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 24 April 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
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 67 65
Rank change year-on-year -33 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,085 1,044 1,359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.33% 3.53% 3.11%
As % of the Vendors category 5.52% 7.45% 7.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 732 663 827
10th Percentile £300 £304 £250
25th Percentile £400 £406 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £486
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.88% +1.25%
75th Percentile £560 £588 £592
90th Percentile £640 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +0.26% - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 19 47
10th Percentile £21.46 £17.55 £13.72
25th Percentile £30.06 £21.58 £23.44
Median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.92% +25.00% -43.77%
75th Percentile £74.26 £66.88 £41.25
90th Percentile £89.25 £75.00 £72.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £33.52 £30.00
% change year-on-year +121.52% +11.74% -45.77%

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 19,649 14,019 18,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.29% 47.46% 42.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,551 8,811 11,523
10th Percentile £313 £294 £260
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% - -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £703 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -1.01% -0.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 986 554 1,079
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.02
25th Percentile £18.61 £18.25 £14.38
Median hourly rate £30.32 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.78% +20.56% -48.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.57 £57.41
90th Percentile £79.13 £75.88 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.83 £24.19 £21.46
% change year-on-year +10.91% +12.72% -46.35%

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 24 April 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 24 April 2026.

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 24 April 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 -47 900 £481 -4.70% 404
UK excluding London -32 680 £476 +0.26% 377
Work from Home -26 285 £450 -10.00% 88
London -71 274 £500 -0.55% 117
South East -11 211 £500 - 109
North of England -48 177 £481 -3.75% 90
North West -15 141 £481 -1.79% 42
Midlands -16 133 £380 -15.56% 61
West Midlands -6 121 £361 -17.60% 39
Scotland +31 64 £450 +12.78% 22
South West -66 48 £510 -7.27% 37
East of England -9 41 £495 +4.21% 46
Yorkshire -71 36 £450 -14.29% 36
Wales -10 27 £425 - 15
Northern Ireland +10 9 £385 - 7
East Midlands -53 8 £415 -12.63% 22
North East -23 1 £175 -46.15% 13

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 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 25 (2.30%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.20%) Confluence
4 7 (0.65%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
5 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.18%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.092%) CMS
7 1 (0.092%) JBoss
7 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 43 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (3.23%) MS Visio
3 15 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.092%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 187 (17.24%) Azure
2 146 (13.46%) AWS
3 81 (7.47%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.13%) Entra ID
5 29 (2.67%) GCP
6 15 (1.38%) OpenShift
7 13 (1.20%) Nutanix
7 13 (1.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (1.11%) SaaS
9 11 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 10 (0.92%) GitHub
11 9 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
12 8 (0.74%) Datadog
13 7 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (0.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 6 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
14 6 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (0.55%) Mimecast
15 5 (0.46%) IaaS
15 5 (0.46%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 474 (43.69%) Firewall
2 350 (32.26%) WAN
3 276 (25.44%) BGP
4 260 (23.96%) LAN
5 237 (21.84%) VPN
6 215 (19.82%) Network Security
7 201 (18.53%) OSPF
8 154 (14.19%) SD-WAN
9 148 (13.64%) DNS
10 143 (13.18%) Wireless
11 138 (12.72%) VLAN
12 101 (9.31%) MPLS
13 99 (9.12%) Cisco ISE
14 97 (8.94%) Cisco Nexus
15 91 (8.39%) VXLAN
16 82 (7.56%) Wi-Fi
17 76 (7.00%) DHCP
18 75 (6.91%) IPsec
19 72 (6.64%) Cisco ASA
19 72 (6.64%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
1 5 (0.46%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (0.28%) Power BI
3 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
4 1 (0.092%) Big Data
4 1 (0.092%) Metadata
4 1 (0.092%) MySQL
4 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (2.12%) JIRA
2 15 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
3 10 (0.92%) Git
4 8 (0.74%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.55%) GitLab
6 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 234 (21.57%) Social Skills
2 123 (11.34%) Finance
3 104 (9.59%) Public Sector
4 74 (6.82%) Telecoms
5 63 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
6 59 (5.44%) Banking
7 53 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 52 (4.79%) Legal
9 36 (3.32%) Manufacturing
10 22 (2.03%) Marketing
11 17 (1.57%) Electronics
11 17 (1.57%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.38%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.29%) Law
13 14 (1.29%) Retail
14 12 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.65%) Aerospace
15 7 (0.65%) Military
16 6 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 475 (43.78%) Network Engineer
2 133 (12.26%) Architect
3 104 (9.59%) Cisco Engineer
4 99 (9.12%) Senior
5 97 (8.94%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 79 (7.28%) Network Architect
6 79 (7.28%) Security Engineer
7 72 (6.64%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 57 (5.25%) Network Security Engineer
9 51 (4.70%) Senior Network Engineer
10 44 (4.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 42 (3.87%) Data Network Engineer
12 39 (3.59%) Analyst
13 33 (3.04%) Data Engineer
14 32 (2.95%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 30 (2.76%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 25 (2.30%) Consultant
16 25 (2.30%) Network Specialist
17 24 (2.21%) Lead
17 24 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (5.81%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.57%) LDAP
3 14 (1.29%) Flash
4 11 (1.01%) SAML
5 9 (0.83%) REST
6 8 (0.74%) XMPP
7 7 (0.65%) NETCONF
8 6 (0.55%) Jinja
8 6 (0.55%) YANG
9 5 (0.46%) Node.js
9 5 (0.46%) OpenConfig
10 4 (0.37%) HTML
10 4 (0.37%) JSON
10 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
10 4 (0.37%) VML
11 2 (0.18%) ADO
11 2 (0.18%) CSS
11 2 (0.18%) Django
11 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
11 2 (0.18%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 286 (26.36%) Data Centre
2 50 (4.61%) PKI
3 43 (3.96%) Replication
4 40 (3.69%) Clustering
5 33 (3.04%) Data Protection Act
5 33 (3.04%) Hybrid Cloud
6 31 (2.86%) Operational Technology
7 30 (2.76%) Cloud Native
7 30 (2.76%) Onboarding
8 22 (2.03%) Linux Command Line
9 20 (1.84%) Driving Licence
10 17 (1.57%) Enterprise Storage
10 17 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.38%) SCADA
11 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
12 14 (1.29%) EMC VMAX
12 14 (1.29%) Video Conferencing
13 11 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (1.01%) IoT
13 11 (1.01%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 195 (17.97%) Windows
2 103 (9.49%) Linux
3 68 (6.27%) Windows Server
4 26 (2.40%) Windows 10
5 24 (2.21%) Mac OS
6 23 (2.12%) Android
7 19 (1.75%) Unix
8 17 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.74%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.37%) CatOS
12 4 (0.37%) Solaris
13 3 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
13 3 (0.28%) VMS
14 2 (0.18%) AIX
14 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 1 (0.092%) CentOS
15 1 (0.092%) Debian
15 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (15.21%) Migration
2 129 (11.89%) Problem-Solving
3 112 (10.32%) High Availability
4 109 (10.05%) Load Balancing
5 96 (8.85%) ITIL
6 94 (8.66%) Network Design
7 78 (7.19%) ITSM
8 74 (6.82%) Agile
9 70 (6.45%) Change Management
10 67 (6.18%) Continuous Improvement
11 65 (5.99%) Cybersecurity
12 64 (5.90%) Disaster Recovery
12 64 (5.90%) Roadmaps
13 60 (5.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 60 (5.53%) Project Delivery
14 54 (4.98%) Network Monitoring
15 52 (4.79%) Observability
15 52 (4.79%) Technical Leadership
16 51 (4.70%) Infrastructure as Code
16 51 (4.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.88%) Python
2 52 (4.79%) PowerShell
3 19 (1.75%) Bash
4 10 (0.92%) SQL
5 8 (0.74%) C
6 4 (0.37%) PHP
7 3 (0.28%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) Java
7 3 (0.28%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.28%) Lisp
7 3 (0.28%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.092%) Bicep
9 1 (0.092%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.092%) Ladder Logic
9 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 394 (36.31%) Security Cleared
2 306 (28.20%) Cisco Certification
3 299 (27.56%) SC Cleared
4 239 (22.03%) CCNP
5 111 (10.23%) CCNA
6 108 (9.95%) DV Cleared
7 76 (7.00%) Degree
8 72 (6.64%) CCIE
9 27 (2.49%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (1.94%) JNCIS
12 20 (1.84%) MCSE
12 20 (1.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 18 (1.66%) Azure Certification
13 18 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
14 15 (1.38%) JNCIA
14 15 (1.38%) JNCIP
14 15 (1.38%) VCAP
15 14 (1.29%) CCSE
15 14 (1.29%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (2.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (2.76%) SLA
3 26 (2.40%) NIST
4 23 (2.12%) Cyber Essentials
5 17 (1.57%) NCSC
6 14 (1.29%) PMO
7 11 (1.01%) GDPR
8 10 (0.92%) QA
9 7 (0.65%) PCI DSS
10 5 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.37%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.28%) RMADS
13 2 (0.18%) ISA99
13 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
14 1 (0.092%) Data Quality
14 1 (0.092%) GRC
System Software
1 144 (13.27%) VMware Infrastructure
2 88 (8.11%) Active Directory
3 58 (5.35%) VMware NSX
4 57 (5.25%) vSphere
5 52 (4.79%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
7 20 (1.84%) Firmware
8 17 (1.57%) Hyper-V
8 17 (1.57%) NFS
9 14 (1.29%) GPFS
10 9 (0.83%) SRDF
11 7 (0.65%) Docker
12 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.37%) vCloud
13 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.28%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 3 (0.28%) KVM
14 3 (0.28%) Snort
14 3 (0.28%) UAG
15 1 (0.092%) Squid
Systems Management
1 117 (10.78%) Ansible
2 102 (9.40%) FortiGate
3 49 (4.52%) Terraform
4 40 (3.69%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.49%) vRealize
6 24 (2.21%) Grafana
7 20 (1.84%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (1.84%) SCCM
8 18 (1.66%) Prometheus
9 16 (1.47%) Kubernetes
10 14 (1.29%) VxRail
11 13 (1.20%) Cisco Prime
12 10 (0.92%) Nagios
12 10 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.65%) EMC NetWorker
13 7 (0.65%) EMC VPLEX
13 7 (0.65%) SCOM
14 6 (0.55%) Cisco CUCM
14 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
14 6 (0.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 282 (25.99%) Palo Alto
2 192 (17.70%) F5
3 179 (16.50%) VMware
4 174 (16.04%) Microsoft
5 168 (15.48%) Juniper
6 140 (12.90%) Fortinet
7 128 (11.80%) Aruba
8 123 (11.34%) CheckPoint
9 92 (8.48%) Meraki
10 90 (8.29%) ServiceNow
11 86 (7.93%) SolarWinds
12 61 (5.62%) Arista
13 57 (5.25%) Dell
14 55 (5.07%) Splunk
15 44 (4.06%) Zscaler
16 38 (3.50%) IBM
17 36 (3.32%) HP
18 31 (2.86%) EMC
19 28 (2.58%) Extreme Networks
20 26 (2.40%) Broadcom