How Many People Work at Cisco? Headcount and Employee Trends

Cisco employs roughly 51,700 people worldwide and remains one of the larger players in enterprise networking and collaboration technology. Recent staffing data shows about 1,450 new hires against 3,260 departures, indicating a modest contraction in total workforce size. Even with that pull-back, the company continues to maintain a broad mix of technical, commercial, and corporate roles to support its hardware, software, and services portfolio.

Engineering is Cisco’s largest discipline with just over 20,000 employees, representing nearly 39% of total headcount and underscoring the company’s emphasis on product development and network innovation. Sales and Support follows at about 10,600 employees (21%), reflecting Cisco’s need for customer-facing talent to manage a diverse global client base. Mid-sized functions include Marketing and Product (8%), Information Technology (8%), and Business Management (7%), while Finance & Administration, Operations, Program & Project Management, and Human Resources collectively account for roughly 17% of staff. The distribution illustrates a balanced organization that pairs deep technical resources with sizable go-to-market and operational teams.

Cisco’s workforce is widely distributed. Approximately 8.6% of employees are based in San Jose, its long-standing headquarters, with another 4.9% in the broader San Francisco Bay Area. Raleigh-Durham hosts about 6.3% of staff, while Bengaluru houses close to 3.8%, highlighting key U.S. and India engineering hubs. Other notable offices include Austin, New York, Dallas–Fort Worth, Chicago, and Singapore, each home to between 0.6% and 1.5% of employees. A substantial 72% of headcount is classified under “Other,” reflecting Cisco’s extensive presence in additional North American, European, and Asia-Pacific locations.