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 27 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
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 92 59 55
Rank change year-on-year -33 -4 +37
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,029 1,199 1,604
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.77% 3.56% 3.67%
As % of the Vendors category 5.90% 7.78% 8.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 697 732 963
10th Percentile £263 £275 £254
25th Percentile £363 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £552 £580 £593
90th Percentile £600 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £460
% change year-on-year -2.81% +6.25% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 23 91
10th Percentile £21.46 £15.80 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.15 £19.25 £23.81
Median hourly rate £58.00 £22.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +157.78% -35.71% +36.13%
75th Percentile £76.45 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £93.38 £75.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £21.44 £43.75
% change year-on-year +246.40% -51.00% +71.50%

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 17,448 15,405 19,565
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.93% 45.79% 44.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,130 9,195 12,403
10th Percentile £297 £285 £252
25th Percentile £408 £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 £717 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.58% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 842 452 675
10th Percentile £15.02 £15.51 £14.21
25th Percentile £17.99 £18.51 £18.93
Median hourly rate £23.79 £27.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.50% -38.89% +74.55%
75th Percentile £44.69 £61.31 £64.70
90th Percentile £74.21 £75.23 £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.60 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.02% -43.38% +100.93%

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 27 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 27 December 2025.

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 27 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 -35 861 £489 -2.25% 766
UK excluding London -18 671 £475 -2.81% 652
London -55 270 £450 -11.76% 207
Work from Home -35 266 £450 -10.00% 160
South East -4 204 £500 -0.25% 188
Midlands +6 155 £380 -13.14% 119
North of England -54 140 £475 - 145
West Midlands +18 133 £380 -16.94% 83
North West -15 102 £481 -0.26% 76
Scotland +38 73 £425 +13.33% 27
South West -40 48 £550 +16.40% 65
East of England -19 33 £445 -11.00% 84
Yorkshire -70 29 £450 +5.88% 56
East Midlands -20 21 £158 -58.00% 32
Wales +1 17 £170 -56.13% 28
Northern Ireland +2 11 £475 - 15
North East -2 11 £175 -64.10% 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 49 (4.76%) SharePoint
2 42 (4.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (1.94%) Confluence
4 19 (1.85%) Apache
5 14 (1.36%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.36%) WebLogic
6 10 (0.97%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.68%) Appian
7 7 (0.68%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.49%) SharePoint Server
9 4 (0.39%) IIS
10 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.19%) CICS
11 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2010
12 1 (0.097%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.097%) JBoss
12 1 (0.097%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 81 (7.87%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (3.60%) MS Visio
3 19 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
4 14 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.29%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.097%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.097%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 19 (1.85%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.097%) Actimize
3 1 (0.097%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 166 (16.13%) Azure
2 155 (15.06%) AWS
3 96 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (4.28%) GCP
5 33 (3.21%) Entra ID
6 19 (1.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (1.36%) Datadog
9 12 (1.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 12 (1.17%) Azure Sentinel
9 12 (1.17%) OpenShift
10 11 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (0.97%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (0.97%) SaaS
11 10 (0.97%) Serverless
12 9 (0.87%) Nutanix
13 7 (0.68%) Akamai
13 7 (0.68%) GitHub
13 7 (0.68%) IaaS
13 7 (0.68%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 422 (41.01%) Firewall
2 262 (25.46%) WAN
3 215 (20.89%) LAN
4 200 (19.44%) VPN
5 173 (16.81%) BGP
6 163 (15.84%) Wireless
7 149 (14.48%) Network Security
8 146 (14.19%) SD-WAN
9 130 (12.63%) OSPF
10 110 (10.69%) DNS
11 98 (9.52%) Wi-Fi
12 91 (8.84%) MPLS
13 87 (8.45%) Cisco Nexus
14 85 (8.26%) VLAN
15 84 (8.16%) Cisco ISE
16 74 (7.19%) Cisco IOS
17 67 (6.51%) IPsec
18 64 (6.22%) DHCP
19 62 (6.03%) TCP/IP
20 56 (5.44%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (1.07%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.49%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.49%) Power BI
3 3 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.19%) MariaDB
4 2 (0.19%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.097%) Metadata
5 1 (0.097%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 20 (1.94%) JIRA
2 16 (1.55%) GitLab
3 13 (1.26%) Sonatype Nexus
4 9 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 8 (0.78%) Git
5 8 (0.78%) Robot Framework
6 7 (0.68%) Cucumber
6 7 (0.68%) Selenium
6 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.097%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.097%) Hudson
8 1 (0.097%) Snyk
General
1 237 (23.03%) Social Skills
2 177 (17.20%) Public Sector
3 132 (12.83%) Telecoms
4 126 (12.24%) Finance
5 77 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
6 60 (5.83%) Manufacturing
7 50 (4.86%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (4.18%) Electronics
8 43 (4.18%) Marketing
9 42 (4.08%) Banking
10 27 (2.62%) Legal
11 16 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
13 13 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.07%) Aerospace
15 10 (0.97%) Investment Banking
16 8 (0.78%) Military
17 6 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.58%) Retail
18 5 (0.49%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 362 (35.18%) Network Engineer
2 134 (13.02%) Architect
3 92 (8.94%) Network Architect
4 73 (7.09%) Cisco Engineer
5 61 (5.93%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 61 (5.93%) Senior
6 60 (5.83%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 59 (5.73%) Consultant
8 58 (5.64%) Analyst
9 52 (5.05%) IT Support
10 49 (4.76%) Support Engineer
11 47 (4.57%) Network Consultant
11 47 (4.57%) Security Engineer
12 38 (3.69%) Desktop Support
13 32 (3.11%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 31 (3.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 31 (3.01%) Network Security Engineer
15 30 (2.92%) Senior Network Engineer
16 28 (2.72%) Platform Engineer
17 27 (2.62%) 3rd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (3.60%) 802.1X
2 16 (1.55%) XMPP
3 13 (1.26%) Flash
4 12 (1.17%) Jinja
5 11 (1.07%) JSON
5 11 (1.07%) NETCONF
5 11 (1.07%) RFC 2544
5 11 (1.07%) YANG
6 9 (0.87%) XML
7 8 (0.78%) LDAP
8 6 (0.58%) Node.js
9 4 (0.39%) REST
9 4 (0.39%) VML
10 3 (0.29%) HTML
10 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
10 3 (0.29%) SAML
11 2 (0.19%) ARM Templates
11 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
11 2 (0.19%) Regular Expression
11 2 (0.19%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 251 (24.39%) Data Centre
2 37 (3.60%) PKI
3 30 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
4 29 (2.82%) Linux Command Line
5 28 (2.72%) Cloud Native
6 27 (2.62%) Onboarding
7 26 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
7 26 (2.53%) Replication
8 25 (2.43%) Driving Licence
9 23 (2.24%) Operational Technology
10 16 (1.55%) Video Conferencing
11 15 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.36%) NHS
13 12 (1.17%) Fibre Optics
13 12 (1.17%) Product Ownership
14 11 (1.07%) Management Information System
14 11 (1.07%) Security Posture
15 10 (0.97%) CMDB
16 9 (0.87%) Clustering
16 9 (0.87%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 179 (17.40%) Windows
2 110 (10.69%) Linux
3 71 (6.90%) Windows Server
4 67 (6.51%) Mac OS
5 62 (6.03%) Android
6 35 (3.40%) Windows 10
7 21 (2.04%) Unix
8 20 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.39%) Solaris
11 4 (0.39%) 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%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.097%) MVS
14 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (12.93%) Problem-Solving
2 124 (12.05%) Migration
3 86 (8.36%) Service Management
4 85 (8.26%) Network Design
5 79 (7.68%) ITIL
5 79 (7.68%) Roadmaps
6 74 (7.19%) Agile
7 72 (7.00%) Project Delivery
8 70 (6.80%) ITSM
9 68 (6.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 63 (6.12%) Business Intelligence
11 62 (6.03%) High Availability
12 60 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
12 60 (5.83%) Network Architecture
13 55 (5.34%) Change Management
13 55 (5.34%) Incident Response
14 54 (5.25%) Collaborative Working
14 54 (5.25%) Load Balancing
15 53 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
16 49 (4.76%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 122 (11.86%) Python
2 68 (6.61%) PowerShell
3 39 (3.79%) Bash
4 32 (3.11%) SQL
5 23 (2.24%) Perl
6 14 (1.36%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.78%) Lisp
8 6 (0.58%) C++
9 5 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.39%) C
11 3 (0.29%) Java
12 1 (0.097%) Go
12 1 (0.097%) Ruby
12 1 (0.097%) VB
Qualifications
1 446 (43.34%) Security Cleared
2 350 (34.01%) SC Cleared
3 269 (26.14%) Cisco Certification
4 213 (20.70%) CCNP
5 105 (10.20%) DV Cleared
6 97 (9.43%) CCNA
7 75 (7.29%) Degree
8 72 (7.00%) CCIE
9 26 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
10 25 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (2.43%) ITIL Certification
11 19 (1.85%) CISSP
12 18 (1.75%) AWS Certification
12 18 (1.75%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.75%) JNCIE
13 15 (1.46%) CCDP
13 15 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
13 15 (1.46%) JNCIS
14 14 (1.36%) JNCIA
15 12 (1.17%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.79%) SLA
2 32 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (2.14%) GDPR
4 20 (1.94%) NIST
5 17 (1.65%) PCI DSS
6 16 (1.55%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.26%) PMO
8 6 (0.58%) NCSC
9 4 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.29%) QA
11 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.097%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.097%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.097%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.097%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.097%) JTAG
12 1 (0.097%) RMADS
System Software
1 132 (12.83%) Active Directory
2 131 (12.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 65 (6.32%) VMware NSX
4 43 (4.18%) vSphere
5 26 (2.53%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (2.24%) Firmware
7 18 (1.75%) Docker
8 16 (1.55%) Hyper-V
9 15 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
10 14 (1.36%) NFS
11 13 (1.26%) GPFS
12 7 (0.68%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.58%) KVM
13 6 (0.58%) Snort
14 5 (0.49%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 4 (0.39%) Squid
16 3 (0.29%) BitLocker
17 2 (0.19%) Terminal Services
17 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
17 2 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 92 (8.94%) Ansible
2 64 (6.22%) FortiGate
3 48 (4.66%) Terraform
3 48 (4.66%) vCenter Server
4 34 (3.30%) SCCM
5 29 (2.82%) vRealize
6 24 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (1.94%) Kubernetes
8 17 (1.65%) Cisco CUCM
9 14 (1.36%) VxRail
10 11 (1.07%) WSUS
11 10 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.87%) EMC NetWorker
12 9 (0.87%) Nessus
13 8 (0.78%) SCOM
14 7 (0.68%) EMC VPLEX
14 7 (0.68%) HP SiteScope
14 7 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
15 6 (0.58%) Nagios
16 4 (0.39%) Nmap
Vendors
1 204 (19.83%) Palo Alto
2 185 (17.98%) Juniper
3 184 (17.88%) Microsoft
4 163 (15.84%) VMware
5 137 (13.31%) Fortinet
6 108 (10.50%) SolarWinds
7 105 (10.20%) F5
8 101 (9.82%) CheckPoint
9 100 (9.72%) Meraki
10 92 (8.94%) Aruba
11 78 (7.58%) Dell
12 67 (6.51%) HP
13 66 (6.41%) ServiceNow
14 56 (5.44%) Splunk
15 50 (4.86%) Apple
16 44 (4.28%) SAP
17 38 (3.69%) Zscaler
18 36 (3.50%) AppDynamics
18 36 (3.50%) IBM
19 35 (3.40%) Oracle