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 23 July 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
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 72 66
Rank change year-on-year -43 -6 -8
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,167 1,120 1,269
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.21% 3.43% 3.09%
As % of the Vendors category 5.36% 7.23% 7.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 775 688 780
10th Percentile £297 £303 £245
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £479
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +4.44% +0.79%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £651
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -4.20% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 36 36
10th Percentile £26.72 £25.08 £16.81
25th Percentile £37.53 £25.15 £23.45
Median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +83.33% +9.09% -48.45%
75th Percentile £70.96 £57.81 £50.94
90th Percentile £78.58 £86.32 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £46.39
% change year-on-year +83.33% -35.33% -22.42%

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 21,778 15,500 17,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.30% 47.45% 43.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,534 9,482 11,204
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.72% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,078 764 967
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.75 £13.13
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £26.03
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -3.38% -36.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +51.07% -10.00% -22.24%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -45 996 £494 -1.20% 599
UK excluding London -41 695 £479 -4.20% 529
London -51 352 £500 - 186
Work from Home -38 290 £475 -5.00% 111
North of England -36 223 £493 +0.28% 127
South East -40 182 £511 -2.62% 142
North West -12 166 £485 +2.11% 54
Midlands -34 127 £423 -13.33% 66
West Midlands -27 121 £416 -7.50% 38
Scotland +24 81 £425 - 30
South West -68 55 £500 -9.09% 80
Yorkshire -62 54 £500 - 54
East of England -24 33 £500 -9.09% 60
Wales -17 19 £468 +16.88% 18
Northern Ireland +11 8 £115 -67.14% 15
North East -40 4 £425 +30.77% 19
East Midlands -31 3 £500 -11.11% 28
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 31 (2.66%) SharePoint
2 26 (2.23%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (0.77%) Confluence
3 9 (0.77%) OpenStack
4 7 (0.60%) Apache
5 3 (0.26%) CloudStack
5 3 (0.26%) IIS
5 3 (0.26%) nginx
5 3 (0.26%) SAS
5 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.17%) CMS
7 1 (0.086%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.086%) JBoss
7 1 (0.086%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (4.37%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.14%) MS Visio
3 24 (2.06%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.26%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 5 (0.43%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 231 (19.79%) Azure
2 148 (12.68%) AWS
3 81 (6.94%) Microsoft 365
4 53 (4.54%) Entra ID
5 23 (1.97%) GCP
5 23 (1.97%) GitHub
6 21 (1.80%) OpenShift
7 20 (1.71%) OneDrive
8 18 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 18 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 12 (1.03%) Azure Sentinel
9 12 (1.03%) Nutanix
10 11 (0.94%) SaaS
11 10 (0.86%) Power Platform
12 9 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (0.69%) IaaS
13 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Purview
14 7 (0.60%) Cloudflare
14 7 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (0.51%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 524 (44.90%) Firewall
2 364 (31.19%) WAN
3 311 (26.65%) BGP
4 294 (25.19%) LAN
5 268 (22.96%) VPN
6 254 (21.77%) Network Security
7 219 (18.77%) OSPF
8 207 (17.74%) Wireless
9 194 (16.62%) DNS
10 175 (15.00%) VLAN
11 140 (12.00%) SD-WAN
12 130 (11.14%) MPLS
13 118 (10.11%) Wi-Fi
14 111 (9.51%) Cisco ISE
14 111 (9.51%) DHCP
15 108 (9.25%) Cisco Nexus
16 98 (8.40%) VXLAN
17 93 (7.97%) TCP/IP
18 89 (7.63%) Cisco ASA
19 80 (6.86%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (2.06%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.26%) MySQL
3 3 (0.26%) Power BI
4 2 (0.17%) Metadata
4 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.086%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.086%) Big Data
5 1 (0.086%) ClickHouse
5 1 (0.086%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 21 (1.80%) Git
2 19 (1.63%) JIRA
3 13 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (0.94%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.34%) GitLab
6 1 (0.086%) Bitbucket
General
1 274 (23.48%) Social Skills
2 109 (9.34%) Finance
3 92 (7.88%) Telecoms
4 88 (7.54%) Analytical Skills
5 65 (5.57%) Banking
6 63 (5.40%) Public Sector
7 61 (5.23%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (3.08%) Legal
9 24 (2.06%) Organisational Skills
10 22 (1.89%) Financial Institution
11 19 (1.63%) Investment Banking
12 16 (1.37%) Retail
13 14 (1.20%) Law
13 14 (1.20%) Military
14 11 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 11 (0.94%) Police
15 9 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 6 (0.51%) Marketing
16 6 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 573 (49.10%) Network Engineer
2 153 (13.11%) Senior
3 132 (11.31%) Architect
4 122 (10.45%) Cisco Engineer
5 112 (9.60%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 98 (8.40%) Senior Network Engineer
7 94 (8.05%) Security Engineer
8 73 (6.26%) Network Architect
9 70 (6.00%) Network Security Engineer
10 58 (4.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 55 (4.71%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (3.60%) Data Network Engineer
13 35 (3.00%) Analyst
14 33 (2.83%) Data Engineer
15 32 (2.74%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 29 (2.49%) Field Engineer
17 27 (2.31%) Network Specialist
18 26 (2.23%) Automation Engineer
19 25 (2.14%) Lead
20 24 (2.06%) Data Centre Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (6.77%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.29%) REST
3 14 (1.20%) SAML
4 9 (0.77%) Flash
5 7 (0.60%) LDAP
5 7 (0.60%) NETCONF
6 6 (0.51%) Jinja
6 6 (0.51%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.51%) RESTCONF
6 6 (0.51%) XMPP
6 6 (0.51%) YANG
7 5 (0.43%) JSON
8 4 (0.34%) YAML
9 3 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.26%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.26%) LAMP
9 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
9 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.17%) .NET
10 2 (0.17%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 289 (24.76%) Data Centre
2 62 (5.31%) PKI
3 49 (4.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 38 (3.26%) Clustering
4 38 (3.26%) Data Protection Act
4 38 (3.26%) Onboarding
5 35 (3.00%) Replication
6 34 (2.91%) Driving Licence
7 31 (2.66%) Video Conferencing
8 30 (2.57%) Operational Technology
9 20 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.63%) Cloud Native
10 19 (1.63%) Enterprise Storage
11 18 (1.54%) EMC VMAX
11 18 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
12 17 (1.46%) Public Cloud
13 16 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (1.29%) Security Posture
15 14 (1.20%) SCADA
16 12 (1.03%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 212 (18.17%) Windows
2 128 (10.97%) Linux
3 67 (5.74%) Windows Server
4 19 (1.63%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.54%) Ubuntu
5 18 (1.54%) Unix
6 12 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.77%) AIX
7 9 (0.77%) Android
7 9 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (0.69%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.43%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.43%) VMS
11 4 (0.34%) CentOS
12 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.086%) CatOS
13 1 (0.086%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.086%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.086%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (15.34%) Migration
2 136 (11.65%) Load Balancing
3 128 (10.97%) Problem-Solving
4 121 (10.37%) High Availability
4 121 (10.37%) Project Delivery
5 118 (10.11%) ITIL
6 90 (7.71%) Change Management
7 88 (7.54%) Network Design
8 82 (7.03%) ITSM
9 81 (6.94%) Continuous Improvement
10 79 (6.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 69 (5.91%) Stakeholder Management
12 68 (5.83%) Infrastructure as Code
13 65 (5.57%) CI/CD
14 63 (5.40%) Validation
15 60 (5.14%) Network Monitoring
15 60 (5.14%) Technical Leadership
16 57 (4.88%) Cybersecurity
16 57 (4.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 54 (4.63%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 141 (12.08%) Python
2 58 (4.97%) PowerShell
3 30 (2.57%) Bash
4 24 (2.06%) SQL
5 5 (0.43%) Shell Script
6 4 (0.34%) C
6 4 (0.34%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) Lisp
7 3 (0.26%) PHP
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.086%) Bicep
9 1 (0.086%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 341 (29.22%) Cisco Certification
2 315 (26.99%) Security Cleared
3 244 (20.91%) CCNP
4 217 (18.59%) SC Cleared
5 136 (11.65%) CCNA
6 103 (8.83%) DV Cleared
7 71 (6.08%) Degree
8 63 (5.40%) CCIE
9 25 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 22 (1.89%) Network+ Certification
12 17 (1.46%) Azure Certification
12 17 (1.46%) MCSE
12 17 (1.46%) Server+ Certification
13 15 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
14 13 (1.11%) JNCIP
14 13 (1.11%) JNCIS
15 12 (1.03%) AWS Certification
15 12 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
16 11 (0.94%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (3.77%) SLA
2 32 (2.74%) NIST
3 28 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 24 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
5 20 (1.71%) QA
6 19 (1.63%) NCSC
7 6 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 6 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
7 6 (0.51%) PMO
8 5 (0.43%) GDPR
8 5 (0.43%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.34%) Data Quality
9 4 (0.34%) JSP 440
10 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) GRC
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 1 (0.086%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 135 (11.57%) VMware Infrastructure
2 107 (9.17%) Active Directory
3 45 (3.86%) VMware ESXi
4 44 (3.77%) vSphere
5 41 (3.51%) VMware NSX
6 31 (2.66%) Firmware
7 29 (2.49%) Virtual Machines
8 23 (1.97%) Hyper-V
9 13 (1.11%) NFS
10 12 (1.03%) Docker
10 12 (1.03%) SRDF
11 9 (0.77%) GPFS
12 6 (0.51%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 5 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.26%) Postfix
14 3 (0.26%) UAG
15 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 1 (0.086%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 140 (12.00%) Ansible
2 91 (7.80%) FortiGate
3 70 (6.00%) Terraform
4 29 (2.49%) Kubernetes
5 27 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (1.97%) Grafana
6 23 (1.97%) vCenter Server
7 21 (1.80%) Prometheus
7 21 (1.80%) SCCM
8 17 (1.46%) Cisco Prime
9 16 (1.37%) Cisco CUCM
10 10 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.86%) vRealize
11 8 (0.69%) VxRail
11 8 (0.69%) WMI
12 7 (0.60%) EMC VPLEX
12 7 (0.60%) WSUS
13 6 (0.51%) EMC TimeFinder
14 5 (0.43%) Jamf Pro
14 5 (0.43%) Puppet
Vendors
1 269 (23.05%) Palo Alto
2 231 (19.79%) F5
3 207 (17.74%) Microsoft
4 202 (17.31%) Fortinet
5 192 (16.45%) VMware
6 163 (13.97%) Juniper
7 111 (9.51%) CheckPoint
8 97 (8.31%) Aruba
9 94 (8.05%) ServiceNow
10 93 (7.97%) Meraki
10 93 (7.97%) SolarWinds
11 74 (6.34%) Arista
12 58 (4.97%) Splunk
13 51 (4.37%) Zscaler
14 39 (3.34%) Dell
15 29 (2.49%) Extreme Networks
16 28 (2.40%) EMC
17 27 (2.31%) Citrix
18 26 (2.23%) Red Hat
19 25 (2.14%) Brocade