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 14 August 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
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 75 66
Rank change year-on-year -44 -9 -10
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,186 1,068 1,198
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.22% 3.24% 3.08%
As % of the Vendors category 5.33% 6.86% 7.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 776 658 740
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.20% - +7.53%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £580
90th Percentile £643 £638 £651
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £498
% change year-on-year -5.00% +0.50% +10.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 40 33
10th Percentile £26.72 £25.14 £15.43
25th Percentile £37.53 £25.15 £22.40
Median hourly rate £53.75 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.17% +9.09% -42.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £59.38 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.10 £83.66 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +83.33% -40.00% -9.62%

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 22,262 15,561 17,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.70% 47.27% 43.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,777 9,523 10,618
10th Percentile £313 £280 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £522
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.21% -0.57%
75th Percentile £610 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £702 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,140 803 837
10th Percentile £14.69 £14.56 £13.67
25th Percentile £18.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -28.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £47.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.88 £67.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.23 £21.35 £28.00
% change year-on-year +50.97% -23.77% -17.57%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -47 1,009 £500 - 728
UK excluding London -42 711 £475 -5.00% 606
London -38 366 £500 - 257
Work from Home -25 289 £477 -1.14% 165
North of England -15 243 £497 +4.04% 152
North West +8 176 £484 +1.89% 68
South East -53 167 £489 -6.90% 146
Midlands -28 131 £425 -17.48% 82
West Midlands -23 125 £420 -18.45% 43
Scotland +27 91 £413 -2.94% 42
Yorkshire -47 63 £500 +1.63% 58
South West -62 55 £500 -9.09% 83
East of England -15 35 £500 -9.09% 66
Wales -9 18 £468 +133.75% 30
Northern Ireland +9 7 £110 -68.71% 15
North East -44 5 £388 +19.23% 28
East Midlands -39 3 £525 +6.33% 39
Channel Islands +1 1 £550 -24.14%

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 34 (2.87%) SharePoint
2 27 (2.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.01%) Confluence
4 10 (0.84%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.59%) Apache
6 6 (0.51%) SAS
7 5 (0.42%) JBoss
8 4 (0.34%) nginx
9 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
9 3 (0.25%) IIS
9 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.17%) CMS
11 1 (0.084%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.084%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.084%) Mendix
11 1 (0.084%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 47 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.19%) MS Visio
3 25 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.084%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 244 (20.57%) Azure
2 151 (12.73%) AWS
3 88 (7.42%) Microsoft 365
4 63 (5.31%) Entra ID
5 28 (2.36%) OneDrive
6 27 (2.28%) GitHub
7 22 (1.85%) GCP
8 19 (1.60%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 18 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 14 (1.18%) Power Platform
11 12 (1.01%) Nutanix
12 11 (0.93%) SaaS
13 10 (0.84%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (0.84%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (0.59%) Cloudflare
14 7 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (0.59%) IaaS
14 7 (0.59%) Rubrik
15 6 (0.51%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 519 (43.76%) Firewall
2 363 (30.61%) WAN
3 314 (26.48%) BGP
4 291 (24.54%) LAN
5 260 (21.92%) VPN
6 246 (20.74%) Network Security
7 213 (17.96%) OSPF
8 200 (16.86%) Wireless
9 197 (16.61%) DNS
10 176 (14.84%) VLAN
11 146 (12.31%) SD-WAN
12 127 (10.71%) MPLS
13 123 (10.37%) Wi-Fi
14 116 (9.78%) Cisco Nexus
15 113 (9.53%) DHCP
16 108 (9.11%) Cisco ISE
17 104 (8.77%) VXLAN
18 94 (7.93%) TCP/IP
19 92 (7.76%) Cisco ASA
20 82 (6.91%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (2.11%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.51%) Power BI
3 5 (0.42%) Big Data
3 5 (0.42%) Hadoop
4 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.25%) MySQL
6 2 (0.17%) Metadata
6 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.084%) Apache Hive
7 1 (0.084%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 28 (2.36%) Git
2 21 (1.77%) JIRA
3 13 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (0.93%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.76%) GitLab
6 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.084%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.084%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.084%) Zephyr
General
1 278 (23.44%) Social Skills
2 113 (9.53%) Finance
3 105 (8.85%) Telecoms
4 96 (8.09%) Analytical Skills
5 63 (5.31%) Public Sector
6 62 (5.23%) Banking
7 56 (4.72%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (3.12%) Legal
9 22 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
10 21 (1.77%) Financial Institution
11 19 (1.60%) Investment Banking
12 17 (1.43%) Law
13 16 (1.35%) Retail
14 14 (1.18%) Military
15 12 (1.01%) Police
16 10 (0.84%) Manufacturing
17 9 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 9 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
18 7 (0.59%) Marketing
19 5 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 593 (50.00%) Network Engineer
2 164 (13.83%) Senior
3 137 (11.55%) Architect
4 136 (11.47%) Cisco Engineer
5 123 (10.37%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 116 (9.78%) Senior Network Engineer
7 87 (7.34%) Security Engineer
8 73 (6.16%) Network Architect
9 69 (5.82%) Network Security Engineer
10 57 (4.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 49 (4.13%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 40 (3.37%) Data Network Engineer
13 39 (3.29%) Field Engineer
14 34 (2.87%) Analyst
15 32 (2.70%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 32 (2.70%) Data Engineer
16 29 (2.45%) Automation Engineer
16 29 (2.45%) Lead
16 29 (2.45%) Network Specialist
17 28 (2.36%) Telecoms Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.66%) 802.1X
2 22 (1.85%) REST
3 14 (1.18%) SAML
4 9 (0.76%) Flash
4 9 (0.76%) JSON
4 9 (0.76%) NETCONF
4 9 (0.76%) YAML
5 8 (0.67%) XMPP
6 7 (0.59%) OpenConfig
6 7 (0.59%) RESTCONF
6 7 (0.59%) YANG
7 6 (0.51%) Jinja
7 6 (0.51%) Microsoft Graph
8 4 (0.34%) LDAP
9 3 (0.25%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.25%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.25%) LAMP
9 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
9 3 (0.25%) Middleware
10 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 277 (23.36%) Data Centre
2 60 (5.06%) PKI
3 52 (4.38%) Hybrid Cloud
4 42 (3.54%) Onboarding
5 40 (3.37%) Clustering
6 39 (3.29%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (2.87%) Driving Licence
8 32 (2.70%) Operational Technology
9 31 (2.61%) Replication
9 31 (2.61%) Video Conferencing
10 22 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (1.77%) Cloud Native
12 18 (1.52%) Enterprise Storage
12 18 (1.52%) Linux Command Line
12 18 (1.52%) Public Cloud
13 17 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
14 16 (1.35%) SCADA
15 14 (1.18%) EMC VMAX
15 14 (1.18%) Management Information System
15 14 (1.18%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 221 (18.63%) Windows
2 125 (10.54%) Linux
3 76 (6.41%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.52%) Windows 10
5 17 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.35%) Ubuntu
7 13 (1.10%) Unix
8 10 (0.84%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.76%) AIX
9 9 (0.76%) Android
10 7 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.42%) Data ONTAP
12 4 (0.34%) CentOS
12 4 (0.34%) VMS
12 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.084%) Debian
13 1 (0.084%) Oracle Linux
13 1 (0.084%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (15.18%) Migration
2 143 (12.06%) ITIL
3 137 (11.55%) Problem-Solving
4 136 (11.47%) Project Delivery
5 132 (11.13%) Load Balancing
6 125 (10.54%) High Availability
7 97 (8.18%) Change Management
8 91 (7.67%) Network Design
9 85 (7.17%) Continuous Improvement
9 85 (7.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 81 (6.83%) ITSM
11 79 (6.66%) Stakeholder Management
12 76 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
13 68 (5.73%) CI/CD
14 67 (5.65%) Technical Leadership
14 67 (5.65%) Validation
15 64 (5.40%) Network Monitoring
16 58 (4.89%) Service Management
16 58 (4.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 57 (4.81%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 140 (11.80%) Python
2 61 (5.14%) PowerShell
3 32 (2.70%) Bash
4 24 (2.02%) SQL
5 5 (0.42%) Shell Script
6 4 (0.34%) C
6 4 (0.34%) Java
7 3 (0.25%) C++
7 3 (0.25%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.084%) Bicep
9 1 (0.084%) Go
9 1 (0.084%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 334 (28.16%) Cisco Certification
2 303 (25.55%) Security Cleared
3 229 (19.31%) CCNP
4 208 (17.54%) SC Cleared
5 134 (11.30%) CCNA
6 89 (7.50%) DV Cleared
7 71 (5.99%) Degree
8 64 (5.40%) CCIE
9 25 (2.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 20 (1.69%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (1.60%) MCSE
13 17 (1.43%) Azure Certification
14 15 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
14 15 (1.26%) Server+ Certification
15 13 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (1.10%) JNCIP
15 13 (1.10%) JNCIS
16 12 (1.01%) CCSE
17 11 (0.93%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (3.96%) SLA
2 29 (2.45%) NIST
3 22 (1.85%) QA
4 18 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 17 (1.43%) Cyber Essentials
6 14 (1.18%) NCSC
7 6 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.51%) PCI DSS
7 6 (0.51%) PMO
8 5 (0.42%) GDPR
8 5 (0.42%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.34%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 1 (0.084%) GRC
12 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 144 (12.14%) VMware Infrastructure
2 111 (9.36%) Active Directory
3 43 (3.63%) VMware NSX
4 42 (3.54%) vSphere
5 41 (3.46%) VMware ESXi
6 33 (2.78%) Firmware
7 29 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
8 28 (2.36%) Hyper-V
9 15 (1.26%) Docker
10 13 (1.10%) NFS
11 9 (0.76%) GPFS
12 8 (0.67%) SRDF
13 6 (0.51%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 5 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
14 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
15 3 (0.25%) Postfix
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 143 (12.06%) Ansible
2 97 (8.18%) FortiGate
3 73 (6.16%) Terraform
4 32 (2.70%) Kubernetes
5 30 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (1.77%) SCCM
7 20 (1.69%) Cisco CUCM
8 19 (1.60%) vCenter Server
9 18 (1.52%) Cisco Prime
10 17 (1.43%) Grafana
11 16 (1.35%) Prometheus
12 10 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
13 9 (0.76%) Puppet
13 9 (0.76%) vRealize
14 8 (0.67%) WMI
14 8 (0.67%) WSUS
15 7 (0.59%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.59%) Failover Clustering
15 7 (0.59%) Nagios
16 6 (0.51%) VxRail
Vendors
1 258 (21.75%) Palo Alto
2 225 (18.97%) F5
3 219 (18.47%) Microsoft
4 205 (17.28%) Fortinet
5 202 (17.03%) VMware
6 154 (12.98%) Juniper
7 103 (8.68%) CheckPoint
8 97 (8.18%) Meraki
8 97 (8.18%) ServiceNow
9 96 (8.09%) SolarWinds
10 91 (7.67%) Aruba
11 72 (6.07%) Arista
12 60 (5.06%) Splunk
13 53 (4.47%) Zscaler
14 35 (2.95%) Dell
15 34 (2.87%) Red Hat
16 26 (2.19%) Infoblox
17 25 (2.11%) Extreme Networks
18 23 (1.94%) Nokia
19 22 (1.85%) EMC