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 10 December 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
10 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 87 61 56
Rank change year-on-year -26 -5 +35
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,048 1,226 1,681
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.89% 3.43% 3.70%
As % of the Vendors category 6.10% 7.56% 8.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 727 1,017
10th Percentile £263 £286 £263
25th Percentile £367 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £567 £580 £588
90th Percentile £600 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £491 £450
% change year-on-year -0.25% +9.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 29 84
10th Percentile £24.04 £18.08 £18.29
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.00 £24.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.50 £41.88
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -10.45% +62.87%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £91.13 £75.00 £77.13
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 17,187 16,208 20,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.37% 45.39% 45.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,917 9,626 13,106
10th Percentile £290 £290 £255
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £612 £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 864 500 679
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.46 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.09 £18.69 £19.88
Median hourly rate £24.00 £29.39 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.33% -33.97% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.35 £62.51 £64.70
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +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 10 December 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 10 December 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 10 December 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 -23 884 £500 - 451
UK excluding London -13 671 £490 -0.25% 425
London -40 294 £450 -11.98% 135
Work from Home -40 252 £450 -10.00% 149
South East -3 207 £500 -0.99% 171
Midlands +13 162 £385 -12.00% 63
West Midlands +21 141 £419 -16.25% 48
North of England -51 131 £483 +1.58% 82
North West -24 85 £500 +5.26% 48
Scotland +31 70 £425 +6.25% 34
South West -41 46 £550 +18.92% 35
Yorkshire -59 37 £450 -10.00% 28
East of England -11 35 £445 -15.24% 30
East Midlands -19 21 £158 -58.00% 15
Wales +3 16 £170 -56.13% 21
North East +3 11 £175 -64.10% 7
Northern Ireland +1 11 £475 - 1
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 63 (6.01%) Microsoft Exchange
2 49 (4.68%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.81%) Confluence
4 17 (1.62%) Apache
5 15 (1.43%) Skype for Business
6 14 (1.34%) WebLogic
7 8 (0.76%) OpenStack
8 7 (0.67%) Appian
8 7 (0.67%) Mattermost
9 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
10 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.19%) CICS
11 2 (0.19%) IIS
11 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2010
12 1 (0.095%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.095%) JBoss
12 1 (0.095%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 89 (8.49%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (3.24%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
4 14 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.095%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.095%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.095%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.095%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 17 (1.62%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.095%) Actimize
3 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 162 (15.46%) Azure
2 143 (13.65%) AWS
3 114 (10.88%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (3.91%) GCP
5 34 (3.24%) Entra ID
6 15 (1.43%) Azure Monitor
6 15 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (1.34%) Datadog
8 13 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
9 12 (1.15%) Akamai
9 12 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 11 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (0.95%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.95%) OpenShift
11 10 (0.95%) Serverless
12 9 (0.86%) Nutanix
13 8 (0.76%) GitHub
13 8 (0.76%) Power Platform
13 8 (0.76%) SaaS
14 7 (0.67%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 427 (40.74%) Firewall
2 241 (23.00%) WAN
3 200 (19.08%) LAN
4 181 (17.27%) Wireless
5 173 (16.51%) VPN
6 171 (16.32%) BGP
7 135 (12.88%) Network Security
7 135 (12.88%) SD-WAN
8 128 (12.21%) OSPF
9 117 (11.16%) DNS
10 99 (9.45%) Cisco ISE
11 98 (9.35%) Cisco IOS
12 93 (8.87%) Cisco Nexus
13 90 (8.59%) Wi-Fi
14 88 (8.40%) MPLS
15 75 (7.16%) VLAN
16 71 (6.77%) DHCP
17 63 (6.01%) IPsec
18 55 (5.25%) Cisco ASA
19 54 (5.15%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.24%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.48%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.48%) Power BI
3 4 (0.38%) NoSQL
4 3 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.19%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.095%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.095%) Metadata
6 1 (0.095%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 20 (1.91%) JIRA
2 17 (1.62%) GitLab
3 13 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.05%) 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 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.19%) Subversion
9 1 (0.095%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.095%) Hudson
9 1 (0.095%) Mercurial
9 1 (0.095%) Snyk
General
1 231 (22.04%) Social Skills
2 177 (16.89%) Public Sector
3 130 (12.40%) Finance
3 130 (12.40%) Telecoms
4 73 (6.97%) Analytical Skills
5 66 (6.30%) Manufacturing
6 43 (4.10%) Banking
6 43 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
6 43 (4.10%) Electronics
6 43 (4.10%) Marketing
7 23 (2.19%) Legal
8 21 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 19 (1.81%) Games
10 13 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
10 13 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (0.95%) Aerospace
12 9 (0.86%) Military
13 8 (0.76%) Investment Banking
14 7 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 366 (34.92%) Network Engineer
2 121 (11.55%) Architect
3 79 (7.54%) Network Architect
4 78 (7.44%) Cisco Engineer
5 71 (6.77%) Analyst
6 63 (6.01%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 63 (6.01%) Consultant
6 63 (6.01%) Senior
7 54 (5.15%) Support Engineer
8 53 (5.06%) IT Support
9 51 (4.87%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 51 (4.87%) Security Engineer
10 49 (4.68%) Network Consultant
11 43 (4.10%) Platform Engineer
12 37 (3.53%) Desktop Support
13 36 (3.44%) Network Security Engineer
14 34 (3.24%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 32 (3.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 29 (2.77%) Juniper Engineer
16 29 (2.77%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (3.34%) 802.1X
2 18 (1.72%) XMPP
3 14 (1.34%) RFC 2544
4 13 (1.24%) JSON
4 13 (1.24%) NETCONF
4 13 (1.24%) YANG
5 12 (1.15%) Flash
5 12 (1.15%) Jinja
6 11 (1.05%) XML
7 8 (0.76%) REST
8 7 (0.67%) LDAP
8 7 (0.67%) Node.js
9 4 (0.38%) RESTCONF
10 3 (0.29%) HTML
10 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
10 3 (0.29%) SAML
10 3 (0.29%) VML
11 2 (0.19%) Middleware
11 2 (0.19%) SOAP
11 2 (0.19%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 241 (23.00%) Data Centre
2 37 (3.53%) PKI
3 30 (2.86%) Driving Licence
4 28 (2.67%) Linux Command Line
4 28 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 27 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (2.29%) Cloud Native
7 22 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 22 (2.10%) Replication
8 21 (2.00%) Operational Technology
9 19 (1.81%) Video Conferencing
10 13 (1.24%) NHS
11 12 (1.15%) Fibre Optics
11 12 (1.15%) Management Information System
11 12 (1.15%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.15%) Virtual Team
12 11 (1.05%) Enterprise Storage
12 11 (1.05%) Security Posture
13 10 (0.95%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 184 (17.56%) Windows
2 113 (10.78%) Linux
3 85 (8.11%) Mac OS
4 81 (7.73%) Android
5 65 (6.20%) Windows Server
6 33 (3.15%) Windows 10
7 21 (2.00%) 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%) CatOS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.095%) Oracle Linux
14 1 (0.095%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (11.74%) Problem-Solving
2 116 (11.07%) Migration
3 89 (8.49%) Service Management
4 84 (8.02%) Network Design
5 77 (7.35%) Agile
6 76 (7.25%) ITIL
6 76 (7.25%) Roadmaps
7 70 (6.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 65 (6.20%) ITSM
9 63 (6.01%) Business Intelligence
10 61 (5.82%) Change Management
10 61 (5.82%) Project Delivery
11 60 (5.73%) Collaborative Working
12 59 (5.63%) Cybersecurity
12 59 (5.63%) Network Architecture
13 56 (5.34%) Incident Response
14 55 (5.25%) High Availability
15 54 (5.15%) Load Balancing
16 53 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
17 49 (4.68%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 129 (12.31%) Python
2 80 (7.63%) PowerShell
3 41 (3.91%) Bash
4 33 (3.15%) SQL
5 24 (2.29%) Perl
6 14 (1.34%) 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%) C
11 3 (0.29%) Go
12 2 (0.19%) PHP
12 2 (0.19%) VB
13 1 (0.095%) Ruby
13 1 (0.095%) VBA
Qualifications
1 436 (41.60%) Security Cleared
2 334 (31.87%) SC Cleared
3 269 (25.67%) Cisco Certification
4 204 (19.47%) CCNP
5 114 (10.88%) DV Cleared
6 101 (9.64%) CCNA
7 77 (7.35%) Degree
8 71 (6.77%) CCIE
9 25 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 25 (2.39%) ITIL Certification
10 22 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
11 21 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
12 19 (1.81%) CISSP
13 18 (1.72%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.72%) JNCIE
14 17 (1.62%) Azure Certification
15 13 (1.24%) CCDP
15 13 (1.24%) JNCIA
15 13 (1.24%) JNCIS
16 11 (1.05%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (4.01%) SLA
2 31 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.10%) GDPR
4 18 (1.72%) NIST
5 16 (1.53%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (1.15%) 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%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.095%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.095%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.095%) JTAG
12 1 (0.095%) NIST 800
System Software
1 157 (14.98%) Active Directory
2 122 (11.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 57 (5.44%) VMware NSX
4 36 (3.44%) vSphere
5 25 (2.39%) Firmware
6 24 (2.29%) VMware ESXi
7 21 (2.00%) Docker
8 16 (1.53%) Hyper-V
9 13 (1.24%) NFS
10 12 (1.15%) GPFS
11 11 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
12 7 (0.67%) Snort
12 7 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.48%) KVM
13 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 5 (0.48%) Squid
14 3 (0.29%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.19%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
16 1 (0.095%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 90 (8.59%) Ansible
2 60 (5.73%) FortiGate
3 51 (4.87%) SCCM
4 48 (4.58%) Terraform
5 45 (4.29%) vCenter Server
6 38 (3.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (2.67%) vRealize
8 22 (2.10%) Kubernetes
9 17 (1.62%) Cisco CUCM
10 14 (1.34%) VxRail
11 11 (1.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.95%) WSUS
13 9 (0.86%) EMC NetWorker
13 9 (0.86%) Nessus
14 8 (0.76%) SCOM
14 8 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
15 7 (0.67%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
16 6 (0.57%) NetBackup
17 5 (0.48%) Nexpose
Vendors
1 215 (20.52%) Microsoft
2 192 (18.32%) Juniper
3 174 (16.60%) Palo Alto
4 156 (14.89%) VMware
5 134 (12.79%) Fortinet
6 122 (11.64%) SolarWinds
7 115 (10.97%) F5
8 113 (10.78%) Meraki
9 90 (8.59%) Dell
10 86 (8.21%) CheckPoint
11 73 (6.97%) HP
11 73 (6.97%) Splunk
12 69 (6.58%) Aruba
13 62 (5.92%) ServiceNow
14 55 (5.25%) Apple
15 45 (4.29%) SAP
16 37 (3.53%) Zscaler
17 36 (3.44%) AppDynamics
18 34 (3.24%) IBM
19 33 (3.15%) Oracle