SC Cleared
3 266 (25.36%) Cisco Certification
4 198 (18.88%) CCNP
5 116 (11.06%) DV Cleared
6 101 (9.63%) CCNA
7 76 (7.24%) Degree
8 69 (6.58%) CCIE
9 24 (2.29%) Computer Science Degree
9 24 (2.29%) ITIL Certification
10 23 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (2.00%) CISSP
11 21 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (1.72%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.72%) JNCIE
13 17 (1.62%) Azure Certification
14 15 (1.43%) JNCIA
15 14 (1.33%) JNCIS
16 13 (1.24%) CCDP
17 11 (1.05%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (4.00%) SLA
2 32 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.10%) GDPR
4 19 (1.81%) NIST
5 16 (1.53%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (1.14%) PMO
8 7 (0.67%) NCSC
9 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.29%) QA
11 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.19%) Def Stans
11 2 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.095%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.095%) GxP
12 1 (0.095%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.095%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.095%) JTAG
12 1 (0.095%) NIST 800
System Software
1 159 (15.16%) Active Directory
2 116 (11.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 54 (5.15%) VMware NSX
4 32 (3.05%) vSphere
5 27 (2.57%) Firmware
6 24 (2.29%) VMware ESXi
7 22 (2.10%) Docker
8 16 (1.53%) Hyper-V
9 12 (1.14%) NFS
10 11 (1.05%) GPFS
10 11 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
11 7 (0.67%) Snort
11 7 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.48%) KVM
12 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 5 (0.48%) Squid
13 3 (0.29%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.19%) Terminal Services
14 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 94 (8.96%) Ansible
2 59 (5.62%) FortiGate
3 53 (5.05%) SCCM
4 47 (4.48%) Terraform
5 44 (4.19%) vCenter Server
6 42 (4.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 23 (2.19%) Kubernetes
7 23 (2.19%) vRealize
8 17 (1.62%) Cisco CUCM
9 11 (1.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (1.05%) VxRail
10 9 (0.86%) EMC NetWorker
10 9 (0.86%) Nessus
10 9 (0.86%) WSUS
11 7 (0.67%) EMC VPLEX
11 7 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
11 7 (0.67%) SCOM
12 6 (0.57%) NetBackup
13 5 (0.48%) Nexpose
13 5 (0.48%) Suricata
Vendors
1 215 (20.50%) Microsoft
2 193 (18.40%) Juniper
3 167 (15.92%) Palo Alto
4 150 (14.30%) VMware
5 134 (12.77%) Fortinet
6 116 (11.06%) SolarWinds
7 112 (10.68%) Meraki
8 111 (10.58%) F5
9 87 (8.29%) Dell
10 81 (7.72%) CheckPoint
11 79 (7.53%) Splunk
12 69 (6.58%) HP
13 66 (6.29%) Aruba
14 62 (5.91%) ServiceNow
15 54 (5.15%) Apple
16 45 (4.29%) SAP
17 37 (3.53%) Zscaler
18 33 (3.15%) AppDynamics
18 33 (3.15%) Oracle
19 30 (2.86%) IBM