Firmware Contract Job Trends in England

Firmware
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Firmware skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 468 411 383
Rank change year-on-year -57 -28 -16
Contract jobs citing Firmware 161 103 146
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.35% 0.37% 0.45%
As % of the System Software category 3.45% 3.00% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 44 77
10th Percentile £250 £160 £161
25th Percentile £358 £300 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -15.79%
75th Percentile £544 £500 £525
90th Percentile £625 £588 £575
UK median daily rate £450 £400 £425
% change year-on-year +12.43% -5.82% -12.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 30 25
10th Percentile £12.76 £52.00 £34.81
25th Percentile £58.44 £57.38 £51.25
Median hourly rate £63.75 £81.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.30% +15.71% +24.44%
75th Percentile £71.00 £89.69 -
90th Percentile £79.00 £91.50 £71.95
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £81.00 £58.00
% change year-on-year -22.84% +39.66% +3.11%

All System Software Skills
England

Firmware falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,661 3,437 3,804
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.01% 12.30% 11.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,033 2,200 2,527
10th Percentile £213 £213 £220
25th Percentile £385 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.19% +0.73%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 103 95
10th Percentile £17.73 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £29.28 £22.50 £17.44
Median hourly rate £65.00 £34.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.41% +25.45% -41.29%
75th Percentile £74.32 £80.00 £69.84
90th Percentile £92.11 £89.93 £84.42
UK median hourly rate £62.82 £33.39 £27.50
% change year-on-year +88.16% +21.40% -45.00%

Firmware
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Firmware relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Firmware job vacancy trend in England

Firmware
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Firmware.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Firmware

Firmware
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firmware in England over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Firmware in England

Firmware
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Firmware.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Firmware

Firmware
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firmware in England over the 6 months to 26 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firmware in England

Firmware
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Firmware within the England region over the 6 months to 26 September 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
North of England -36 39 £400 -5.88% 95
East of England -33 34 £414 +89.14% 202
South East -50 32 £563 +18.42% 199
Midlands -27 31 £413 -28.26% 87
London -89 29 £450 +5.88% 183
North West -20 28 £400 -5.88% 51
West Midlands -33 21 £288 -50.00% 48
Yorkshire - 11 £365 - 27
East Midlands -9 10 £500 +27.55% 39
South West -37 7 £560 +27.27% 101
Firmware
UK

Firmware
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 4 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.62%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (2.48%) OrCAD
2 2 (1.24%) Simulink
3 1 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
3 1 (0.62%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (0.62%) Blender
3 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.62%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 21 (13.04%) Azure
2 8 (4.97%) AWS
3 7 (4.35%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (3.73%) Cohesity
5 5 (3.11%) Entra ID
6 4 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (1.86%) Rubrik
8 2 (1.24%) AWS IoT
8 2 (1.24%) GitHub
8 2 (1.24%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (1.24%) IaaS
8 2 (1.24%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.24%) PaaS
8 2 (1.24%) SaaS
9 1 (0.62%) Figma
9 1 (0.62%) OCI
9 1 (0.62%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 20 (12.42%) Firewall
2 19 (11.80%) TCP/IP
3 18 (11.18%) DNS
3 18 (11.18%) SAN
4 15 (9.32%) WAN
5 14 (8.70%) SSL
5 14 (8.70%) Wireshark
6 13 (8.07%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 13 (8.07%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 13 (8.07%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (7.45%) BIG-IP
7 12 (7.45%) HTTP
7 12 (7.45%) Wireless
8 11 (6.83%) Software-Defined Radio
8 11 (6.83%) VLAN
9 10 (6.21%) LAN
9 10 (6.21%) SD-WAN
10 9 (5.59%) NAS
11 8 (4.97%) DHCP
11 8 (4.97%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.62%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 12 (7.45%) Fiddler
2 10 (6.21%) JIRA
3 7 (4.35%) Git
4 3 (1.86%) GitLab
4 3 (1.86%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (1.24%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.24%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.24%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.62%) Ranorex
General
1 34 (21.12%) Social Skills
2 20 (12.42%) Electronics
3 15 (9.32%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (8.70%) Aerospace
5 12 (7.45%) Banking
5 12 (7.45%) Investment Banking
6 9 (5.59%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.97%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.73%) Telecoms
9 5 (3.11%) Retail
10 4 (2.48%) Law
11 3 (1.86%) Legal
11 3 (1.86%) Military
12 2 (1.24%) Automotive
12 2 (1.24%) Avionics
12 2 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.62%) Aviation
13 1 (0.62%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 29 (18.01%) Network Engineer
2 18 (11.18%) Lead
3 17 (10.56%) Software Engineer
4 15 (9.32%) Embedded Engineer
5 12 (7.45%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 12 (7.45%) IP Network Engineer
5 12 (7.45%) Web Engineer
6 10 (6.21%) Embedded Software Engineer
6 10 (6.21%) Senior
7 9 (5.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (4.35%) Developer
9 6 (3.73%) Analyst
9 6 (3.73%) Backup Engineer
9 6 (3.73%) Electronics Engineer
9 6 (3.73%) Storage and Backup Engineer
9 6 (3.73%) Storage Engineer
10 5 (3.11%) Data Centre Engineer
10 5 (3.11%) Firmware Engineer
10 5 (3.11%) Hardware Technician
10 5 (3.11%) ICT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.21%) Yocto
2 5 (3.11%) Redfish
3 4 (2.48%) Terraform
4 3 (1.86%) .NET
4 3 (1.86%) Flutter
4 3 (1.86%) REST
5 1 (0.62%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.62%) Flash
5 1 (0.62%) Framer.js
5 1 (0.62%) Middleware
5 1 (0.62%) PyQt
5 1 (0.62%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 33 (20.50%) Embedded Systems
2 24 (14.91%) Data Centre
3 15 (9.32%) Device Driver
3 15 (9.32%) Management Information System
3 15 (9.32%) RISC-V
4 14 (8.70%) FPGA
5 12 (7.45%) IoT
6 9 (5.59%) Clustering
6 9 (5.59%) Enterprise Storage
7 8 (4.97%) MicroBlaze
7 8 (4.97%) Replication
8 6 (3.73%) PCIe
8 6 (3.73%) Verilog
9 5 (3.11%) Driving Licence
9 5 (3.11%) EPoS
9 5 (3.11%) VHDL
10 4 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (2.48%) Video Conferencing
11 3 (1.86%) Mobile App
11 3 (1.86%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 32 (19.88%) Linux
2 27 (16.77%) Windows
3 13 (8.07%) Embedded Linux
4 10 (6.21%) Windows Server
5 6 (3.73%) AIX
6 5 (3.11%) Android
7 4 (2.48%) Unix
8 3 (1.86%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.86%) Data ONTAP
9 2 (1.24%) VMS
9 2 (1.24%) VxWorks
9 2 (1.24%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.62%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.62%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.62%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (17.39%) Software Engineering
2 22 (13.66%) Capacity Planning
3 21 (13.04%) ITIL
4 19 (11.80%) Disaster Recovery
5 17 (10.56%) Validation
6 16 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (8.70%) Data Centre Operations
7 14 (8.70%) High Availability
7 14 (8.70%) Signal Processing
8 13 (8.07%) Agile
8 13 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 12 (7.45%) Data Loss Prevention
9 12 (7.45%) Load Balancing
9 12 (7.45%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 12 (7.45%) Migration
10 11 (6.83%) Cybersecurity
10 11 (6.83%) Project Delivery
10 11 (6.83%) Root Cause Analysis
11 10 (6.21%) Test Automation
12 9 (5.59%) Digital Signal Processing
Programming Languages
1 31 (19.25%) C
1 31 (19.25%) C++
2 16 (9.94%) Python
3 12 (7.45%) PowerShell
4 9 (5.59%) Ada
5 6 (3.73%) C#
6 5 (3.11%) Java
6 5 (3.11%) SystemVerilog
7 4 (2.48%) Embedded C
7 4 (2.48%) Embedded C++
7 4 (2.48%) MATLAB
7 4 (2.48%) Perl
8 3 (1.86%) Bash
8 3 (1.86%) Kotlin
8 3 (1.86%) Swift
9 2 (1.24%) VB.NET
10 1 (0.62%) Rust
10 1 (0.62%) Tcl
10 1 (0.62%) VB
Qualifications
1 39 (24.22%) Security Cleared
2 25 (15.53%) Degree
2 25 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.21%) Cisco Certification
3 10 (6.21%) DV Cleared
4 9 (5.59%) ITIL Certification
5 5 (3.11%) CCNA
5 5 (3.11%) CCNP
5 5 (3.11%) CISSP
6 4 (2.48%) CEH
6 4 (2.48%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (2.48%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (1.86%) CCIE
7 3 (1.86%) ISACA
7 3 (1.86%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.24%) MCSE
9 1 (0.62%) HNC
9 1 (0.62%) HND
9 1 (0.62%) MCSA
9 1 (0.62%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.21%) Def Stans
2 9 (5.59%) DO-178B
2 9 (5.59%) DO-254
3 8 (4.97%) NIST
4 7 (4.35%) MISRA
5 6 (3.73%) QA
6 4 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (2.48%) NCSC
6 4 (2.48%) SLA
7 3 (1.86%) NIST 800
8 2 (1.24%) GDPR
8 2 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.62%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.62%) DO-160
9 1 (0.62%) JTAG
System Software
1 32 (19.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 24 (14.91%) Embedded Firmware
3 12 (7.45%) Active Directory
4 7 (4.35%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (3.73%) vSphere
6 4 (2.48%) BitLocker
6 4 (2.48%) PowerHA
6 4 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.86%) NFS
8 2 (1.24%) Hyper-V
8 2 (1.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.62%) KVM
9 1 (0.62%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.62%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 6 (3.73%) Dell DRAC
1 6 (3.73%) FortiGate
1 6 (3.73%) Tivoli Storage Manager
2 5 (3.11%) vCenter Server
3 4 (2.48%) Ansible
3 4 (2.48%) SCCM
4 3 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (1.86%) SnapMirror
4 3 (1.86%) vMotion
Vendors
1 35 (21.74%) VMware
2 28 (17.39%) Cisco
3 18 (11.18%) NetApp
4 15 (9.32%) F5
4 15 (9.32%) Microsoft
5 13 (8.07%) McAfee
6 12 (7.45%) Blue Coat
7 9 (5.59%) EMC
7 9 (5.59%) Xilinx
8 8 (4.97%) Fortinet
8 8 (4.97%) HP
9 7 (4.35%) Altera
9 7 (4.35%) IBM
9 7 (4.35%) Palo Alto
10 6 (3.73%) Dell
10 6 (3.73%) Juniper
10 6 (3.73%) ServiceNow
11 5 (3.11%) Commvault
11 5 (3.11%) Intel
11 5 (3.11%) Meraki