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 31 August 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
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 76 67
Rank change year-on-year -42 -9 -13
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,208 1,054 1,210
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.25% 3.20% 3.14%
As % of the Vendors category 5.38% 6.78% 7.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 799 652 743
10th Percentile £300 £300 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £575
90th Percentile £651 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -6.40% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 41 33
10th Percentile £26.63 - £17.74
25th Percentile £34.44 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £52.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.33% +9.09% -42.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £30.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year +83.33% -31.43% -8.53%

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 22,440 15,554 16,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.75% 47.20% 44.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,821 9,526 10,400
10th Percentile £313 £275 £287
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,170 794 740
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.69 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.29 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.44% -13.28% -31.76%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.01 £62.51
90th Percentile £81.36 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.24 £27.50
% change year-on-year +31.83% -22.76% -30.51%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 1,011 £500 - 726
UK excluding London -38 716 £468 -6.40% 628
London -37 377 £500 - 229
Work from Home -19 296 £475 -0.78% 134
North of England -9 248 £490 +1.03% 140
North West +8 174 £483 +1.68% 61
South East -62 149 £468 -10.81% 159
Midlands -31 131 £425 -17.48% 79
West Midlands -17 125 £425 -17.48% 39
Scotland +22 98 £413 -2.94% 35
Yorkshire -40 68 £500 +1.63% 51
South West -48 59 £525 -4.55% 98
East of England -13 34 £475 -13.64% 86
Wales +3 26 £408 +103.75% 29
Northern Ireland +4 8 £115 -67.14% 16
North East -35 7 £375 -31.82% 32
East Midlands -28 3 £525 +6.33% 40
Channel Islands -3 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 38 (3.15%) SharePoint
2 31 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (0.99%) Confluence
4 10 (0.83%) OpenStack
5 8 (0.66%) SAS
6 7 (0.58%) Apache
7 6 (0.50%) JBoss
8 4 (0.33%) nginx
9 3 (0.25%) CloudStack
9 3 (0.25%) IIS
9 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.17%) CMS
10 2 (0.17%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.083%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.083%) FactoryTalk
11 1 (0.083%) Mendix
11 1 (0.083%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 48 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (1.99%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.25%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.083%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.083%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.083%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 245 (20.28%) Azure
2 155 (12.83%) AWS
3 97 (8.03%) Microsoft 365
4 60 (4.97%) Entra ID
5 31 (2.57%) GitHub
6 30 (2.48%) OneDrive
7 23 (1.90%) GCP
8 18 (1.49%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 18 (1.49%) OpenShift
9 17 (1.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (1.24%) Power Platform
11 14 (1.16%) Nutanix
12 12 (0.99%) SaaS
13 10 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
13 10 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (0.66%) IaaS
15 7 (0.58%) AWS Direct Connect
16 6 (0.50%) Cloudflare
16 6 (0.50%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 513 (42.47%) Firewall
2 362 (29.97%) WAN
3 313 (25.91%) BGP
4 278 (23.01%) LAN
5 264 (21.85%) VPN
6 248 (20.53%) Network Security
7 206 (17.05%) Wireless
8 197 (16.31%) OSPF
9 190 (15.73%) DNS
10 188 (15.56%) VLAN
11 147 (12.17%) SD-WAN
12 136 (11.26%) Wi-Fi
13 124 (10.26%) MPLS
14 114 (9.44%) Cisco Nexus
15 106 (8.77%) DHCP
16 99 (8.20%) TCP/IP
17 96 (7.95%) Cisco ASA
18 95 (7.86%) Cisco ISE
19 94 (7.78%) VXLAN
20 75 (6.21%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.24%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.58%) Power BI
3 6 (0.50%) Big Data
3 6 (0.50%) Hadoop
4 4 (0.33%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.25%) MySQL
6 2 (0.17%) Metadata
6 2 (0.17%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.083%) Apache Hive
7 1 (0.083%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 27 (2.24%) Git
2 20 (1.66%) JIRA
3 12 (0.99%) GitLab
4 11 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
5 9 (0.75%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.17%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.083%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.083%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (0.083%) Zephyr
General
1 278 (23.01%) Social Skills
2 121 (10.02%) Telecoms
3 118 (9.77%) Finance
4 99 (8.20%) Analytical Skills
5 62 (5.13%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.05%) Banking
7 59 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (3.15%) Legal
9 21 (1.74%) Investment Banking
9 21 (1.74%) Organisational Skills
10 17 (1.41%) Retail
11 16 (1.32%) Financial Institution
12 14 (1.16%) Law
13 12 (0.99%) Military
14 11 (0.91%) Manufacturing
14 11 (0.91%) Police
15 10 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
17 6 (0.50%) Marketing
18 4 (0.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 604 (50.00%) Network Engineer
2 180 (14.90%) Senior
3 148 (12.25%) Cisco Engineer
4 147 (12.17%) Architect
5 132 (10.93%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 126 (10.43%) Senior Network Engineer
7 85 (7.04%) Security Engineer
8 75 (6.21%) Network Architect
9 67 (5.55%) Network Security Engineer
10 62 (5.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 54 (4.47%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (3.48%) Field Engineer
13 41 (3.39%) Data Network Engineer
14 36 (2.98%) Lead
15 35 (2.90%) Telecoms Engineer
16 33 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
17 32 (2.65%) Analyst
18 31 (2.57%) Support Engineer
19 30 (2.48%) Cisco Security Engineer
19 30 (2.48%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (6.37%) Terraform
2 62 (5.13%) 802.1X
3 25 (2.07%) REST
4 14 (1.16%) YAML
5 13 (1.08%) SAML
6 12 (0.99%) JSON
7 9 (0.75%) NETCONF
8 8 (0.66%) Flash
9 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
9 7 (0.58%) RESTCONF
9 7 (0.58%) XMPP
10 6 (0.50%) OpenConfig
10 6 (0.50%) YANG
11 4 (0.33%) Jinja
11 4 (0.33%) LDAP
12 3 (0.25%) Django
12 3 (0.25%) Java RMI
12 3 (0.25%) LAMP
12 3 (0.25%) LEMP Stack
12 3 (0.25%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 290 (24.01%) Data Centre
2 49 (4.06%) Hybrid Cloud
2 49 (4.06%) PKI
3 44 (3.64%) Onboarding
4 37 (3.06%) Data Protection Act
4 37 (3.06%) Driving Licence
5 33 (2.73%) Operational Technology
6 30 (2.48%) Video Conferencing
7 27 (2.24%) Replication
8 26 (2.15%) Clustering
9 24 (1.99%) Cloud Native
10 22 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.57%) Enterprise Storage
11 19 (1.57%) Public Cloud
12 17 (1.41%) Linux Command Line
12 17 (1.41%) Private Cloud
13 16 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (1.24%) Management Information System
15 13 (1.08%) IoT
15 13 (1.08%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 222 (18.38%) Windows
2 124 (10.26%) Linux
3 88 (7.28%) Windows Server
4 18 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (1.49%) Ubuntu
5 17 (1.41%) Windows 10
6 12 (0.99%) Mac OS
7 10 (0.83%) Unix
7 10 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (0.66%) Android
10 7 (0.58%) AIX
10 7 (0.58%) Data ONTAP
11 6 (0.50%) CentOS
12 4 (0.33%) VMS
12 4 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.083%) CatOS
13 1 (0.083%) Check Point GAiA
13 1 (0.083%) Debian
13 1 (0.083%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 195 (16.14%) Migration
2 151 (12.50%) Project Delivery
3 135 (11.18%) ITIL
4 129 (10.68%) Problem-Solving
5 119 (9.85%) High Availability
5 119 (9.85%) Load Balancing
6 97 (8.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 96 (7.95%) Change Management
8 92 (7.62%) Network Design
9 89 (7.37%) Stakeholder Management
10 84 (6.95%) Continuous Improvement
11 82 (6.79%) Infrastructure as Code
11 82 (6.79%) Validation
12 72 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
13 69 (5.71%) ITSM
14 65 (5.38%) CI/CD
15 63 (5.22%) Zero Trust
16 62 (5.13%) Network Monitoring
17 61 (5.05%) Data Protection
18 60 (4.97%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 140 (11.59%) Python
2 59 (4.88%) PowerShell
3 30 (2.48%) Bash
4 26 (2.15%) SQL
5 5 (0.41%) Java
6 4 (0.33%) C
6 4 (0.33%) C++
7 3 (0.25%) Lisp
7 3 (0.25%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.17%) Go
8 2 (0.17%) Perl
9 1 (0.083%) Bicep
9 1 (0.083%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.083%) Ladder Logic
Qualifications
1 330 (27.32%) Cisco Certification
2 309 (25.58%) Security Cleared
3 232 (19.21%) CCNP
4 227 (18.79%) SC Cleared
5 134 (11.09%) CCNA
6 82 (6.79%) DV Cleared
7 69 (5.71%) Degree
8 64 (5.30%) CCIE
9 27 (2.24%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (1.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 19 (1.57%) MCSE
12 16 (1.32%) AWS Certification
12 16 (1.32%) Azure Certification
13 14 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
13 14 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
13 14 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
14 12 (0.99%) CCSE
15 11 (0.91%) CISSP
15 11 (0.91%) ISTQB
15 11 (0.91%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (3.39%) SLA
2 24 (1.99%) NIST
3 22 (1.82%) QA
4 19 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.32%) Cyber Essentials
6 11 (0.91%) NCSC
7 7 (0.58%) PCI DSS
8 5 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
8 5 (0.41%) GDPR
8 5 (0.41%) JSP 440
8 5 (0.41%) PMO
9 4 (0.33%) Data Quality
10 3 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.17%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.17%) ISA99
12 1 (0.083%) GRC
12 1 (0.083%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 150 (12.42%) VMware Infrastructure
2 118 (9.77%) Active Directory
3 45 (3.73%) vSphere
4 43 (3.56%) VMware NSX
5 42 (3.48%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (2.81%) Hyper-V
7 33 (2.73%) Firmware
8 29 (2.40%) Virtual Machines
9 16 (1.32%) Docker
10 12 (0.99%) NFS
11 8 (0.66%) GPFS
12 6 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
13 5 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
14 4 (0.33%) SRDF
15 3 (0.25%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
15 3 (0.25%) Postfix
15 3 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
16 2 (0.17%) Snort
16 2 (0.17%) UAG
Systems Management
1 146 (12.09%) Ansible
2 77 (6.37%) FortiGate
3 32 (2.65%) Kubernetes
4 31 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (1.90%) Cisco CUCM
6 21 (1.74%) SCCM
6 21 (1.74%) vCenter Server
7 19 (1.57%) Cisco Prime
8 14 (1.16%) Grafana
8 14 (1.16%) Prometheus
9 9 (0.75%) Puppet
10 8 (0.66%) Failover Clustering
10 8 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.66%) vRealize
10 8 (0.66%) WMI
10 8 (0.66%) WSUS
11 7 (0.58%) EMC VPLEX
12 6 (0.50%) Red Hat Satellite
13 5 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (0.41%) Nagios
Vendors
1 264 (21.85%) Palo Alto
2 228 (18.87%) Microsoft
3 206 (17.05%) Fortinet
3 206 (17.05%) VMware
4 204 (16.89%) F5
5 132 (10.93%) Juniper
6 114 (9.44%) Meraki
7 110 (9.11%) CheckPoint
8 89 (7.37%) Aruba
9 88 (7.28%) ServiceNow
10 80 (6.62%) SolarWinds
11 73 (6.04%) Arista
12 48 (3.97%) Zscaler
13 40 (3.31%) Splunk
14 37 (3.06%) Red Hat
15 34 (2.81%) Dell
16 28 (2.32%) Nokia
17 25 (2.07%) NetApp
18 21 (1.74%) Infoblox
19 19 (1.57%) Veeam