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 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
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 62 60
Rank change year-on-year -40 -2 +14
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,091 1,059 1,460
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.49% 3.64% 3.30%
As % of the Vendors category 5.70% 7.71% 7.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 744 680 871
10th Percentile £263 £302 £255
25th Percentile £386 £408 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £588
90th Percentile £625 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +0.26% - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 18 52
10th Percentile £21.33 £17.26 £13.36
25th Percentile £31.01 £20.04 £18.21
Median hourly rate £71.33 £37.07 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.41% +48.29% -48.72%
75th Percentile £74.26 £64.06 £41.25
90th Percentile £94.00 £75.00 £67.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £33.52 £24.00
% change year-on-year +121.52% +39.68% -49.47%

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 19,125 13,735 18,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.57% 47.23% 42.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,245 8,659 11,809
10th Percentile £313 £290 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% - -2.75%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 974 468 1,034
10th Percentile £15.27 £15.44 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.97 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.38 £29.00 £23.56
Median % change year-on-year -12.48% +23.12% -38.82%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £77.43 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £27.43 £21.50
% change year-on-year -13.13% +27.56% -38.57%

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 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 25 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 25 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 -41 912 £481 -3.75% 528
UK excluding London -28 698 £476 +0.26% 493
Work from Home -30 282 £450 -10.00% 103
London -65 270 £500 - 120
South East +2 226 £500 -4.76% 136
North of England -44 179 £481 -3.75% 119
Midlands -22 151 £340 -24.44% 91
North West -14 146 £481 -1.79% 59
West Midlands -2 135 £340 -22.29% 45
Scotland +34 65 £450 +12.50% 25
East of England -8 43 £475 -6.40% 59
South West -73 36 £519 -4.11% 57
Yorkshire -87 27 £450 -14.29% 41
Wales -13 24 £425 +1.49% 17
East Midlands -47 13 £158 -69.27% 46
North East -11 8 £175 -46.15% 19
Northern Ireland - 6 £385 - 7

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 40 (3.67%) SharePoint
2 35 (3.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (1.65%) Confluence
4 7 (0.64%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
6 3 (0.27%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
8 1 (0.092%) JBoss
8 1 (0.092%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 63 (5.77%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (4.03%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
4 15 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 181 (16.59%) Azure
2 157 (14.39%) AWS
3 98 (8.98%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (3.67%) Entra ID
4 40 (3.67%) GCP
5 16 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (1.28%) Datadog
7 12 (1.10%) Nutanix
8 11 (1.01%) OpenShift
9 10 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
10 9 (0.82%) SaaS
11 8 (0.73%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (0.73%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (0.64%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (0.64%) IaaS
12 7 (0.64%) Microsoft Purview
12 7 (0.64%) OneDrive
12 7 (0.64%) Power Platform
12 7 (0.64%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 446 (40.88%) Firewall
2 340 (31.16%) WAN
3 255 (23.37%) BGP
4 252 (23.10%) LAN
5 237 (21.72%) VPN
6 199 (18.24%) Network Security
7 185 (16.96%) OSPF
8 159 (14.57%) Wireless
9 140 (12.83%) SD-WAN
10 128 (11.73%) DNS
11 113 (10.36%) VLAN
12 110 (10.08%) MPLS
13 106 (9.72%) Cisco ISE
14 81 (7.42%) Cisco ASA
15 80 (7.33%) Wi-Fi
16 75 (6.87%) Cisco IOS
17 74 (6.78%) Cisco Nexus
17 74 (6.78%) VXLAN
18 73 (6.69%) DHCP
19 72 (6.60%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.55%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.46%) Power BI
3 3 (0.27%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.092%) Big Data
5 1 (0.092%) Metadata
5 1 (0.092%) MySQL
5 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (2.20%) JIRA
2 12 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
3 11 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.82%) Git
5 8 (0.73%) GitLab
6 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 230 (21.08%) Social Skills
2 159 (14.57%) Finance
3 152 (13.93%) Public Sector
4 102 (9.35%) Telecoms
5 71 (6.51%) Analytical Skills
6 62 (5.68%) Manufacturing
7 59 (5.41%) Banking
8 54 (4.95%) Legal
9 50 (4.58%) Documentation Skills
10 45 (4.12%) Marketing
11 43 (3.94%) Electronics
12 18 (1.65%) Investment Banking
13 17 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
14 16 (1.47%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
16 11 (1.01%) Law
17 10 (0.92%) Retail
18 9 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 8 (0.73%) Aerospace
19 8 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 426 (39.05%) Network Engineer
2 139 (12.74%) Architect
3 98 (8.98%) Cisco Engineer
4 87 (7.97%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 83 (7.61%) Network Architect
6 82 (7.52%) Senior
7 67 (6.14%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 66 (6.05%) Security Engineer
9 54 (4.95%) Analyst
10 49 (4.49%) IT Support
11 45 (4.12%) Consultant
12 42 (3.85%) Network Security Engineer
13 41 (3.76%) Network Consultant
14 40 (3.67%) Senior Network Engineer
15 35 (3.21%) Data Network Engineer
15 35 (3.21%) Desktop Support
15 35 (3.21%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 33 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 33 (3.02%) Solutions Architect
17 29 (2.66%) Infrastructure Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (5.68%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.56%) LDAP
3 16 (1.47%) Flash
4 14 (1.28%) XMPP
5 10 (0.92%) SAML
6 6 (0.55%) NETCONF
6 6 (0.55%) YANG
7 5 (0.46%) Node.js
7 5 (0.46%) OpenConfig
7 5 (0.46%) REST
8 4 (0.37%) HTML
8 4 (0.37%) Jinja
8 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.37%) VML
9 3 (0.27%) JSON
10 2 (0.18%) CSS
10 2 (0.18%) Django
10 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
10 2 (0.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 292 (26.76%) Data Centre
2 52 (4.77%) PKI
3 33 (3.02%) Replication
4 31 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
4 31 (2.84%) Linux Command Line
5 30 (2.75%) Clustering
6 29 (2.66%) Hybrid Cloud
7 28 (2.57%) Onboarding
8 27 (2.47%) Cloud Native
9 25 (2.29%) Operational Technology
10 24 (2.20%) Driving Licence
11 18 (1.65%) Product Ownership
12 16 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.37%) Security Posture
14 14 (1.28%) Video Conferencing
15 13 (1.19%) NHS
15 13 (1.19%) SCADA
16 12 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
16 12 (1.10%) Public Cloud
17 11 (1.01%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 179 (16.41%) Windows
2 103 (9.44%) Linux
3 62 (5.68%) Windows Server
4 48 (4.40%) Android
4 48 (4.40%) Mac OS
5 26 (2.38%) Windows 10
6 22 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.47%) Unix
8 6 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.37%) CatOS
10 4 (0.37%) Solaris
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 2 (0.18%) AIX
11 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.092%) CentOS
12 1 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (14.85%) Migration
2 131 (12.01%) Problem-Solving
3 108 (9.90%) Load Balancing
4 93 (8.52%) High Availability
4 93 (8.52%) Network Design
5 92 (8.43%) ITIL
6 89 (8.16%) Agile
7 79 (7.24%) ITSM
8 77 (7.06%) Roadmaps
9 75 (6.87%) Cybersecurity
10 69 (6.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 68 (6.23%) Change Management
12 65 (5.96%) Project Delivery
13 61 (5.59%) Collaborative Working
14 55 (5.04%) Service Management
14 55 (5.04%) Stakeholder Management
15 54 (4.95%) Network Monitoring
16 53 (4.86%) Continuous Improvement
16 53 (4.86%) Network Architecture
17 51 (4.67%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 123 (11.27%) Python
2 53 (4.86%) PowerShell
3 27 (2.47%) Bash
4 15 (1.37%) Perl
5 7 (0.64%) SQL
6 6 (0.55%) Lisp
7 5 (0.46%) JavaScript
8 4 (0.37%) C
8 4 (0.37%) PHP
9 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
9 2 (0.18%) Korn
9 2 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.092%) C++
10 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 432 (39.60%) Security Cleared
2 334 (30.61%) SC Cleared
3 290 (26.58%) Cisco Certification
4 232 (21.26%) CCNP
5 110 (10.08%) DV Cleared
6 104 (9.53%) CCNA
7 80 (7.33%) Degree
8 76 (6.97%) CCIE
9 24 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (2.02%) JNCIS
11 20 (1.83%) Azure Certification
12 19 (1.74%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (1.56%) CISSP
13 17 (1.56%) JNCIP
13 17 (1.56%) Network+ Certification
14 16 (1.47%) JNCIA
15 14 (1.28%) AWS Certification
15 14 (1.28%) CCSE
16 12 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
16 12 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (3.21%) NIST
3 32 (2.93%) SLA
4 24 (2.20%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (1.74%) GDPR
6 18 (1.65%) PMO
7 17 (1.56%) NCSC
8 14 (1.28%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.37%) JSP 440
10 4 (0.37%) QA
11 3 (0.27%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.27%) RMADS
12 2 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
12 2 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 2 (0.18%) ISA99
13 1 (0.092%) Accessibility
13 1 (0.092%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.092%) GRC
System Software
1 144 (13.20%) VMware Infrastructure
2 93 (8.52%) Active Directory
3 65 (5.96%) VMware NSX
4 59 (5.41%) vSphere
5 42 (3.85%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (1.65%) Firmware
7 16 (1.47%) GPFS
7 16 (1.47%) NFS
8 12 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.92%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.82%) Docker
11 8 (0.73%) SRDF
12 4 (0.37%) Snort
12 4 (0.37%) vCloud
13 3 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.18%) KVM
14 2 (0.18%) Squid
14 2 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.092%) Xen
15 1 (0.092%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 100 (9.17%) Ansible
2 92 (8.43%) FortiGate
3 44 (4.03%) Terraform
4 39 (3.57%) vCenter Server
5 36 (3.30%) vRealize
6 23 (2.11%) Grafana
6 23 (2.11%) SCCM
7 19 (1.74%) VxRail
8 18 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
9 17 (1.56%) Prometheus
10 11 (1.01%) Kubernetes
10 11 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.92%) Cisco CUCM
11 10 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
12 9 (0.82%) Nagios
13 7 (0.64%) Nessus
14 6 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.55%) QRadar
14 6 (0.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 281 (25.76%) Palo Alto
2 183 (16.77%) Juniper
3 182 (16.68%) VMware
4 179 (16.41%) Microsoft
5 164 (15.03%) F5
6 142 (13.02%) Aruba
7 113 (10.36%) Fortinet
8 109 (9.99%) CheckPoint
9 100 (9.17%) SolarWinds
10 95 (8.71%) Meraki
10 95 (8.71%) ServiceNow
11 78 (7.15%) Dell
12 62 (5.68%) HP
13 58 (5.32%) Arista
14 53 (4.86%) Splunk
15 46 (4.22%) IBM
16 43 (3.94%) SAP
17 41 (3.76%) Zscaler
18 38 (3.48%) Apple
19 29 (2.66%) Citrix