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 25 June 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
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 112 62 70
Rank change year-on-year -50 +8 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,149 1,103 1,300
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.26% 3.66% 2.98%
As % of the Vendors category 5.52% 7.71% 7.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 793 673 792
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £401 £413 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £638 £650 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £470
% change year-on-year -5.00% +6.38% +4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 26 40
10th Percentile £26.72 £24.66 £15.89
25th Percentile £34.44 £25.15 £21.93
Median hourly rate £53.75 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.17% +9.09% -45.00%
75th Percentile £68.88 £42.93 £42.54
90th Percentile £76.50 £60.00 £73.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +83.33% -20.00% -25.00%

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 20,809 14,306 18,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.89% 47.50% 42.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,041 8,801 11,540
10th Percentile £313 £280 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,070 662 1,168
10th Percentile £15.55 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.56
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.40 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +33.82% +5.05% -42.15%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.66
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £23.00 £22.58
% change year-on-year +39.13% +1.86% -39.79%

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 25 June 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 -50 967 £481 -3.75% 677
UK excluding London -43 707 £475 -5.00% 635
London -60 316 £500 - 199
Work from Home -38 291 £463 -7.50% 113
North of England -41 212 £483 -2.62% 152
South East -35 190 £500 - 151
North West -9 164 £481 +1.32% 71
Midlands -34 135 £413 -13.16% 78
West Midlands -17 128 £402 -23.43% 41
Scotland +24 85 £450 +12.64% 49
South West -77 54 £525 -4.55% 85
Yorkshire -73 46 £490 -2.00% 57
East of England -17 37 £500 +0.50% 85
Wales -16 19 £468 +61.21% 25
Northern Ireland +8 10 £175 -50.00% 21
East Midlands -35 4 £458 -1.08% 37
North East -40 3 £463 +42.31% 25
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 27 (2.35%) SharePoint
2 21 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.04%) Confluence
4 8 (0.70%) Apache
5 6 (0.52%) OpenStack
6 5 (0.44%) IIS
7 3 (0.26%) nginx
7 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.17%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.17%) CMS
9 1 (0.087%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.087%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 46 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.52%) MS Visio
3 25 (2.18%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.17%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 6 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 213 (18.54%) Azure
2 148 (12.88%) AWS
3 68 (5.92%) Microsoft 365
4 41 (3.57%) Entra ID
5 22 (1.91%) GCP
6 16 (1.39%) GitHub
6 16 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (1.31%) Nutanix
7 15 (1.31%) OpenShift
8 14 (1.22%) OneDrive
8 14 (1.22%) SaaS
9 13 (1.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 13 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.70%) IaaS
10 8 (0.70%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.61%) Power Platform
12 6 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.44%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.44%) Rubrik
14 4 (0.35%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 496 (43.17%) Firewall
2 379 (32.99%) WAN
3 295 (25.67%) LAN
4 288 (25.07%) BGP
5 247 (21.50%) VPN
6 239 (20.80%) Network Security
7 200 (17.41%) OSPF
8 183 (15.93%) Wireless
9 182 (15.84%) DNS
10 163 (14.19%) SD-WAN
11 162 (14.10%) VLAN
12 117 (10.18%) MPLS
13 113 (9.83%) Cisco Nexus
14 105 (9.14%) Wi-Fi
15 101 (8.79%) Cisco ISE
16 99 (8.62%) VXLAN
17 97 (8.44%) DHCP
18 81 (7.05%) Cisco IOS
19 75 (6.53%) Multicast
20 74 (6.44%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (1.57%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.26%) MySQL
2 3 (0.26%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.087%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.087%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.087%) Big Data
4 1 (0.087%) ClickHouse
4 1 (0.087%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.087%) Metadata
4 1 (0.087%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 23 (2.00%) JIRA
2 15 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
3 11 (0.96%) Git
4 9 (0.78%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.26%) GitLab
6 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 263 (22.89%) Social Skills
2 117 (10.18%) Finance
3 71 (6.18%) Telecoms
4 70 (6.09%) Analytical Skills
5 63 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
6 61 (5.31%) Public Sector
7 57 (4.96%) Legal
8 55 (4.79%) Banking
9 23 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
10 20 (1.74%) Investment Banking
11 18 (1.57%) Financial Institution
11 18 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.39%) Retail
13 15 (1.31%) Law
14 11 (0.96%) Military
15 8 (0.70%) Marketing
16 7 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
16 7 (0.61%) Police
16 7 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 536 (46.65%) Network Engineer
2 139 (12.10%) Architect
3 124 (10.79%) Cisco Engineer
4 121 (10.53%) Senior
5 114 (9.92%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 87 (7.57%) Security Engineer
7 76 (6.61%) Network Architect
8 67 (5.83%) Senior Network Engineer
9 64 (5.57%) Network Security Engineer
10 63 (5.48%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 57 (4.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.09%) Data Network Engineer
13 35 (3.05%) Analyst
13 35 (3.05%) Data Engineer
14 34 (2.96%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 29 (2.52%) Lead
16 28 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
17 27 (2.35%) Network Specialist
18 24 (2.09%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
18 24 (2.09%) Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 76 (6.61%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.22%) Flash
2 14 (1.22%) LDAP
2 14 (1.22%) SAML
3 12 (1.04%) REST
4 8 (0.70%) XMPP
5 6 (0.52%) Jinja
6 4 (0.35%) NETCONF
7 3 (0.26%) LAMP
7 3 (0.26%) LEMP Stack
7 3 (0.26%) OpenConfig
7 3 (0.26%) RESTCONF
7 3 (0.26%) YAML
7 3 (0.26%) YANG
8 2 (0.17%) .NET
8 2 (0.17%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.17%) ADO
8 2 (0.17%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.17%) Middleware
8 2 (0.17%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 303 (26.37%) Data Centre
2 57 (4.96%) PKI
3 45 (3.92%) Replication
4 42 (3.66%) Clustering
5 39 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
6 38 (3.31%) Data Protection Act
7 35 (3.05%) Onboarding
8 27 (2.35%) Operational Technology
9 26 (2.26%) Driving Licence
9 26 (2.26%) Video Conferencing
10 20 (1.74%) Security Posture
11 19 (1.65%) Enterprise Storage
12 18 (1.57%) EMC VMAX
12 18 (1.57%) Linux Command Line
13 17 (1.48%) Cloud Native
14 16 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (1.31%) Virtual Team
16 14 (1.22%) SCADA
17 12 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
18 11 (0.96%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 223 (19.41%) Windows
2 123 (10.70%) Linux
3 73 (6.35%) Windows Server
4 19 (1.65%) Unix
5 15 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.31%) Windows 10
6 14 (1.22%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.78%) Android
7 9 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.61%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.52%) AIX
9 6 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.44%) Data ONTAP
10 5 (0.44%) VMS
11 4 (0.35%) CentOS
12 3 (0.26%) CatOS
13 2 (0.17%) Solaris
13 2 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.087%) Check Point GAiA
14 1 (0.087%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (15.75%) Migration
2 131 (11.40%) Load Balancing
3 123 (10.70%) High Availability
4 119 (10.36%) Problem-Solving
5 102 (8.88%) ITIL
6 99 (8.62%) Project Delivery
7 90 (7.83%) ITSM
7 90 (7.83%) Network Design
8 74 (6.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 72 (6.27%) Agile
9 72 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
10 70 (6.09%) Change Management
11 65 (5.66%) Stakeholder Management
12 62 (5.40%) Disaster Recovery
12 62 (5.40%) Infrastructure as Code
13 61 (5.31%) Technical Leadership
14 60 (5.22%) Network Monitoring
14 60 (5.22%) Validation
15 59 (5.13%) Cybersecurity
16 55 (4.79%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 132 (11.49%) Python
2 56 (4.87%) PowerShell
3 24 (2.09%) SQL
4 22 (1.91%) Bash
5 6 (0.52%) C
6 4 (0.35%) Perl
6 4 (0.35%) PHP
7 3 (0.26%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) Lisp
8 2 (0.17%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.17%) Korn
8 2 (0.17%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.087%) Bicep
9 1 (0.087%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.087%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 340 (29.59%) Cisco Certification
2 329 (28.63%) Security Cleared
3 250 (21.76%) CCNP
4 236 (20.54%) SC Cleared
5 134 (11.66%) CCNA
6 102 (8.88%) DV Cleared
7 68 (5.92%) Degree
8 64 (5.57%) CCIE
9 27 (2.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 26 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
11 22 (1.91%) Network+ Certification
12 18 (1.57%) MCSE
13 17 (1.48%) Server+ Certification
14 16 (1.39%) Azure Certification
14 16 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
15 14 (1.22%) CCSE
16 13 (1.13%) VCAP
17 12 (1.04%) JNCIP
17 12 (1.04%) JNCIS
17 12 (1.04%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.66%) SLA
2 33 (2.87%) NIST
3 29 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 26 (2.26%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (1.83%) QA
6 20 (1.74%) NCSC
7 9 (0.78%) PMO
8 7 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 7 (0.61%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.52%) GDPR
10 5 (0.44%) JSP 440
10 5 (0.44%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.26%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.17%) Data Quality
12 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.17%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 2 (0.17%) RMADS
System Software
1 152 (13.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 102 (8.88%) Active Directory
3 59 (5.13%) VMware ESXi
4 56 (4.87%) vSphere
5 49 (4.26%) VMware NSX
6 34 (2.96%) Virtual Machines
7 29 (2.52%) Firmware
8 23 (2.00%) Hyper-V
9 18 (1.57%) NFS
10 14 (1.22%) GPFS
11 12 (1.04%) SRDF
12 7 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.52%) Docker
13 6 (0.52%) EMC RecoverPoint
14 4 (0.35%) vCloud
14 4 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
15 3 (0.26%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.26%) Postfix
15 3 (0.26%) UAG
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
Systems Management
1 139 (12.10%) Ansible
2 103 (8.96%) FortiGate
3 56 (4.87%) Terraform
4 31 (2.70%) vCenter Server
5 27 (2.35%) Grafana
6 23 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (1.91%) SCCM
8 20 (1.74%) Kubernetes
8 20 (1.74%) Prometheus
9 18 (1.57%) vRealize
10 15 (1.31%) Cisco CUCM
11 14 (1.22%) Cisco Prime
12 13 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
13 9 (0.78%) VxRail
14 8 (0.70%) WMI
15 7 (0.61%) EMC VPLEX
15 7 (0.61%) WSUS
16 6 (0.52%) EMC TimeFinder
16 6 (0.52%) HAProxy
16 6 (0.52%) SCOM
Vendors
1 283 (24.63%) Palo Alto
2 215 (18.71%) F5
3 201 (17.49%) Microsoft
4 196 (17.06%) VMware
5 181 (15.75%) Fortinet
6 153 (13.32%) Juniper
7 115 (10.01%) Aruba
8 103 (8.96%) CheckPoint
9 100 (8.70%) ServiceNow
10 94 (8.18%) SolarWinds
11 86 (7.48%) Meraki
12 77 (6.70%) Arista
13 58 (5.05%) Splunk
14 47 (4.09%) Zscaler
15 42 (3.66%) Dell
16 31 (2.70%) EMC
16 31 (2.70%) IBM
17 30 (2.61%) Extreme Networks
18 28 (2.44%) Brocade
19 25 (2.18%) Infoblox