You will be supported every step of the way
Dedicated Apprentice Manager: Dedicated leader coaching your career direction, university progress, and overall well-being.
Experienced Technical Mentors & Buddies: Senior engineers and former apprentices who guide your technical learning day-to-day.
Your Apprentice Cohort: A tight-knit community of fellow apprentices who learn, experiment, and celebrate achievements together.
Tailored Technical Rotations: Rotate through Cloud Infrastructure, AI Platform Engineering, Data & Automation, and Enterprise Applications.
Your Impact
Technology and AI are evolving at lightning speed, and Cisco IT is where that future gets built. You will partner side-by-side with modern AI tools and LLMs to solve real business bottlenecks and supercharge productivity.
Your 3-Year Journey to Forward Deployment Engineer
Year 1 (Foundation & Discovery): Build core software, networking, and IT fundamentals in a safe, supportive team. Master Cisco IT tools, explore AI-assisted workflows, shadow live engineering projects, and identify your technical strengths.
Year 2 (Acceleration & Applied Engineering): Lean into your strengths across specialized rotations. Collaborate on live projects, build automation scripts, deploy AI workflows to solve business challenges, and take on project ownership in agile teams.
Year 3 (Advanced Delivery & Forward Deployment): Operate with high autonomy as an emerging Forward Deployment Engineer. Embed directly with internal business stakeholders, translate ambiguous operational challenges into technical solutions, and prepare for a seamless transition into a permanent engineering role upon graduation.
What You Will Be Doing Day-to-Day
Solving business problems in partnership with AI, using generative models, intelligent agents, and modern developer tooling.
Developing software integrations, deploying Cisco platforms, and configuring cloud and network infrastructure.
Navigating ambiguity by breaking down open-ended business challenges into clear, testable engineering steps.
Analysing system and user data to spot performance trends, identify bottlenecks, and inform smarter business decisions.
Working within agile frameworks, contributing to sprints, and presenting working prototypes to internal stakeholders.
Collaborating with multidisciplinary engineering teams across the UK, Europe, the US, and Asia.
Minimum Qualifications
Currently studying for or holding A-Levels, BTEC National, or equivalent qualifications, on track to achieve a minimum of 120 UCAS points.
Minimum GCSE Grade 4 / C (or above) in English Language and Mathematics.
You have the right to work in the UK for the full duration of the programme.
Preferred Qualifications
A background in STEM is preferred.
AI Native Mentality: Curious about AI tools, LLMs, and prompt-driven problem solving, constantly exploring how technology makes work smarter and faster.
Technical Curiosity & Confidence: Eager to experiment with software and infrastructure, troubleshoot, and build practical solutions.
Navigating Ambiguity: Calm and proactive when there is no step-by-step manual—testing hypotheses and creating clarity from complex problems.
Creative Business Problem Solver: Sees technology as a tool to solve tangible human and operational challenges.
Collaborative Communicator: Works brilliantly across diverse technical and non-technical teams.
Growth Mindset & Coachability: Welcomes feedback, embraces new challenges, and has an insatiable hunger to learn.
Why Cisco?
At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.
Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.
We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.
