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 13 March 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
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 57 58
Rank change year-on-year -40 +1 +15
Contract jobs citing Cisco 1,084 1,100 1,515
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.53% 3.73% 3.40%
As % of the Vendors category 5.75% 7.94% 7.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 733 699 889
10th Percentile £253 £313 £252
25th Percentile £375 £410 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% +5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £594 £600
90th Percentile £621 £650 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £483 £475
% change year-on-year -1.55% +1.58% +0.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 18 62
10th Percentile £21.40 £17.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.88 £19.28
Median hourly rate £68.17 £33.52 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.34% +34.09% -35.28%
75th Percentile £74.26 £60.63 £41.25
90th Percentile £93.88 £75.00 £67.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £30.40 £24.50
% change year-on-year +144.28% +24.08% -49.54%

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 18,840 13,859 19,210
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.99% 47.04% 43.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,042 8,621 11,982
10th Percentile £306 £284 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +0.49% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 959 447 1,031
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.05 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -31.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.25
90th Percentile £75.65 £82.68 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £23.22
% change year-on-year -16.36% +18.46% -30.70%

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 13 March 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 13 March 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 13 March 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 -42 893 £476 -4.75% 477
UK excluding London -30 694 £475 -1.55% 448
Work from Home -30 284 £445 -11.00% 101
London -64 268 £483 -3.50% 109
South East +3 221 £500 -0.25% 130
North of England -51 172 £481 -3.75% 102
Midlands -19 147 £340 -24.44% 73
North West -20 140 £481 -3.75% 46
West Midlands -7 133 £340 -22.29% 31
Scotland +33 76 £425 +6.25% 23
South West -73 40 £538 -0.65% 56
East of England -14 38 £475 - 57
Yorkshire -84 26 £450 -14.29% 38
Wales -9 23 £380 -7.88% 18
East Midlands -49 12 £158 -65.95% 42
North East -15 8 £175 -58.82% 18
Northern Ireland - 8 £475 - 6

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 46 (4.24%) SharePoint
2 38 (3.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (1.57%) Confluence
4 7 (0.65%) Apache
5 5 (0.46%) IIS
6 3 (0.28%) Appian
6 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (0.28%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.092%) JBoss
7 1 (0.092%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.092%) WebSphere
Applications
1 69 (6.37%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (4.34%) MS Visio
3 22 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
4 16 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.092%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Actimize
3 1 (0.092%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 168 (15.50%) Azure
2 143 (13.19%) AWS
3 97 (8.95%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (3.60%) Entra ID
4 39 (3.60%) GCP
5 17 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.29%) Datadog
7 13 (1.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 12 (1.11%) Nutanix
9 9 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 9 (0.83%) SaaS
10 8 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (0.74%) OneDrive
10 8 (0.74%) OpenShift
11 7 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (0.65%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (0.65%) Power Platform
11 7 (0.65%) Serverless
12 6 (0.55%) Amazon Kinesis
Communications & Networking
1 439 (40.50%) Firewall
2 329 (30.35%) WAN
3 244 (22.51%) BGP
4 243 (22.42%) LAN
5 232 (21.40%) VPN
6 195 (17.99%) Network Security
7 174 (16.05%) OSPF
8 163 (15.04%) Wireless
9 139 (12.82%) SD-WAN
10 128 (11.81%) DNS
11 111 (10.24%) MPLS
12 103 (9.50%) VLAN
13 102 (9.41%) Cisco ISE
14 81 (7.47%) Wi-Fi
15 79 (7.29%) Cisco Nexus
16 77 (7.10%) Cisco ASA
17 76 (7.01%) Cisco IOS
18 74 (6.83%) DHCP
19 73 (6.73%) IPsec
20 72 (6.64%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.65%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.46%) DynamoDB
2 5 (0.46%) Power BI
3 3 (0.28%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.18%) MariaDB
5 1 (0.092%) Metadata
5 1 (0.092%) MySQL
5 1 (0.092%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.092%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (2.03%) JIRA
2 14 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
3 11 (1.01%) GitLab
3 11 (1.01%) Jenkins
4 9 (0.83%) Git
5 3 (0.28%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.28%) Robot Framework
5 3 (0.28%) Selenium
5 3 (0.28%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.18%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.092%) Bitbucket
General
1 229 (21.13%) Social Skills
2 157 (14.48%) Finance
3 156 (14.39%) Public Sector
4 109 (10.06%) Telecoms
5 76 (7.01%) Analytical Skills
6 64 (5.90%) Manufacturing
7 60 (5.54%) Banking
8 55 (5.07%) Documentation Skills
9 53 (4.89%) Legal
10 46 (4.24%) Marketing
11 45 (4.15%) Electronics
12 18 (1.66%) Investment Banking
13 17 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
14 15 (1.38%) Financial Institution
15 14 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
16 11 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 10 (0.92%) Law
18 9 (0.83%) Retail
19 8 (0.74%) Aerospace
19 8 (0.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 414 (38.19%) Network Engineer
2 129 (11.90%) Architect
3 92 (8.49%) Cisco Engineer
4 80 (7.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
5 77 (7.10%) Network Architect
6 76 (7.01%) Senior
7 67 (6.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 60 (5.54%) Security Engineer
9 54 (4.98%) Analyst
10 50 (4.61%) Consultant
10 50 (4.61%) IT Support
11 46 (4.24%) Network Consultant
12 40 (3.69%) Network Security Engineer
13 38 (3.51%) Senior Network Engineer
14 35 (3.23%) Desktop Support
15 34 (3.14%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
16 33 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 33 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
17 31 (2.86%) Data Network Engineer
18 28 (2.58%) Infrastructure Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (5.72%) 802.1X
2 17 (1.57%) LDAP
3 16 (1.48%) Flash
4 14 (1.29%) XMPP
5 10 (0.92%) SAML
6 9 (0.83%) NETCONF
7 8 (0.74%) YANG
8 7 (0.65%) Jinja
9 6 (0.55%) JSON
10 5 (0.46%) Node.js
10 5 (0.46%) OpenConfig
10 5 (0.46%) XML
11 4 (0.37%) HTML
11 4 (0.37%) REST
11 4 (0.37%) RESTCONF
11 4 (0.37%) RFC 2544
11 4 (0.37%) VML
12 2 (0.18%) ARM Templates
12 2 (0.18%) Django
12 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 293 (27.03%) Data Centre
2 50 (4.61%) PKI
3 33 (3.04%) Replication
4 32 (2.95%) Linux Command Line
5 31 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
6 29 (2.68%) Clustering
7 27 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
7 27 (2.49%) Onboarding
8 25 (2.31%) Cloud Native
9 24 (2.21%) Operational Technology
10 23 (2.12%) Driving Licence
11 18 (1.66%) Product Ownership
11 18 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
13 14 (1.29%) Video Conferencing
14 12 (1.11%) Enterprise Storage
14 12 (1.11%) NHS
15 11 (1.01%) CMDB
15 11 (1.01%) SCADA
16 10 (0.92%) EMC VMAX
Operating Systems
1 180 (16.61%) Windows
2 101 (9.32%) Linux
3 64 (5.90%) Windows Server
4 51 (4.70%) Android
4 51 (4.70%) Mac OS
5 29 (2.68%) Windows 10
6 22 (2.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.48%) Unix
8 6 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.37%) CatOS
10 4 (0.37%) Solaris
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.18%) AIX
13 1 (0.092%) CentOS
13 1 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (14.30%) Migration
2 135 (12.45%) Problem-Solving
3 100 (9.23%) Load Balancing
4 92 (8.49%) High Availability
5 90 (8.30%) Network Design
6 89 (8.21%) Agile
6 89 (8.21%) ITIL
7 81 (7.47%) Roadmaps
8 78 (7.20%) ITSM
9 75 (6.92%) Cybersecurity
10 72 (6.64%) Project Delivery
11 69 (6.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 65 (6.00%) Change Management
13 60 (5.54%) Service Management
14 59 (5.44%) Collaborative Working
14 59 (5.44%) Stakeholder Management
15 56 (5.17%) Network Monitoring
16 53 (4.89%) Continuous Improvement
16 53 (4.89%) Network Architecture
17 51 (4.70%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 121 (11.16%) Python
2 52 (4.80%) PowerShell
3 28 (2.58%) Bash
4 16 (1.48%) Perl
5 9 (0.83%) SQL
6 8 (0.74%) JavaScript
6 8 (0.74%) Lisp
7 4 (0.37%) C
7 4 (0.37%) PHP
8 2 (0.18%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.18%) Korn
8 2 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.092%) C++
9 1 (0.092%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 427 (39.39%) Security Cleared
2 334 (30.81%) SC Cleared
3 292 (26.94%) Cisco Certification
4 235 (21.68%) CCNP
5 106 (9.78%) CCNA
6 105 (9.69%) DV Cleared
7 85 (7.84%) Degree
8 76 (7.01%) CCIE
9 24 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 21 (1.94%) JNCIS
10 21 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 18 (1.66%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
12 17 (1.57%) CISSP
12 17 (1.57%) JNCIP
13 15 (1.38%) JNCIA
14 14 (1.29%) ITIL Certification
15 13 (1.20%) AWS Certification
15 13 (1.20%) CCSE
15 13 (1.20%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (3.04%) NIST
3 31 (2.86%) SLA
4 22 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 18 (1.66%) GDPR
5 18 (1.66%) PMO
6 14 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.20%) NCSC
8 6 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 5 (0.46%) QA
10 4 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.28%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.28%) JSP 440
11 3 (0.28%) RMADS
12 2 (0.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.092%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.092%) Def Stans
13 1 (0.092%) GRC
13 1 (0.092%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 1 (0.092%) NIST 800
System Software
1 140 (12.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 98 (9.04%) Active Directory
3 63 (5.81%) VMware NSX
4 59 (5.44%) vSphere
5 41 (3.78%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (1.66%) Firmware
7 16 (1.48%) GPFS
7 16 (1.48%) NFS
8 15 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (1.11%) Docker
10 11 (1.01%) Hyper-V
11 8 (0.74%) SRDF
12 4 (0.37%) vCloud
12 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
13 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.18%) KVM
14 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 2 (0.18%) Snort
14 2 (0.18%) Squid
15 1 (0.092%) Xen
Systems Management
1 101 (9.32%) Ansible
2 95 (8.76%) FortiGate
3 42 (3.87%) Terraform
3 42 (3.87%) vCenter Server
4 36 (3.32%) vRealize
5 25 (2.31%) SCCM
6 21 (1.94%) Grafana
7 19 (1.75%) VxRail
8 16 (1.48%) Microsoft Intune
9 15 (1.38%) Prometheus
10 12 (1.11%) Cisco CUCM
10 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
11 11 (1.01%) Kubernetes
12 10 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
13 9 (0.83%) Nagios
14 8 (0.74%) WSUS
15 7 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.65%) Nessus
16 6 (0.55%) EMC TimeFinder
17 5 (0.46%) SCOM
Vendors
1 272 (25.09%) Palo Alto
2 180 (16.61%) Microsoft
3 177 (16.33%) Juniper
3 177 (16.33%) VMware
4 159 (14.67%) F5
5 137 (12.64%) Aruba
6 109 (10.06%) Fortinet
7 105 (9.69%) CheckPoint
8 104 (9.59%) SolarWinds
9 99 (9.13%) Meraki
10 92 (8.49%) ServiceNow
11 75 (6.92%) Dell
12 64 (5.90%) HP
13 54 (4.98%) Splunk
14 51 (4.70%) Arista
15 45 (4.15%) IBM
16 44 (4.06%) SAP
16 44 (4.06%) Zscaler
17 41 (3.78%) Apple
18 30 (2.77%) Citrix