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 14 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 430 392 334
Rank change year-on-year -38 -58 +263
Contract jobs citing Firmware 120 121 233
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.39% 0.41% 0.62%
As % of the System Software category 3.07% 3.44% 4.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 62 149
10th Percentile £141 £151 £205
25th Percentile £288 £220 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £470
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +1.06% -1.05%
75th Percentile £548 £550 £575
90th Percentile £588 £638 £645
UK median daily rate £425 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -10.53% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 16 24
10th Percentile £53.93 £49.38 £40.75
25th Percentile £65.75 £54.09 £54.38
Median hourly rate £77.50 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.23% +4.00% +12.61%
75th Percentile £82.94 £72.19 £65.00
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £75.00 £67.50 £61.75
% change year-on-year +11.11% +9.31% +11.76%

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 3,906 3,518 4,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 12.56% 11.99% 12.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,599 2,275 3,330
10th Percentile £213 £206 £195
25th Percentile £400 £375 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% +3.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £688 £725 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 79 218
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.44 £15.50
25th Percentile £21.00 £21.46 £18.06
Median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.15% -18.75% +60.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £65.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £91.50 £75.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £45.09 £29.00 £43.84
% change year-on-year +55.49% -33.85% +75.35%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025. 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
London +15 33 £450 +57.89% 29
East of England -7 32 £86 -81.84% 44
Midlands -22 23 £400 +142.42% 35
West Midlands -21 18 £488 +36.36% 22
North of England -69 15 £425 -10.71% 40
North West -30 14 £500 +5.26% 22
South West -2 12 £250 - 42
South East -6 12 £500 +2.56% 93
East Midlands -18 5 £143 -13.64% 13
Yorkshire -65 1 £230 -51.78% 15
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 7 (5.83%) Confluence
2 2 (1.67%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 9 (7.50%) Simulink
2 7 (5.83%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (3.33%) Windchill
4 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.83%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (3.33%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 6 (5.00%) AWS
1 6 (5.00%) Azure
2 2 (1.67%) GCP
2 2 (1.67%) GitHub
3 1 (0.83%) Asana
3 1 (0.83%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 1 (0.83%) IaaS
3 1 (0.83%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (0.83%) PaaS
3 1 (0.83%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (19.17%) DNS
2 15 (12.50%) Firewall
2 15 (12.50%) SSL
3 13 (10.83%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 11 (9.17%) BGP
4 11 (9.17%) OSPF
4 11 (9.17%) TCP/IP
4 11 (9.17%) Wireless
5 10 (8.33%) HTTP
5 10 (8.33%) VLAN
6 9 (7.50%) BIG-IP
6 9 (7.50%) DHCP
6 9 (7.50%) EIGRP
6 9 (7.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 9 (7.50%) Network Security
6 9 (7.50%) WAN
6 9 (7.50%) Wireshark
7 8 (6.67%) VPN
8 7 (5.83%) Ethernet
8 7 (5.83%) HTTPS
Development Applications
1 12 (10.00%) JIRA
2 9 (7.50%) Fiddler
3 5 (4.17%) Bitbucket
3 5 (4.17%) Rational DOORS
4 4 (3.33%) Rational Rhapsody
5 1 (0.83%) Git
5 1 (0.83%) IDA Disassembler
5 1 (0.83%) QADirector
5 1 (0.83%) Zephyr
General
1 35 (29.17%) Social Skills
2 22 (18.33%) Electronics
3 14 (11.67%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (11.67%) Banking
4 13 (10.83%) Military
5 10 (8.33%) Investment Banking
6 9 (7.50%) Manufacturing
7 8 (6.67%) Law
8 5 (4.17%) Games
9 4 (3.33%) Finance
10 3 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (2.50%) Public Sector
11 2 (1.67%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (1.67%) Legal
12 1 (0.83%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.83%) Marketing
12 1 (0.83%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (23.33%) Network Engineer
2 15 (12.50%) Security Engineer
3 13 (10.83%) Design Engineer
4 12 (10.00%) Lead
5 11 (9.17%) Embedded Engineer
5 11 (9.17%) Principal Engineer
6 10 (8.33%) RF Engineer
6 10 (8.33%) Software Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Blue Coat Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) IP Network Engineer
7 9 (7.50%) Web Engineer
8 8 (6.67%) Administrator
8 8 (6.67%) Firmware Engineer
9 6 (5.00%) Cisco Engineer
9 6 (5.00%) Digital Design Engineer
9 6 (5.00%) RF Design Engineer
9 6 (5.00%) Storage Engineer
9 6 (5.00%) Support Engineer
10 5 (4.17%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (6.67%) Flash
2 1 (0.83%) EJB
2 1 (0.83%) JCE
2 1 (0.83%) JSON Web Signature
2 1 (0.83%) JWT
2 1 (0.83%) LDAP
2 1 (0.83%) Middleware
2 1 (0.83%) OAuth
2 1 (0.83%) OAuth2
2 1 (0.83%) OpenID
2 1 (0.83%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (14.17%) FPGA
2 14 (11.67%) Embedded Systems
2 14 (11.67%) Management Information System
3 12 (10.00%) PKI
4 11 (9.17%) VHDL
5 8 (6.67%) Data Centre
6 7 (5.83%) Verilog
7 6 (5.00%) Algorithms
7 6 (5.00%) Analogue Electronics
8 5 (4.17%) PCIe
9 4 (3.33%) Synthetic Data
10 2 (1.67%) CUDA
10 2 (1.67%) IoT
10 2 (1.67%) Onboarding
11 1 (0.83%) Arduino
11 1 (0.83%) CCTV
11 1 (0.83%) CPLD
11 1 (0.83%) Hedge funds
11 1 (0.83%) Life Science
11 1 (0.83%) Smart Meter
Operating Systems
1 16 (13.33%) Windows
2 11 (9.17%) Linux
3 4 (3.33%) Windows 10
3 4 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 3 (2.50%) FreeRTOS
4 3 (2.50%) Windows 7
4 3 (2.50%) Windows 8
5 2 (1.67%) Debian
5 2 (1.67%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.83%) Android
6 1 (0.83%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.83%) CentOS
6 1 (0.83%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.83%) Oracle Linux
6 1 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.83%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (17.50%) Validation
2 19 (15.83%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (14.17%) Systems Engineering
4 15 (12.50%) AI
5 14 (11.67%) Patch Management
6 13 (10.83%) Change Management
7 11 (9.17%) Software Engineering
8 10 (8.33%) Data Management
8 10 (8.33%) GAP Analysis
8 10 (8.33%) Incident Management
8 10 (8.33%) Information Assurance
8 10 (8.33%) ITIL
8 10 (8.33%) Key Management
8 10 (8.33%) Load Balancing
8 10 (8.33%) Mentoring
8 10 (8.33%) MODAF
8 10 (8.33%) SABSA
8 10 (8.33%) Security Management
8 10 (8.33%) Technical Leadership
9 9 (7.50%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 23 (19.17%) C
2 22 (18.33%) Python
3 20 (16.67%) C++
4 9 (7.50%) MATLAB
4 9 (7.50%) PowerShell
5 8 (6.67%) Bash
6 6 (5.00%) Perl
6 6 (5.00%) SystemVerilog
6 6 (5.00%) Tcl
7 2 (1.67%) Embedded C
7 2 (1.67%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 40 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 29 (24.17%) SC Cleared
3 22 (18.33%) Degree
4 14 (11.67%) Cisco Certification
5 12 (10.00%) CCNP
6 8 (6.67%) DV Cleared
7 6 (5.00%) CISSP
7 6 (5.00%) JNCIA
7 6 (5.00%) JNCIS
8 5 (4.17%) HNC
8 5 (4.17%) HND
9 4 (3.33%) CCSA
10 3 (2.50%) CISM
11 2 (1.67%) CCNA
11 2 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.83%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.83%) OSCP
12 1 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (12.50%) NIST
2 12 (10.00%) JSP 440
2 12 (10.00%) NCSC
2 12 (10.00%) NIST 800
3 9 (7.50%) Def Stans
3 9 (7.50%) DO-178B
3 9 (7.50%) MISRA
4 6 (5.00%) DO-254
5 3 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (2.50%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.67%) GRC
6 2 (1.67%) SLA
7 1 (0.83%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 1 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.83%) JTAG
7 1 (0.83%) QA
7 1 (0.83%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.83%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 11 (9.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (6.67%) Active Directory
2 8 (6.67%) Embedded Firmware
3 5 (4.17%) VMware NSX
4 3 (2.50%) BitLocker
4 3 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.67%) Ceph
5 2 (1.67%) Docker
5 2 (1.67%) Lustre
5 2 (1.67%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.67%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (7.50%) SCCM
2 6 (5.00%) vCenter Server
3 3 (2.50%) CA Spectrum
4 2 (1.67%) Dell DRAC
4 2 (1.67%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.83%) Ansible
5 1 (0.83%) Grafana
5 1 (0.83%) HAProxy
5 1 (0.83%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.83%) SCOM
5 1 (0.83%) VxRail
Vendors
1 24 (20.00%) Cisco
2 14 (11.67%) F5
2 14 (11.67%) Juniper
3 13 (10.83%) Microsoft
3 13 (10.83%) NetApp
4 12 (10.00%) EMC
4 12 (10.00%) McAfee
4 12 (10.00%) VMware
5 11 (9.17%) Dell
6 9 (7.50%) Blue Coat
7 8 (6.67%) SolarWinds
8 6 (5.00%) Intel
8 6 (5.00%) Meraki
8 6 (5.00%) Xilinx
9 5 (4.17%) Actel
9 5 (4.17%) Altera
9 5 (4.17%) Atlassian
9 5 (4.17%) CheckPoint
9 5 (4.17%) Microsemi
10 4 (3.33%) Veritas