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 16 October 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
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 86 60
Rank change year-on-year -43 -26 -6
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,191 987 1,279
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 2.97% 3.40%
As % of the Vendors category 5.16% 6.22% 7.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 760 633 761
10th Percentile £256 £263 £263
25th Percentile £400 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £638 £657
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -5.61% -2.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 51 34
10th Percentile £27.10 - £18.95
25th Percentile £44.00 £25.15 £20.27
Median hourly rate £57.13 £30.00 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +90.42% +10.09% -37.82%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.29 £52.81
90th Percentile £78.75 £89.63 £74.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +57.14% -6.67% -21.05%

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 23,086 15,878 16,792
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.74% 47.72% 44.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,928 9,791 9,890
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £623 £613 £625
90th Percentile £713 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,458 809 574
10th Percentile £13.60 £14.96 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.01 £17.87 £16.44
Median hourly rate £24.19 £24.62 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -24.82% -25.40%
75th Percentile £55.88 £37.50 £64.40
90th Percentile £77.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.18 £21.39 £30.21
% change year-on-year +8.37% -29.18% -30.96%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -48 985 £495 -1.00% 328
UK excluding London -44 704 £463 -5.61% 303
London -39 366 £500 +5.26% 67
Work from Home -40 293 £475 +2.43% 64
North of England +5 234 £485 +2.11% 67
North West +20 161 £483 +7.33% 29
Midlands -44 128 £450 - 55
West Midlands -27 124 £450 - 28
South East -80 119 £430 -14.00% 66
Scotland +3 96 £400 -5.88% 18
Yorkshire -18 66 £500 +2.15% 29
East of England -2 62 £500 +12.36% 33
South West -40 55 £560 +1.73% 50
Wales +11 28 £376 +88.13% 15
North East -35 9 £375 +114.29% 9
Northern Ireland +2 8 £110 -76.95% 6
Channel Islands -3 3 £600 -17.24%
East Midlands -21 3 £500 +217.46% 27

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 37 (3.11%) SharePoint
2 33 (2.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.18%) CMS
4 12 (1.01%) Confluence
5 9 (0.76%) OpenStack
6 8 (0.67%) IIS
6 8 (0.67%) SAS
7 7 (0.59%) Apache
8 6 (0.50%) JBoss
9 4 (0.34%) nginx
10 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
10 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.17%) Skype for Business
12 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
12 1 (0.084%) FactoryTalk
12 1 (0.084%) Mendix
12 1 (0.084%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 46 (3.86%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.68%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.084%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.084%) Monis
1 1 (0.084%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.084%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
1 1 (0.084%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 234 (19.65%) Azure
2 147 (12.34%) AWS
3 94 (7.89%) Microsoft 365
4 68 (5.71%) Entra ID
5 34 (2.85%) GitHub
6 33 (2.77%) OneDrive
7 32 (2.69%) GCP
8 21 (1.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 15 (1.26%) Nutanix
9 15 (1.26%) Power Platform
10 14 (1.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 13 (1.09%) OpenShift
12 11 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
12 11 (0.92%) SaaS
13 9 (0.76%) OCI
14 8 (0.67%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (0.67%) Microsoft Purview
15 7 (0.59%) Azure DevOps
15 7 (0.59%) Cloudflare
15 7 (0.59%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 483 (40.55%) Firewall
2 350 (29.39%) WAN
3 286 (24.01%) BGP
4 271 (22.75%) LAN
5 261 (21.91%) Network Security
6 254 (21.33%) VPN
7 212 (17.80%) Wireless
8 183 (15.37%) OSPF
9 174 (14.61%) VLAN
10 162 (13.60%) DNS
11 144 (12.09%) SD-WAN
12 141 (11.84%) MPLS
13 131 (11.00%) Wi-Fi
14 105 (8.82%) TCP/IP
15 98 (8.23%) Cisco Nexus
16 96 (8.06%) DHCP
17 94 (7.89%) Cisco ISE
18 91 (7.64%) Cisco IOS
19 84 (7.05%) Cisco ASA
20 69 (5.79%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.27%) SQL Server
2 8 (0.67%) Power BI
3 6 (0.50%) Hadoop
4 5 (0.42%) Big Data
5 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.25%) Metadata
6 3 (0.25%) MySQL
7 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.084%) Apache Hive
8 1 (0.084%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 41 (3.44%) Git
2 16 (1.34%) JIRA
3 13 (1.09%) GitLab
4 11 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
5 6 (0.50%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.084%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.084%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.084%) Zephyr
General
1 277 (23.26%) Social Skills
2 138 (11.59%) Finance
3 121 (10.16%) Telecoms
4 109 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
5 74 (6.21%) Banking
6 60 (5.04%) Public Sector
7 57 (4.79%) Documentation Skills
8 46 (3.86%) Legal
9 24 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
10 22 (1.85%) Investment Banking
11 18 (1.51%) Retail
12 17 (1.43%) Financial Institution
13 15 (1.26%) Military
14 12 (1.01%) Law
15 11 (0.92%) Manufacturing
16 10 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 8 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
17 8 (0.67%) Police
18 6 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
19 5 (0.42%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 584 (49.03%) Network Engineer
2 181 (15.20%) Senior
3 151 (12.68%) Architect
4 143 (12.01%) Cisco Engineer
5 133 (11.17%) Senior Network Engineer
6 118 (9.91%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 81 (6.80%) Security Engineer
8 78 (6.55%) Network Architect
9 60 (5.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 58 (4.87%) Network Security Engineer
11 44 (3.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 43 (3.61%) Lead
13 42 (3.53%) Field Engineer
14 41 (3.44%) Analyst
15 40 (3.36%) Support Engineer
16 35 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
16 35 (2.94%) Telecoms Engineer
17 28 (2.35%) Consultant
18 27 (2.27%) Data Network Engineer
19 26 (2.18%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (6.80%) Terraform
2 54 (4.53%) 802.1X
3 35 (2.94%) REST
4 21 (1.76%) JSON
4 21 (1.76%) YAML
5 20 (1.68%) XMPP
6 14 (1.18%) NETCONF
7 11 (0.92%) SAML
7 11 (0.92%) YANG
8 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Graph
8 7 (0.59%) RESTCONF
9 5 (0.42%) Flash
9 5 (0.42%) OpenConfig
10 3 (0.25%) .NET
10 3 (0.25%) Django
10 3 (0.25%) Elastic Stack
10 3 (0.25%) Java RMI
10 3 (0.25%) LAMP
10 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
10 3 (0.25%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 270 (22.67%) Data Centre
2 53 (4.45%) Hybrid Cloud
3 51 (4.28%) Onboarding
3 51 (4.28%) Video Conferencing
4 48 (4.03%) Driving Licence
5 38 (3.19%) Data Protection Act
5 38 (3.19%) PKI
6 37 (3.11%) Operational Technology
7 32 (2.69%) Management Information System
8 26 (2.18%) Public Cloud
9 24 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (1.76%) Clustering
11 20 (1.68%) Cloud Native
12 19 (1.60%) Private Cloud
12 19 (1.60%) Replication
13 15 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
13 15 (1.26%) Virtual Team
14 13 (1.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 13 (1.09%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 234 (19.65%) Windows
2 114 (9.57%) Linux
3 93 (7.81%) Windows Server
4 24 (2.02%) macOS
4 24 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.43%) Ubuntu
5 17 (1.43%) Windows 10
6 10 (0.84%) Android
7 8 (0.67%) Unix
7 8 (0.67%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.59%) AIX
8 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.42%) CentOS
10 4 (0.34%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.25%) VMS
11 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.084%) CatOS
12 1 (0.084%) Debian
12 1 (0.084%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (15.53%) Migration
2 167 (14.02%) Project Delivery
3 148 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
4 128 (10.75%) ITIL
5 127 (10.66%) Stakeholder Management
6 99 (8.31%) Load Balancing
7 98 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 97 (8.14%) Change Management
9 93 (7.81%) High Availability
10 92 (7.72%) Network Design
11 90 (7.56%) Validation
12 86 (7.22%) Infrastructure as Code
13 84 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
14 76 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
14 76 (6.38%) Zero Trust
15 73 (6.13%) Data Protection
15 73 (6.13%) Technical Leadership
16 63 (5.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 62 (5.21%) ITSM
18 60 (5.04%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 136 (11.42%) Python
2 54 (4.53%) PowerShell
3 29 (2.43%) Bash
4 28 (2.35%) SQL
5 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.17%) Bicep
6 2 (0.17%) Go
6 2 (0.17%) Java
6 2 (0.17%) Lisp
6 2 (0.17%) Perl
7 1 (0.084%) C++
7 1 (0.084%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.084%) Ladder Logic
7 1 (0.084%) R
Qualifications
1 320 (26.87%) Cisco Certification
2 275 (23.09%) Security Cleared
3 226 (18.98%) CCNP
4 203 (17.04%) SC Cleared
5 126 (10.58%) CCNA
6 69 (5.79%) CCIE
7 68 (5.71%) Degree
7 68 (5.71%) DV Cleared
8 24 (2.02%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (1.85%) CISSP
10 20 (1.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 16 (1.34%) AWS Certification
11 16 (1.34%) MCSE
12 14 (1.18%) Azure Certification
13 13 (1.09%) CCSE
13 13 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
14 12 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
14 12 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
15 11 (0.92%) ISTQB
16 10 (0.84%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.27%) SLA
2 31 (2.60%) NIST
3 26 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 20 (1.68%) QA
5 17 (1.43%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
7 10 (0.84%) GDPR
8 6 (0.50%) GRC
8 6 (0.50%) NCSC
9 5 (0.42%) Data Quality
9 5 (0.42%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.42%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 4 (0.34%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.25%) PMO
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 146 (12.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 127 (10.66%) Active Directory
3 53 (4.45%) vSphere
4 37 (3.11%) VMware NSX
5 34 (2.85%) VMware ESXi
6 29 (2.43%) Firmware
6 29 (2.43%) Hyper-V
7 28 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (1.43%) Docker
9 6 (0.50%) NFS
10 5 (0.42%) FreeRADIUS
10 5 (0.42%) GPFS
10 5 (0.42%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.34%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.25%) Postfix
12 3 (0.25%) SRDF
12 3 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.17%) IAG
13 2 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 137 (11.50%) Ansible
2 70 (5.88%) FortiGate
3 34 (2.85%) Cisco CUCM
4 27 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.18%) Kubernetes
6 21 (1.76%) Cisco Prime
7 19 (1.60%) SCCM
8 17 (1.43%) vCenter Server
9 12 (1.01%) Nagios
10 9 (0.76%) Grafana
10 9 (0.76%) WMI
11 8 (0.67%) Failover Clustering
11 8 (0.67%) Puppet
12 7 (0.59%) CASB
12 7 (0.59%) Prometheus
12 7 (0.59%) WSUS
13 6 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
13 6 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
14 5 (0.42%) SolarWinds Orion
14 5 (0.42%) vRealize
Vendors
1 263 (22.08%) Palo Alto
2 242 (20.32%) Microsoft
3 206 (17.30%) Fortinet
3 206 (17.30%) VMware
4 160 (13.43%) F5
5 131 (11.00%) Meraki
6 125 (10.50%) Juniper
7 99 (8.31%) CheckPoint
8 96 (8.06%) Aruba
9 87 (7.30%) ServiceNow
10 78 (6.55%) SolarWinds
11 75 (6.30%) Arista
12 56 (4.70%) Zscaler
13 43 (3.61%) Splunk
14 37 (3.11%) Red Hat
15 29 (2.43%) Dell
16 26 (2.18%) NetApp
16 26 (2.18%) Nokia
17 24 (2.02%) Infoblox
18 20 (1.68%) Citrix