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 28 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
28 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 450 400 366
Rank change year-on-year -50 -34 +26
Contract jobs citing Firmware 170 111 165
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.37% 0.40% 0.50%
As % of the System Software category 3.69% 3.36% 4.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 50 79
10th Percentile £275 £201 £204
25th Percentile £358 £314 £311
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £509 £528
90th Percentile £625 £588 £575
UK median daily rate £439 £401 £473
% change year-on-year +9.55% -15.24% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 29 38
10th Percentile £12.76 £51.81 £20.50
25th Percentile £50.00 £56.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.75% +40.87% +2.22%
75th Percentile £75.00 £90.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.60 £91.50 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £81.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year -19.75% +40.87% +2.22%

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 4,613 3,299 3,867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.08% 11.97% 11.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,032 2,121 2,646
10th Percentile £213 £225 £225
25th Percentile £392 £378 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £683 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 96 125
10th Percentile £17.00 £15.04 £14.06
25th Percentile £33.70 £22.88 £15.76
Median hourly rate £62.50 £38.75 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +61.29% +62.82% -45.60%
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.00 £59.88
90th Percentile £89.75 £91.50 £70.75
UK median hourly rate £58.12 £31.39 £23.99
% change year-on-year +85.18% +30.83% -52.02%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -24 47 £370 -12.94% 66
Midlands -24 39 £413 -28.26% 61
South East -38 32 £600 +33.33% 133
North West -20 31 £400 -5.88% 39
East of England -22 30 £414 -2.65% 158
West Midlands -35 28 £413 -28.26% 32
London -101 27 £450 +12.36% 97
Yorkshire - 15 £365 - 19
East Midlands -12 11 £500 +27.55% 29
South West -27 8 £425 -3.41% 70
North East - 1 - - 11
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 6 (3.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.59%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (2.94%) Simulink
2 3 (1.76%) OrCAD
3 1 (0.59%) Adobe After Effects
3 1 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (0.59%) Blender
3 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (15.88%) Azure
2 10 (5.88%) AWS
3 9 (5.29%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (3.53%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (1.76%) Azure Stack
8 2 (1.18%) AWS IoT
8 2 (1.18%) GitHub
8 2 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (1.18%) IaaS
8 2 (1.18%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.18%) OCI
8 2 (1.18%) PaaS
8 2 (1.18%) SaaS
9 1 (0.59%) Cohesity
9 1 (0.59%) Google Workspace
9 1 (0.59%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (14.71%) DNS
2 24 (14.12%) Firewall
3 22 (12.94%) SAN
4 18 (10.59%) SSL
4 18 (10.59%) TCP/IP
4 18 (10.59%) Wireshark
5 16 (9.41%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 16 (9.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 16 (9.41%) VLAN
5 16 (9.41%) WAN
6 15 (8.82%) BIG-IP
6 15 (8.82%) HTTP
6 15 (8.82%) Wireless
7 14 (8.24%) Software-Defined Radio
8 11 (6.47%) DHCP
8 11 (6.47%) LAN
8 11 (6.47%) SD-WAN
9 10 (5.88%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (4.71%) BGP
10 8 (4.71%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.59%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (8.82%) Fiddler
2 10 (5.88%) JIRA
3 6 (3.53%) Git
4 3 (1.76%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (1.18%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.18%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.18%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.59%) Ranorex
6 1 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 30 (17.65%) Social Skills
2 15 (8.82%) Banking
2 15 (8.82%) Electronics
2 15 (8.82%) Investment Banking
3 14 (8.24%) Aerospace
4 12 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.53%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.94%) Retail
7 4 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.35%) Law
8 3 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.76%) Legal
9 2 (1.18%) Military
9 2 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.59%) Automotive
10 1 (0.59%) Finance
10 1 (0.59%) Games
10 1 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.59%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.59%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 30 (17.65%) Network Engineer
2 19 (11.18%) Software Engineer
3 18 (10.59%) Embedded Engineer
4 16 (9.41%) Lead
5 15 (8.82%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 15 (8.82%) IP Network Engineer
5 15 (8.82%) Web Engineer
6 12 (7.06%) Senior
7 11 (6.47%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 10 (5.88%) Administrator
9 9 (5.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (4.71%) Data Centre Engineer
10 8 (4.71%) Developer
11 6 (3.53%) Analyst
11 6 (3.53%) Firmware Engineer
11 6 (3.53%) FPGA Engineer
12 5 (2.94%) Backup Administrator
12 5 (2.94%) Hardware Technician
12 5 (2.94%) ICT Engineer
12 5 (2.94%) SAN Storage Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.06%) Yocto
2 11 (6.47%) Redfish
3 8 (4.71%) Terraform
4 3 (1.76%) .NET
4 3 (1.76%) Flutter
4 3 (1.76%) OpenTelemetry
4 3 (1.76%) REST
5 2 (1.18%) 802.1X
6 1 (0.59%) Framer.js
6 1 (0.59%) JSON
6 1 (0.59%) Middleware
6 1 (0.59%) PyQt
6 1 (0.59%) Streamlit
6 1 (0.59%) WPF
6 1 (0.59%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (19.41%) Embedded Systems
2 29 (17.06%) Data Centre
3 17 (10.00%) Management Information System
3 17 (10.00%) RISC-V
4 16 (9.41%) Device Driver
5 15 (8.82%) FPGA
6 12 (7.06%) Clustering
7 10 (5.88%) MicroBlaze
8 9 (5.29%) IoT
8 9 (5.29%) Verilog
9 8 (4.71%) PCIe
9 8 (4.71%) Replication
9 8 (4.71%) VHDL
10 6 (3.53%) Driving Licence
10 6 (3.53%) Enterprise Storage
11 5 (2.94%) EPoS
11 5 (2.94%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (2.35%) Security Posture
13 3 (1.76%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 39 (22.94%) Linux
2 30 (17.65%) Windows
3 16 (9.41%) Embedded Linux
4 10 (5.88%) AIX
4 10 (5.88%) Windows Server
5 7 (4.12%) Unix
6 6 (3.53%) Android
7 5 (2.94%) VMS
8 4 (2.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (1.76%) Apple iOS
9 3 (1.76%) SUSE
10 2 (1.18%) VxWorks
10 2 (1.18%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.59%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.59%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.59%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (17.65%) Software Engineering
2 22 (12.94%) Capacity Planning
3 20 (11.76%) Data Centre Operations
3 20 (11.76%) ITIL
4 19 (11.18%) Migration
5 18 (10.59%) Validation
6 17 (10.00%) Load Balancing
7 16 (9.41%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (8.82%) Agile
8 15 (8.82%) Data Loss Prevention
8 15 (8.82%) Disaster Recovery
8 15 (8.82%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 15 (8.82%) Signal Processing
9 14 (8.24%) High Availability
10 12 (7.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 12 (7.06%) Test Automation
11 11 (6.47%) Asset Management
11 11 (6.47%) Digital Signal Processing
11 11 (6.47%) Project Delivery
12 10 (5.88%) Security Hardening
Programming Languages
1 33 (19.41%) C++
2 31 (18.24%) C
3 27 (15.88%) Python
4 15 (8.82%) PowerShell
5 9 (5.29%) Ada
6 8 (4.71%) SystemVerilog
7 7 (4.12%) Bash
7 7 (4.12%) C#
7 7 (4.12%) MATLAB
7 7 (4.12%) Perl
8 5 (2.94%) Java
9 4 (2.35%) Embedded C
9 4 (2.35%) Embedded C++
10 3 (1.76%) Kotlin
10 3 (1.76%) Swift
11 2 (1.18%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.59%) Rust
12 1 (0.59%) Tcl
12 1 (0.59%) VB
Qualifications
1 41 (24.12%) Security Cleared
2 31 (18.24%) SC Cleared
3 24 (14.12%) Degree
4 11 (6.47%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (4.12%) ITIL Certification
6 6 (3.53%) CCNA
6 6 (3.53%) CCNP
6 6 (3.53%) DV Cleared
7 5 (2.94%) CISSP
8 4 (2.35%) Azure Certification
8 4 (2.35%) CEH
8 4 (2.35%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.76%) CCIE
9 3 (1.76%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.76%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (1.18%) ISACA
10 2 (1.18%) MCSE
11 1 (0.59%) HNC
11 1 (0.59%) MCSA
11 1 (0.59%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.47%) DO-254
2 10 (5.88%) Def Stans
3 9 (5.29%) DO-178B
4 7 (4.12%) MISRA
4 7 (4.12%) NIST
5 6 (3.53%) QA
6 3 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.76%) SLA
7 2 (1.18%) GDPR
7 2 (1.18%) NCSC
7 2 (1.18%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.59%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.59%) JTAG
System Software
1 32 (18.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (15.88%) Embedded Firmware
3 14 (8.24%) Active Directory
4 10 (5.88%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (4.71%) vSphere
6 7 (4.12%) PowerHA
7 5 (2.94%) Hyper-V
8 4 (2.35%) BitLocker
8 4 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.59%) Docker
10 1 (0.59%) KVM
10 1 (0.59%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 11 (6.47%) Dell DRAC
2 8 (4.71%) Ansible
3 7 (4.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 7 (4.12%) vCenter Server
4 6 (3.53%) FortiGate
5 4 (2.35%) SCCM
6 3 (1.76%) Failover Clustering
6 3 (1.76%) Microsoft Clustering
6 3 (1.76%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.76%) VxRail
7 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (1.18%) vMotion
8 1 (0.59%) Grafana
8 1 (0.59%) Kubernetes
8 1 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 35 (20.59%) VMware
2 32 (18.82%) Cisco
3 18 (10.59%) F5
4 16 (9.41%) McAfee
4 16 (9.41%) NetApp
5 15 (8.82%) Blue Coat
6 13 (7.65%) Microsoft
7 12 (7.06%) Dell
8 11 (6.47%) Xilinx
9 10 (5.88%) IBM
10 9 (5.29%) Fortinet
11 8 (4.71%) Altera
11 8 (4.71%) Meraki
11 8 (4.71%) Microsemi
11 8 (4.71%) ServiceNow
12 7 (4.12%) EMC
12 7 (4.12%) Juniper
12 7 (4.12%) Palo Alto
13 6 (3.53%) HP
14 5 (2.94%) Infoblox
571 Firmware jobs in England