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 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 436 402 326
Rank change year-on-year -34 -76 +219
Contract jobs citing Firmware 143 73 212
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.36% 0.30% 0.57%
As % of the System Software category 3.32% 2.31% 5.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 38 139
10th Percentile £256 £200 £205
25th Percentile £358 £356 £262
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £423 £470 £425
Median % change year-on-year -10.11% +10.59% -5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £563
90th Percentile £713 £675 £575
UK median daily rate £420 £458 £425
% change year-on-year -8.20% +7.65% -10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 14 43
10th Percentile £42.50 £46.82 £21.24
25th Percentile £53.13 £55.59 £39.38
Median hourly rate £66.50 £62.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.26% -0.80% +13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.38
90th Percentile - £88.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £62.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +6.40% +3.31% +10.00%

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 4,302 3,155 4,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.91% 12.88% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,939 2,190 2,822
10th Percentile £213 £213 £190
25th Percentile £400 £400 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £485
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +8.36% -7.71%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £694 £725 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £486
% change year-on-year -4.76% +8.14% -7.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 76 208
10th Percentile £16.72 £15.12 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.47 £20.74 £14.48
Median hourly rate £55.00 £28.71 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +91.60% +36.69% -49.85%
75th Percentile £74.00 £65.25 £52.81
90th Percentile £85.55 £87.13 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £52.75 £28.71 £22.50
% change year-on-year +83.77% +27.58% -55.00%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -34 44 £365 -18.89% 42
Midlands -39 32 £400 - 33
London -33 31 £438 +7.36% 22
West Midlands -38 29 £406 - 11
North West -29 26 £498 +2.05% 32
South East -40 23 £600 +23.08% 70
Yorkshire - 17 £365 - 7
East of England -32 15 £338 -41.30% 35
South West -15 14 £450 +80.00% 25
East Midlands -33 3 £175 - 22
North East -13 1 - - 3
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 (4.90%) Confluence
1 7 (4.90%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (5.59%) Simulink
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.70%) OrCAD
Cloud Services
1 23 (16.08%) Azure
2 10 (6.99%) Entra ID
3 7 (4.90%) GitHub
3 7 (4.90%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (4.20%) AWS
5 5 (3.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.10%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (2.10%) Azure Stack
8 2 (1.40%) AWS IoT
9 1 (0.70%) AWS Direct Connect
9 1 (0.70%) Cohesity
9 1 (0.70%) Google Workspace
9 1 (0.70%) OCI
9 1 (0.70%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.70%) Rubrik
9 1 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 26 (18.18%) DNS
2 20 (13.99%) SSL
2 20 (13.99%) Wireshark
3 19 (13.29%) BIG-IP
3 19 (13.29%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 19 (13.29%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 19 (13.29%) HTTP
3 19 (13.29%) TCP/IP
4 18 (12.59%) Firewall
5 17 (11.89%) Ethernet
6 15 (10.49%) SAN
7 12 (8.39%) VLAN
8 9 (6.29%) Wireless
9 7 (4.90%) DHCP
9 7 (4.90%) Modbus
9 7 (4.90%) RS-232
9 7 (4.90%) RS-485
10 6 (4.20%) Network Security
10 6 (4.20%) VPN
11 5 (3.50%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 19 (13.29%) Fiddler
2 14 (9.79%) JIRA
3 3 (2.10%) Git
4 2 (1.40%) MSTest
4 2 (1.40%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (1.40%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.70%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.70%) Rational Rhapsody
5 1 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (24.48%) Social Skills
2 20 (13.99%) Banking
3 19 (13.29%) Investment Banking
4 15 (10.49%) Electronics
5 11 (7.69%) Aerospace
5 11 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.80%) Games
6 4 (2.80%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.40%) Finance
7 2 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.70%) Law
8 1 (0.70%) Legal
8 1 (0.70%) Mandarin Language
8 1 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (20.28%) Network Engineer
2 19 (13.29%) Blue Coat Engineer
2 19 (13.29%) Embedded Engineer
2 19 (13.29%) IP Network Engineer
2 19 (13.29%) Web Engineer
3 14 (9.79%) Software Engineer
4 10 (6.99%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 10 (6.99%) Lead
5 9 (6.29%) Data Centre Engineer
5 9 (6.29%) Senior
6 8 (5.59%) Firmware Engineer
7 7 (4.90%) Administrator
7 7 (4.90%) Desktop Engineer
7 7 (4.90%) FPGA Engineer
8 6 (4.20%) Cloud Engineer
8 6 (4.20%) Storage Engineer
9 5 (3.50%) Systems Engineer
9 5 (3.50%) Technical Leader
10 4 (2.80%) Desktop Support
10 4 (2.80%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.99%) Redfish
2 3 (2.10%) .NET
2 3 (2.10%) OpenTelemetry
2 3 (2.10%) Yocto
3 2 (1.40%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.40%) Unity (Game Engine)
3 2 (1.40%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (0.70%) Flash
4 1 (0.70%) JSON
4 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (0.70%) REST
4 1 (0.70%) WPF
4 1 (0.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (15.38%) Data Centre
1 22 (15.38%) Embedded Systems
2 20 (13.99%) Management Information System
3 18 (12.59%) FPGA
4 11 (7.69%) PCIe
5 10 (6.99%) Verilog
6 9 (6.29%) VHDL
7 7 (4.90%) Clustering
7 7 (4.90%) PKI
8 6 (4.20%) Replication
9 5 (3.50%) Algorithms
9 5 (3.50%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (3.50%) Onboarding
10 4 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (2.80%) Device Driver
11 3 (2.10%) Enterprise Storage
11 3 (2.10%) IoT
11 3 (2.10%) MicroBlaze
11 3 (2.10%) RISC-V
12 2 (1.40%) Acoustics
Operating Systems
1 34 (23.78%) Windows
2 32 (22.38%) Linux
3 7 (4.90%) Embedded Linux
3 7 (4.90%) FreeRTOS
4 5 (3.50%) AIX
4 5 (3.50%) VMS
5 4 (2.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (2.10%) SUSE
6 3 (2.10%) Unix
6 3 (2.10%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.40%) Android
7 2 (1.40%) Debian
8 1 (0.70%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.70%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.70%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (16.08%) Validation
2 21 (14.69%) Load Balancing
3 19 (13.29%) Data Loss Prevention
3 19 (13.29%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 17 (11.89%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (11.89%) Software Engineering
5 15 (10.49%) Data Centre Operations
5 15 (10.49%) Runbook
6 14 (9.79%) Computer Science
7 13 (9.09%) ITIL
7 13 (9.09%) Test Automation
8 12 (8.39%) Capacity Planning
8 12 (8.39%) Disaster Recovery
8 12 (8.39%) High Availability
8 12 (8.39%) Systems Engineering
9 11 (7.69%) Customer Requirements
10 10 (6.99%) ITSM
10 10 (6.99%) Platform Engineering
11 9 (6.29%) Migration
11 9 (6.29%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 27 (18.88%) Python
2 19 (13.29%) C
3 18 (12.59%) PowerShell
4 17 (11.89%) C++
5 9 (6.29%) Bash
5 9 (6.29%) MATLAB
5 9 (6.29%) SystemVerilog
6 7 (4.90%) Embedded C++
7 6 (4.20%) C#
8 5 (3.50%) Embedded C
8 5 (3.50%) Tcl
9 3 (2.10%) Perl
10 2 (1.40%) Java
10 2 (1.40%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.70%) Ada
11 1 (0.70%) VB
Qualifications
1 33 (23.08%) Security Cleared
2 22 (15.38%) SC Cleared
3 21 (14.69%) Degree
4 8 (5.59%) Computer Science Degree
4 8 (5.59%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.80%) Azure Certification
5 4 (2.80%) CEH
5 4 (2.80%) CISSP
5 4 (2.80%) CompTIA Security+
5 4 (2.80%) HNC
5 4 (2.80%) HND
6 3 (2.10%) CCNA
6 3 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.40%) CCNP
7 2 (1.40%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.70%) JNCIA
8 1 (0.70%) JNCIS
8 1 (0.70%) MCSE
8 1 (0.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.29%) DO-254
2 6 (4.20%) Def Stans
2 6 (4.20%) DO-178B
2 6 (4.20%) MISRA
3 4 (2.80%) NIST
4 3 (2.10%) QA
5 1 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.70%) GDPR
5 1 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.70%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 33 (23.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (13.99%) Embedded Firmware
3 18 (12.59%) Active Directory
4 9 (6.29%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (5.59%) Hyper-V
6 6 (4.20%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (3.50%) vSphere
8 4 (2.80%) Docker
8 4 (2.80%) KVM
8 4 (2.80%) VMware NSX
9 3 (2.10%) BitLocker
9 3 (2.10%) PowerHA
10 2 (1.40%) Ceph
10 2 (1.40%) Lustre
10 2 (1.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.70%) NFS
Systems Management
1 9 (6.29%) Dell DRAC
2 8 (5.59%) vCenter Server
3 7 (4.90%) Ansible
4 5 (3.50%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (3.50%) Terraform
5 4 (2.80%) Kubernetes
5 4 (2.80%) Prometheus
6 3 (2.10%) Failover Clustering
6 3 (2.10%) Microsoft Clustering
6 3 (2.10%) SCCM
6 3 (2.10%) VxRail
7 2 (1.40%) Grafana
7 2 (1.40%) HP ALM
7 2 (1.40%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (1.40%) Tivoli Storage Manager
8 1 (0.70%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.70%) PaperCut
8 1 (0.70%) Podman
8 1 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.70%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 35 (24.48%) VMware
2 24 (16.78%) NetApp
3 19 (13.29%) Blue Coat
3 19 (13.29%) Cisco
3 19 (13.29%) F5
3 19 (13.29%) McAfee
4 15 (10.49%) Microsoft
5 12 (8.39%) Dell
6 9 (6.29%) Altera
6 9 (6.29%) Xilinx
7 8 (5.59%) EMC
7 8 (5.59%) Microsemi
8 7 (4.90%) IBM
9 6 (4.20%) Juniper
10 5 (3.50%) HP
10 5 (3.50%) Intel
10 5 (3.50%) SolarWinds
11 4 (2.80%) Actel
11 4 (2.80%) Nexthink
11 4 (2.80%) Veritas