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 April 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
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 67 65
Rank change year-on-year -32 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,090 1,044 1,342
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.31% 3.57% 3.08%
As % of the Vendors category 5.50% 7.53% 7.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 735 658 821
10th Percentile £300 £302 £254
25th Percentile £400 £407 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% +0.52%
75th Percentile £558 £588 £600
90th Percentile £636 £650 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £483 £475
% change year-on-year -1.55% +1.58% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 19 46
10th Percentile £21.46 £17.55 £13.65
25th Percentile £36.25 £21.58 £23.34
Median hourly rate £52.50 £37.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% +36.36% -45.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.88 £41.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £72.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.14 £33.52 £30.00
% change year-on-year +88.34% +11.74% -41.94%

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 19,815 13,870 18,498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.00% 47.46% 42.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,654 8,704 11,485
10th Percentile £313 £289 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.48% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 992 558 1,082
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 £14.40
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -49.44%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £24.19 £21.50
% change year-on-year +11.64% +12.49% -46.25%

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 April 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 30 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cisco in the UK

Cisco
Top 16 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 April 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 -46 902 £475 -7.12% 466
UK excluding London -34 683 £475 -1.55% 476
Work from Home -31 283 £450 -10.00% 105
London -63 278 £500 -0.99% 107
South East -13 203 £500 - 107
North of England -51 180 £478 -4.50% 108
North West -15 148 £479 -2.30% 47
Midlands -20 134 £380 -14.37% 67
West Midlands -10 122 £361 -15.18% 49
Scotland +22 65 £450 +12.78% 37
South West -63 49 £510 -7.27% 67
East of England -12 44 £495 +13.14% 58
Yorkshire -78 33 £450 -14.29% 42
Wales -7 30 £425 - 27
Northern Ireland +11 9 £385 - 19
East Midlands -46 8 £415 -12.63% 18

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 29 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 24 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.19%) Confluence
4 6 (0.55%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
5 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.18%) CMS
7 1 (0.092%) JBoss
7 1 (0.092%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 42 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (3.12%) MS Visio
3 14 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 16 (1.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 185 (16.97%) Azure
2 141 (12.94%) AWS
3 79 (7.25%) Microsoft 365
4 33 (3.03%) Entra ID
5 26 (2.39%) GCP
6 13 (1.19%) Nutanix
6 13 (1.19%) OpenShift
6 13 (1.19%) SaaS
6 13 (1.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 11 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 11 (1.01%) GitHub
8 8 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (0.64%) Datadog
10 6 (0.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 6 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
10 6 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (0.55%) Mimecast
11 5 (0.46%) Amazon EventBridge
11 5 (0.46%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 483 (44.31%) Firewall
2 361 (33.12%) WAN
3 278 (25.50%) BGP
4 270 (24.77%) LAN
5 244 (22.39%) VPN
6 220 (20.18%) Network Security
7 202 (18.53%) OSPF
8 156 (14.31%) SD-WAN
9 152 (13.94%) DNS
10 149 (13.67%) Wireless
11 140 (12.84%) VLAN
12 102 (9.36%) MPLS
13 101 (9.27%) Cisco Nexus
14 97 (8.90%) Cisco ISE
15 90 (8.26%) VXLAN
16 88 (8.07%) Wi-Fi
17 79 (7.25%) IPsec
18 77 (7.06%) DHCP
19 72 (6.61%) Cisco ASA
20 70 (6.42%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
1 5 (0.46%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
3 2 (0.18%) Power BI
4 1 (0.092%) Big Data
4 1 (0.092%) Metadata
4 1 (0.092%) MySQL
4 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.11%) JIRA
2 15 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
3 9 (0.83%) Git
4 8 (0.73%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.55%) GitLab
6 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 227 (20.83%) Social Skills
2 121 (11.10%) Finance
3 93 (8.53%) Public Sector
4 72 (6.61%) Telecoms
5 65 (5.96%) Analytical Skills
6 61 (5.60%) Banking
7 53 (4.86%) Legal
8 52 (4.77%) Documentation Skills
9 32 (2.94%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.74%) Marketing
11 18 (1.65%) Investment Banking
12 16 (1.47%) Organisational Skills
13 15 (1.38%) Financial Institution
14 14 (1.28%) Law
14 14 (1.28%) Retail
15 13 (1.19%) Electronics
16 11 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
17 8 (0.73%) Aerospace
18 7 (0.64%) Military
18 7 (0.64%) Police
Job Titles
1 493 (45.23%) Network Engineer
2 133 (12.20%) Architect
3 109 (10.00%) Cisco Engineer
4 103 (9.45%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 103 (9.45%) Senior
5 81 (7.43%) Security Engineer
6 79 (7.25%) Network Architect
7 75 (6.88%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 59 (5.41%) Network Security Engineer
9 54 (4.95%) Senior Network Engineer
10 46 (4.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 44 (4.04%) Data Network Engineer
12 40 (3.67%) Analyst
13 35 (3.21%) Data Engineer
14 32 (2.94%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 31 (2.84%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 25 (2.29%) Network Specialist
16 25 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
17 22 (2.02%) Lead
17 22 (2.02%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (6.24%) 802.1X
2 19 (1.74%) LDAP
3 14 (1.28%) Flash
4 13 (1.19%) SAML
5 9 (0.83%) REST
5 9 (0.83%) XMPP
6 6 (0.55%) Jinja
6 6 (0.55%) NETCONF
7 5 (0.46%) Node.js
7 5 (0.46%) YANG
8 4 (0.37%) HTML
8 4 (0.37%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.37%) VML
9 3 (0.28%) JSON
10 2 (0.18%) ADO
10 2 (0.18%) CSS
10 2 (0.18%) Django
10 2 (0.18%) Middleware
10 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 287 (26.33%) Data Centre
2 54 (4.95%) PKI
3 43 (3.94%) Replication
4 40 (3.67%) Clustering
5 36 (3.30%) Data Protection Act
6 32 (2.94%) Operational Technology
7 31 (2.84%) Hybrid Cloud
8 30 (2.75%) Cloud Native
8 30 (2.75%) Onboarding
9 21 (1.93%) Driving Licence
9 21 (1.93%) Linux Command Line
10 17 (1.56%) Enterprise Storage
10 17 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (1.56%) Video Conferencing
11 15 (1.38%) SCADA
11 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
12 14 (1.28%) EMC VMAX
13 13 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
14 11 (1.01%) IoT
14 11 (1.01%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 199 (18.26%) Windows
2 103 (9.45%) Linux
3 69 (6.33%) Windows Server
4 27 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 22 (2.02%) Mac OS
6 21 (1.93%) Android
7 19 (1.74%) Unix
8 16 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.46%) CatOS
11 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.37%) Solaris
13 3 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.28%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.092%) CentOS
15 1 (0.092%) Debian
15 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (14.68%) Migration
2 133 (12.20%) Problem-Solving
3 115 (10.55%) High Availability
3 115 (10.55%) Load Balancing
4 97 (8.90%) Network Design
5 96 (8.81%) ITIL
6 79 (7.25%) ITSM
7 75 (6.88%) Change Management
8 73 (6.70%) Agile
9 65 (5.96%) Cybersecurity
10 64 (5.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 64 (5.87%) Disaster Recovery
11 62 (5.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 60 (5.50%) Network Monitoring
12 60 (5.50%) Project Delivery
13 55 (5.05%) Roadmaps
14 54 (4.95%) Technical Leadership
15 51 (4.68%) Data Protection
15 51 (4.68%) Infrastructure as Code
16 49 (4.50%) Capacity Planning
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.83%) Python
2 53 (4.86%) PowerShell
3 20 (1.83%) Bash
4 9 (0.83%) SQL
5 8 (0.73%) C
6 4 (0.37%) PHP
7 3 (0.28%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) Java
7 3 (0.28%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.28%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Lisp
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.092%) Bicep
9 1 (0.092%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.092%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 390 (35.78%) Security Cleared
2 312 (28.62%) Cisco Certification
3 295 (27.06%) SC Cleared
4 238 (21.83%) CCNP
5 114 (10.46%) CCNA
6 110 (10.09%) DV Cleared
7 76 (6.97%) Degree
8 68 (6.24%) CCIE
9 26 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (1.93%) JNCIS
11 21 (1.93%) MCSE
11 21 (1.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 18 (1.65%) Network+ Certification
13 17 (1.56%) Azure Certification
14 15 (1.38%) JNCIP
14 15 (1.38%) VCAP
15 14 (1.28%) JNCIA
15 14 (1.28%) MCSA
16 13 (1.19%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (3.12%) SLA
2 32 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (2.57%) NIST
4 24 (2.20%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.56%) NCSC
6 13 (1.19%) PMO
7 12 (1.10%) QA
8 11 (1.01%) GDPR
9 7 (0.64%) JSP 440
9 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.28%) RMADS
13 2 (0.18%) ISA99
13 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
14 1 (0.092%) Data Quality
14 1 (0.092%) GRC
System Software
1 145 (13.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 88 (8.07%) Active Directory
3 58 (5.32%) VMware NSX
4 54 (4.95%) vSphere
5 51 (4.68%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (2.11%) Firmware
6 23 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
7 20 (1.83%) Hyper-V
8 17 (1.56%) NFS
9 14 (1.28%) GPFS
10 9 (0.83%) SRDF
11 7 (0.64%) Docker
12 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.37%) vCloud
13 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.28%) KVM
14 3 (0.28%) Snort
14 3 (0.28%) UAG
15 1 (0.092%) Squid
Systems Management
1 117 (10.73%) Ansible
2 104 (9.54%) FortiGate
3 47 (4.31%) Terraform
4 37 (3.39%) vCenter Server
5 26 (2.39%) vRealize
6 24 (2.20%) Grafana
7 20 (1.83%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (1.74%) SCCM
9 18 (1.65%) Prometheus
10 16 (1.47%) Kubernetes
11 14 (1.28%) VxRail
12 13 (1.19%) Cisco Prime
13 12 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
14 10 (0.92%) Nagios
15 8 (0.73%) Cisco CUCM
16 7 (0.64%) EMC NetWorker
16 7 (0.64%) EMC VPLEX
16 7 (0.64%) SCOM
17 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
17 6 (0.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 292 (26.79%) Palo Alto
2 199 (18.26%) F5
3 183 (16.79%) VMware
4 172 (15.78%) Microsoft
5 168 (15.41%) Juniper
6 146 (13.39%) Fortinet
7 126 (11.56%) Aruba
8 125 (11.47%) CheckPoint
9 95 (8.72%) Meraki
10 88 (8.07%) ServiceNow
11 85 (7.80%) SolarWinds
12 63 (5.78%) Arista
13 55 (5.05%) Dell
14 51 (4.68%) Splunk
15 46 (4.22%) Zscaler
16 36 (3.30%) IBM
17 34 (3.12%) HP
18 31 (2.84%) EMC
19 29 (2.66%) Extreme Networks
20 26 (2.39%) Broadcom