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 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
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 89 61 57
Rank change year-on-year -28 -4 +34
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,041 1,208 1,636
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 3.49% 3.67%
As % of the Vendors category 6.03% 7.66% 8.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 697 723 986
10th Percentile £263 £290 £260
25th Percentile £380 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £565 £580 £588
90th Percentile £600 £650 £685
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +3.11% +5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 27 88
10th Percentile £21.46 £18.15 £15.20
25th Percentile £25.15 £20.00 £23.91
Median hourly rate £37.50 £37.50 £39.02
Median % change year-on-year - -3.90% +51.77%
75th Percentile £74.26 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £90.75 £75.00 £76.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 £37.50 £43.90
% change year-on-year +92.00% -14.58% +51.38%

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 17,267 15,769 20,128
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.39% 45.60% 45.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,977 9,400 12,797
10th Percentile £293 £283 £255
25th Percentile £408 £413 £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 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £499 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.20% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 871 477 663
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.50 £14.59
25th Percentile £18.09 £19.00 £19.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% -34.83% +73.08%
75th Percentile £44.84 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £77.50
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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -30 872 £500 - 760
UK excluding London -13 666 £490 +3.11% 727
London -44 289 £450 -11.76% 157
Work from Home -28 262 £450 -10.00% 331
South East -4 205 £500 -0.50% 245
Midlands +10 156 £380 -13.14% 124
North of England -45 136 £489 +2.84% 161
West Midlands +17 134 £401 -15.53% 77
North West -26 90 £500 +5.26% 89
Scotland +35 71 £425 +6.25% 40
South West -44 47 £550 +16.40% 61
Yorkshire -66 37 £450 -7.69% 55
East of England -25 30 £445 -15.24% 77
East Midlands -19 21 £158 -58.00% 42
Wales 0 17 £170 -56.13% 26
Northern Ireland 0 11 £475 - 12
North East -4 11 £175 -64.10% 18
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 50 (4.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 48 (4.61%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.92%) Confluence
4 17 (1.63%) Apache
5 14 (1.34%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.34%) WebLogic
6 9 (0.86%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.67%) Appian
7 7 (0.67%) Mattermost
8 5 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
9 3 (0.29%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.19%) CICS
10 2 (0.19%) IIS
10 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.096%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.096%) JBoss
11 1 (0.096%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 88 (8.45%) Microsoft Office
2 36 (3.46%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
4 14 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.096%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.096%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.096%) OmniGraffle
Business Applications
1 18 (1.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.096%) Actimize
3 1 (0.096%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 163 (15.66%) Azure
2 150 (14.41%) AWS
3 104 (9.99%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (3.94%) GCP
5 33 (3.17%) Entra ID
6 16 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
8 14 (1.34%) Datadog
9 13 (1.25%) Azure Sentinel
10 12 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 11 (1.06%) Akamai
11 11 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (1.06%) OpenShift
12 10 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
12 10 (0.96%) Serverless
13 9 (0.86%) Nutanix
14 8 (0.77%) GitHub
14 8 (0.77%) Power Platform
14 8 (0.77%) SaaS
15 7 (0.67%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 430 (41.31%) Firewall
2 245 (23.54%) WAN
3 201 (19.31%) LAN
4 182 (17.48%) VPN
5 177 (17.00%) Wireless
6 173 (16.62%) BGP
7 139 (13.35%) Network Security
8 134 (12.87%) SD-WAN
9 132 (12.68%) OSPF
10 114 (10.95%) DNS
11 101 (9.70%) Cisco ISE
12 92 (8.84%) Cisco Nexus
12 92 (8.84%) Wi-Fi
13 87 (8.36%) MPLS
14 85 (8.17%) Cisco IOS
15 74 (7.11%) VLAN
16 67 (6.44%) DHCP
17 60 (5.76%) IPsec
17 60 (5.76%) TCP/IP
18 54 (5.19%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.15%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.48%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.48%) 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 (0.096%) Metadata
5 1 (0.096%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 20 (1.92%) JIRA
2 16 (1.54%) GitLab
3 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
4 11 (1.06%) Git
5 9 (0.86%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.77%) 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 (0.096%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.096%) Hudson
9 1 (0.096%) Mercurial
9 1 (0.096%) Snyk
General
1 237 (22.77%) Social Skills
2 181 (17.39%) Public Sector
3 132 (12.68%) Telecoms
4 126 (12.10%) Finance
5 75 (7.20%) Analytical Skills
6 65 (6.24%) Manufacturing
7 48 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
8 44 (4.23%) Banking
8 44 (4.23%) Electronics
8 44 (4.23%) Marketing
9 24 (2.31%) Legal
10 19 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 13 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
11 13 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
12 10 (0.96%) Aerospace
12 10 (0.96%) Games
13 9 (0.86%) Investment Banking
13 9 (0.86%) Military
14 7 (0.67%) Retail
15 6 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 370 (35.54%) Network Engineer
2 125 (12.01%) Architect
3 82 (7.88%) Network Architect
4 77 (7.40%) Cisco Engineer
5 68 (6.53%) Analyst
6 65 (6.24%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 65 (6.24%) Senior
7 62 (5.96%) Consultant
8 55 (5.28%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 51 (4.90%) IT Support
9 51 (4.90%) Support Engineer
10 50 (4.80%) Security Engineer
11 48 (4.61%) Network Consultant
12 38 (3.65%) Desktop Support
13 35 (3.36%) Network Security Engineer
14 34 (3.27%) Platform Engineer
15 33 (3.17%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 31 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 31 (2.98%) Senior Network Engineer
17 30 (2.88%) Juniper Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (3.17%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.44%) XMPP
3 13 (1.25%) RFC 2544
4 12 (1.15%) Flash
4 12 (1.15%) Jinja
5 11 (1.06%) JSON
5 11 (1.06%) NETCONF
5 11 (1.06%) YANG
6 9 (0.86%) XML
7 8 (0.77%) LDAP
8 7 (0.67%) Node.js
9 6 (0.58%) REST
10 4 (0.38%) VML
11 3 (0.29%) HTML
11 3 (0.29%) OpenConfig
11 3 (0.29%) SAML
12 2 (0.19%) ARM Templates
12 2 (0.19%) eBPF
12 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Graph
12 2 (0.19%) RESTCONF
Miscellaneous
1 249 (23.92%) Data Centre
2 38 (3.65%) PKI
3 28 (2.69%) Cloud Native
3 28 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
3 28 (2.69%) Driving Licence
3 28 (2.69%) Linux Command Line
4 27 (2.59%) Onboarding
5 23 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
6 22 (2.11%) Operational Technology
6 22 (2.11%) Replication
7 16 (1.54%) Video Conferencing
8 14 (1.34%) NHS
9 12 (1.15%) Fibre Optics
9 12 (1.15%) Management Information System
9 12 (1.15%) Product Ownership
9 12 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.06%) Security Posture
10 11 (1.06%) Virtual Team
11 10 (0.96%) Enterprise Storage
11 10 (0.96%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 176 (16.91%) Windows
2 110 (10.57%) Linux
3 76 (7.30%) Mac OS
4 71 (6.82%) Android
5 65 (6.24%) Windows Server
6 35 (3.36%) Windows 10
7 21 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (1.73%) Unix
9 7 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
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%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.096%) MVS
14 1 (0.096%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (11.91%) Problem-Solving
2 118 (11.34%) Migration
3 88 (8.45%) Service Management
4 86 (8.26%) Network Design
5 77 (7.40%) Roadmaps
6 76 (7.30%) ITIL
7 74 (7.11%) Agile
8 70 (6.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 66 (6.34%) ITSM
10 64 (6.15%) Business Intelligence
11 61 (5.86%) Project Delivery
12 59 (5.67%) Cybersecurity
13 58 (5.57%) Change Management
13 58 (5.57%) Collaborative Working
13 58 (5.57%) Incident Response
13 58 (5.57%) Network Architecture
14 55 (5.28%) High Availability
15 54 (5.19%) Load Balancing
16 52 (5.00%) Continuous Improvement
17 49 (4.71%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 127 (12.20%) Python
2 72 (6.92%) PowerShell
3 41 (3.94%) Bash
4 32 (3.07%) SQL
5 24 (2.31%) Perl
6 14 (1.34%) JavaScript
7 9 (0.86%) C++
8 8 (0.77%) Lisp
9 6 (0.58%) Java
9 6 (0.58%) 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 (0.096%) Ruby
13 1 (0.096%) VBA
Qualifications
1 448 (43.04%) Security Cleared
2 345 (33.14%) SC Cleared
3 272 (26.13%) Cisco Certification
4 211 (20.27%) CCNP
5 109 (10.47%) DV Cleared
6 98 (9.41%) CCNA
7 76 (7.30%) Degree
8 73 (7.01%) CCIE
9 25 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
9 25 (2.40%) ITIL Certification
10 21 (2.02%) Microsoft Certification
11 20 (1.92%) CISSP
11 20 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (1.73%) Azure Certification
13 17 (1.63%) AWS Certification
13 17 (1.63%) JNCIE
14 15 (1.44%) JNCIA
14 15 (1.44%) JNCIS
15 14 (1.34%) CCDP
16 11 (1.06%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.84%) SLA
2 32 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (2.21%) GDPR
4 18 (1.73%) NIST
5 16 (1.54%) PCI DSS
6 15 (1.44%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.25%) 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%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.096%) Data Quality
12 1 (0.096%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.096%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.096%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.096%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.096%) JTAG
12 1 (0.096%) NIST 800
System Software
1 142 (13.64%) Active Directory
2 127 (12.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 64 (6.15%) VMware NSX
4 37 (3.55%) vSphere
5 25 (2.40%) Firmware
5 25 (2.40%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (1.83%) Docker
7 16 (1.54%) Hyper-V
8 13 (1.25%) NFS
9 12 (1.15%) GPFS
10 11 (1.06%) Virtual Machines
11 7 (0.67%) Snort
11 7 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
12 6 (0.58%) 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
15 2 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 89 (8.55%) Ansible
2 65 (6.24%) FortiGate
3 49 (4.71%) Terraform
4 46 (4.42%) vCenter Server
5 42 (4.03%) SCCM
6 29 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (2.69%) vRealize
8 21 (2.02%) Kubernetes
9 16 (1.54%) Cisco CUCM
10 14 (1.34%) VxRail
11 11 (1.06%) WSUS
12 10 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.96%) Nessus
13 9 (0.86%) EMC NetWorker
14 8 (0.77%) SCOM
14 8 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
15 7 (0.67%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
16 6 (0.58%) NetBackup
17 5 (0.48%) Nexpose
Vendors
1 201 (19.31%) Microsoft
2 194 (18.64%) Juniper
3 178 (17.10%) Palo Alto
4 162 (15.56%) VMware
5 139 (13.35%) Fortinet
6 123 (11.82%) SolarWinds
7 114 (10.95%) F5
8 102 (9.80%) Meraki
9 92 (8.84%) CheckPoint
10 88 (8.45%) Dell
11 77 (7.40%) Aruba
12 70 (6.72%) HP
13 65 (6.24%) Splunk
14 63 (6.05%) ServiceNow
15 53 (5.09%) Apple
16 45 (4.32%) SAP
17 38 (3.65%) Zscaler
18 36 (3.46%) AppDynamics
19 35 (3.36%) IBM
20 33 (3.17%) Remedy