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 13 January 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
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 58 56
Rank change year-on-year -36 -2 +37
Contract jobs citing Cisco 996 1,113 1,550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.72% 3.55% 3.61%
As % of the Vendors category 5.89% 7.75% 8.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 676 674 927
10th Percentile £263 £300 £252
25th Percentile £361 £404 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.20% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £550 £580 £600
90th Percentile £609 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 22 91
10th Percentile £21.46 £15.51 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.88 £23.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £21.44 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +203.18% -36.95% +32.24%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.75 £65.98
90th Percentile £92.25 £75.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £20.19 £43.90
% change year-on-year +267.85% -54.01% +72.02%

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 16,901 14,359 18,960
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.19% 45.79% 44.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,866 8,496 12,022
10th Percentile £300 £285 £253
25th Percentile £410 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 797 420 687
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.60 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.88 £19.59 £17.74
Median hourly rate £23.83 £27.13 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.17% -37.64% +59.63%
75th Percentile £47.50 £60.00 £63.29
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.38 £24.43 £44.50
% change year-on-year -12.47% -45.11% +80.27%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 January 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 -41 823 £481 -3.75% 434
UK excluding London -15 668 £475 - 426
Work from Home -21 273 £450 -10.22% 165
London -68 241 £475 -8.65% 86
South East -4 199 £500 -0.25% 132
Midlands +4 149 £380 -18.50% 63
North of England -55 145 £475 -1.55% 87
West Midlands +12 129 £380 -20.00% 37
North West -17 108 £481 -1.79% 44
Scotland +43 80 £425 +13.33% 25
South West -54 46 £550 +16.40% 45
East of England -12 31 £445 +11.25% 58
Yorkshire -68 29 £450 +5.88% 31
East Midlands -18 19 £158 -58.00% 25
Wales +2 17 £170 -56.83% 18
Northern Ireland +6 12 £475 - 10
North East -6 10 £175 -64.10% 13

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 51 (5.12%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 21 (2.11%) Confluence
4 20 (2.01%) Apache
5 14 (1.41%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.41%) WebLogic
6 8 (0.80%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.70%) Appian
7 7 (0.70%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.50%) IIS
8 5 (0.50%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.30%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.20%) CICS
10 2 (0.20%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.10%) JBoss
11 1 (0.10%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 75 (7.53%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (3.92%) MS Visio
3 21 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 15 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.50%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.10%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.10%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 20 (2.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.10%) Actimize
3 1 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 171 (17.17%) Azure
2 150 (15.06%) AWS
3 91 (9.14%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (4.22%) GCP
5 32 (3.21%) Entra ID
6 19 (1.91%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.51%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (1.41%) Datadog
9 12 (1.20%) SaaS
10 11 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
11 10 (1.00%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (1.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 10 (1.00%) OpenShift
11 10 (1.00%) Serverless
12 7 (0.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 7 (0.70%) GitHub
12 7 (0.70%) IaaS
12 7 (0.70%) PaaS
12 7 (0.70%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 397 (39.86%) Firewall
2 271 (27.21%) WAN
3 199 (19.98%) VPN
4 190 (19.08%) LAN
5 169 (16.97%) BGP
6 152 (15.26%) Wireless
7 151 (15.16%) Network Security
8 134 (13.45%) SD-WAN
9 125 (12.55%) OSPF
10 102 (10.24%) DNS
11 92 (9.24%) MPLS
12 88 (8.84%) VLAN
13 78 (7.83%) Cisco ISE
14 72 (7.23%) Wi-Fi
15 69 (6.93%) Cisco IOS
16 68 (6.83%) IPsec
17 67 (6.73%) Cisco Nexus
18 65 (6.53%) TCP/IP
19 55 (5.52%) DHCP
20 51 (5.12%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.10%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.50%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.50%) Power BI
3 3 (0.30%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.20%) MariaDB
4 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.10%) Metadata
5 1 (0.10%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 24 (2.41%) JIRA
2 16 (1.61%) GitLab
3 12 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
4 9 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.80%) Git
5 8 (0.80%) Robot Framework
6 7 (0.70%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.70%) Selenium
6 7 (0.70%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.20%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.10%) Bitbucket
General
1 232 (23.29%) Social Skills
2 167 (16.77%) Public Sector
3 137 (13.76%) Finance
4 124 (12.45%) Telecoms
5 76 (7.63%) Analytical Skills
6 63 (6.33%) Manufacturing
7 51 (5.12%) Documentation Skills
8 45 (4.52%) Electronics
8 45 (4.52%) Marketing
9 41 (4.12%) Banking
10 38 (3.82%) Legal
11 14 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
12 13 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 11 (1.10%) Aerospace
13 11 (1.10%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.80%) Law
15 6 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.60%) Military
15 6 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 357 (35.84%) Network Engineer
2 117 (11.75%) Architect
3 78 (7.83%) Network Architect
4 77 (7.73%) Cisco Engineer
5 65 (6.53%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 63 (6.33%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 61 (6.12%) Senior
8 56 (5.62%) Analyst
8 56 (5.62%) Consultant
9 53 (5.32%) IT Support
10 47 (4.72%) Network Consultant
10 47 (4.72%) Support Engineer
11 44 (4.42%) Security Engineer
12 38 (3.82%) Desktop Support
13 35 (3.51%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 32 (3.21%) Senior Network Engineer
15 30 (3.01%) Network Security Engineer
15 30 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
16 27 (2.71%) 3rd Line Engineer
17 26 (2.61%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (3.82%) 802.1X
2 16 (1.61%) XMPP
3 14 (1.41%) Flash
4 12 (1.20%) Jinja
5 11 (1.10%) JSON
5 11 (1.10%) NETCONF
5 11 (1.10%) YANG
6 9 (0.90%) RFC 2544
6 9 (0.90%) XML
7 8 (0.80%) LDAP
8 5 (0.50%) Node.js
9 4 (0.40%) HTML
9 4 (0.40%) REST
9 4 (0.40%) VML
10 3 (0.30%) OpenConfig
10 3 (0.30%) SAML
11 2 (0.20%) CSS
11 2 (0.20%) Middleware
11 2 (0.20%) Regular Expression
11 2 (0.20%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 252 (25.30%) Data Centre
2 38 (3.82%) PKI
3 30 (3.01%) Linux Command Line
4 27 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
4 27 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
4 27 (2.71%) Replication
5 26 (2.61%) Cloud Native
5 26 (2.61%) Onboarding
6 24 (2.41%) Driving Licence
7 23 (2.31%) Operational Technology
8 17 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
9 15 (1.51%) Security Posture
10 13 (1.31%) NHS
11 12 (1.20%) Fibre Optics
11 12 (1.20%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
12 11 (1.10%) CMDB
13 10 (1.00%) Management Information System
14 9 (0.90%) Clustering
14 9 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 179 (17.97%) Windows
2 111 (11.14%) Linux
3 74 (7.43%) Windows Server
4 60 (6.02%) Mac OS
5 55 (5.52%) Android
6 36 (3.61%) Windows 10
7 23 (2.31%) Unix
8 20 (2.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.60%) Solaris
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.30%) VMS
11 3 (0.30%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.30%) Windows 8
11 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.20%) CatOS
12 2 (0.20%) CentOS
12 2 (0.20%) zOS
13 1 (0.10%) MVS
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
2 125 (12.55%) Migration
3 82 (8.23%) ITIL
3 82 (8.23%) Network Design
4 80 (8.03%) Agile
4 80 (8.03%) Service Management
5 77 (7.73%) Roadmaps
6 75 (7.53%) Project Delivery
7 74 (7.43%) ITSM
8 66 (6.63%) Business Intelligence
9 64 (6.43%) High Availability
9 64 (6.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 62 (6.22%) Change Management
10 62 (6.22%) Network Architecture
11 59 (5.92%) Cybersecurity
12 55 (5.52%) Collaborative Working
13 54 (5.42%) Continuous Improvement
14 53 (5.32%) Incident Response
14 53 (5.32%) Load Balancing
15 51 (5.12%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 116 (11.65%) Python
2 61 (6.12%) PowerShell
3 39 (3.92%) Bash
4 32 (3.21%) SQL
5 23 (2.31%) Perl
6 15 (1.51%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.80%) Lisp
8 6 (0.60%) C++
9 5 (0.50%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.30%) Java
11 2 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.10%) Go
12 1 (0.10%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 434 (43.57%) Security Cleared
2 345 (34.64%) SC Cleared
3 257 (25.80%) Cisco Certification
4 208 (20.88%) CCNP
5 101 (10.14%) DV Cleared
6 95 (9.54%) CCNA
7 75 (7.53%) Degree
8 70 (7.03%) CCIE
9 25 (2.51%) ITIL Certification
10 24 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
11 23 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
12 18 (1.81%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.81%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.71%) JNCIE
14 16 (1.61%) JNCIS
15 15 (1.51%) CISSP
16 14 (1.41%) CCDP
17 13 (1.31%) CCSE
17 13 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
17 13 (1.31%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (3.51%) SLA
2 28 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (2.11%) GDPR
4 19 (1.91%) NIST
5 16 (1.61%) PCI DSS
5 16 (1.61%) PMO
6 14 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.50%) NCSC
8 4 (0.40%) QA
9 3 (0.30%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.30%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.20%) RMADS
11 1 (0.10%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.10%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.10%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.10%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.10%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 134 (13.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 122 (12.25%) Active Directory
3 67 (6.73%) VMware NSX
4 44 (4.42%) vSphere
5 25 (2.51%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (2.01%) Firmware
7 18 (1.81%) Docker
8 16 (1.61%) Hyper-V
9 15 (1.51%) NFS
9 15 (1.51%) Virtual Machines
10 14 (1.41%) GPFS
11 7 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.60%) KVM
12 6 (0.60%) Snort
13 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.40%) Squid
15 3 (0.30%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.20%) vCloud
16 2 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
16 2 (0.20%) Xen
Systems Management
1 85 (8.53%) Ansible
2 65 (6.53%) FortiGate
3 47 (4.72%) vCenter Server
4 45 (4.52%) Terraform
5 30 (3.01%) vRealize
6 29 (2.91%) SCCM
7 19 (1.91%) Microsoft Intune
8 18 (1.81%) Kubernetes
9 14 (1.41%) VxRail
10 13 (1.31%) Cisco CUCM
11 11 (1.10%) WSUS
12 10 (1.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.90%) EMC NetWorker
13 9 (0.90%) Nessus
14 8 (0.80%) SCOM
15 7 (0.70%) Cisco Prime
15 7 (0.70%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.70%) HP SiteScope
15 7 (0.70%) Nagios
16 6 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 224 (22.49%) Palo Alto
2 180 (18.07%) Microsoft
3 167 (16.77%) Juniper
4 163 (16.37%) VMware
5 109 (10.94%) Fortinet
5 109 (10.94%) SolarWinds
6 106 (10.64%) Aruba
7 104 (10.44%) F5
8 95 (9.54%) CheckPoint
9 93 (9.34%) Meraki
10 76 (7.63%) Dell
11 70 (7.03%) ServiceNow
12 64 (6.43%) HP
13 49 (4.92%) Splunk
14 46 (4.62%) Apple
15 45 (4.52%) SAP
16 39 (3.92%) Zscaler
17 38 (3.82%) IBM
17 38 (3.82%) Oracle
18 36 (3.61%) AppDynamics