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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 467 412 367
Rank change year-on-year -55 -45 +84
Contract jobs citing Firmware 151 93 177
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.34% 0.34% 0.48%
As % of the System Software category 3.37% 2.83% 4.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 42 92
10th Percentile £233 £201 £205
25th Percentile £356 £303 £318
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £407 £425
Median % change year-on-year +3.32% -4.35% -8.11%
75th Percentile £500 £500 £543
90th Percentile £626 £554 £575
UK median daily rate £413 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +3.13% -11.11% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 23 42
10th Percentile £24.95 £42.21 £20.87
25th Percentile £42.50 £54.13 £50.83
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.75% +29.60% +19.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £88.00 £70.00
90th Percentile - £91.50 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £81.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -19.75% +33.88% +15.24%

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 4,484 3,284 4,174
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 12.10% 11.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,154 2,895
10th Percentile £213 £222 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year - -0.99% -3.81%
75th Percentile £599 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 87 190
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.13 £14.06
25th Percentile £25.81 £22.50 £14.74
Median hourly rate £55.00 £34.50 £22.23
Median % change year-on-year +59.42% +55.23% -50.47%
75th Percentile £74.00 £75.60 £58.64
90th Percentile £85.00 £89.85 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £29.25 £23.99
% change year-on-year +74.36% +21.93% -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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 -30 52 £365 -16.57% 37
Midlands -30 33 £413 -13.16% 36
North West -22 30 £450 - 25
West Midlands -43 26 £413 +37.50% 12
London -74 25 £431 +7.81% 39
East of England -23 24 £425 -15.00% 39
South East -50 24 £600 +83.49% 74
Yorkshire - 21 £365 - 8
East Midlands -8 7 £500 -23.08% 24
South West -29 6 £425 -3.41% 24
North East -39 1 - - 5
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 (3.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.66%) Confluence
2 1 (0.66%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (3.97%) Simulink
2 1 (0.66%) Adobe After Effects
2 1 (0.66%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (0.66%) Blender
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 29 (19.21%) Azure
2 11 (7.28%) Entra ID
3 8 (5.30%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (4.64%) AWS
5 5 (3.31%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 3 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (1.99%) Azure Monitor
6 3 (1.99%) Azure Stack
6 3 (1.99%) GitHub
7 2 (1.32%) AWS IoT
7 2 (1.32%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (0.66%) AWS Direct Connect
8 1 (0.66%) Cohesity
8 1 (0.66%) Figma
8 1 (0.66%) IaaS
8 1 (0.66%) OCI
8 1 (0.66%) OneDrive
8 1 (0.66%) Rubrik
8 1 (0.66%) SaaS
8 1 (0.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (16.56%) DNS
2 23 (15.23%) Firewall
3 19 (12.58%) SSL
3 19 (12.58%) Wireshark
4 17 (11.26%) TCP/IP
5 16 (10.60%) BIG-IP
5 16 (10.60%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 16 (10.60%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 16 (10.60%) HTTP
5 16 (10.60%) WAN
6 15 (9.93%) SAN
7 14 (9.27%) VLAN
8 11 (7.28%) SD-WAN
9 10 (6.62%) LAN
9 10 (6.62%) VPN
9 10 (6.62%) Wireless
10 9 (5.96%) DHCP
10 9 (5.96%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (5.30%) Software-Defined Radio
12 7 (4.64%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (10.60%) Fiddler
2 13 (8.61%) JIRA
3 4 (2.65%) Git
4 3 (1.99%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (1.32%) MSTest
5 2 (1.32%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.32%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.32%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 31 (20.53%) Social Skills
2 16 (10.60%) Banking
2 16 (10.60%) Investment Banking
3 13 (8.61%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (8.61%) Electronics
4 9 (5.96%) Aerospace
5 5 (3.31%) Law
6 3 (1.99%) Manufacturing
6 3 (1.99%) Retail
7 2 (1.32%) Finance
7 2 (1.32%) Games
7 2 (1.32%) Legal
7 2 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.66%) Local Government
8 1 (0.66%) Mandarin Language
8 1 (0.66%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 33 (21.85%) Network Engineer
2 16 (10.60%) Blue Coat Engineer
2 16 (10.60%) IP Network Engineer
2 16 (10.60%) Web Engineer
3 15 (9.93%) Software Engineer
4 13 (8.61%) Senior
5 12 (7.95%) Data Centre Engineer
5 12 (7.95%) Embedded Engineer
6 10 (6.62%) Administrator
7 9 (5.96%) Lead
8 7 (4.64%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 7 (4.64%) Firmware Engineer
9 6 (3.97%) Analyst
10 5 (3.31%) Desktop Engineer
10 5 (3.31%) FPGA Engineer
10 5 (3.31%) ICT Engineer
10 5 (3.31%) Network Analyst
10 5 (3.31%) Systems Engineer
10 5 (3.31%) Technical Leader
11 4 (2.65%) Storage Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (8.61%) Redfish
2 6 (3.97%) Yocto
3 3 (1.99%) .NET
3 3 (1.99%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.32%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.66%) Framer.js
5 1 (0.66%) JSON
5 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.66%) PyQt
5 1 (0.66%) REST
5 1 (0.66%) Streamlit
5 1 (0.66%) WPF
5 1 (0.66%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (19.21%) Data Centre
2 23 (15.23%) Embedded Systems
3 17 (11.26%) Management Information System
4 13 (8.61%) FPGA
4 13 (8.61%) RISC-V
5 10 (6.62%) Verilog
6 8 (5.30%) Device Driver
6 8 (5.30%) VHDL
7 7 (4.64%) Clustering
7 7 (4.64%) Onboarding
7 7 (4.64%) Replication
8 6 (3.97%) Driving Licence
8 6 (3.97%) Enterprise Storage
8 6 (3.97%) MicroBlaze
8 6 (3.97%) PCIe
9 5 (3.31%) IoT
9 5 (3.31%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (3.31%) Security Posture
10 4 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (2.65%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 37 (24.50%) Windows
2 31 (20.53%) Linux
3 9 (5.96%) Embedded Linux
4 7 (4.64%) AIX
5 5 (3.31%) VMS
6 4 (2.65%) Windows Server
7 3 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (1.99%) SUSE
7 3 (1.99%) Unix
8 2 (1.32%) Android
8 2 (1.32%) VxWorks
9 1 (0.66%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.66%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.66%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (15.23%) Software Engineering
2 19 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
3 18 (11.92%) Load Balancing
4 17 (11.26%) Capacity Planning
4 17 (11.26%) Data Centre Operations
5 16 (10.60%) Data Loss Prevention
5 16 (10.60%) ITIL
5 16 (10.60%) Malware Detection/Protection
5 16 (10.60%) Runbook
6 15 (9.93%) Migration
7 14 (9.27%) Test Automation
7 14 (9.27%) Validation
8 12 (7.95%) Asset Management
9 11 (7.28%) High Availability
9 11 (7.28%) Performance Tuning
9 11 (7.28%) Project Delivery
10 10 (6.62%) Infrastructure Management
10 10 (6.62%) Inventory Management
11 9 (5.96%) Agile
11 9 (5.96%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 26 (17.22%) Python
2 23 (15.23%) C++
3 22 (14.57%) C
4 19 (12.58%) PowerShell
5 10 (6.62%) Bash
6 9 (5.96%) Ada
6 9 (5.96%) SystemVerilog
7 8 (5.30%) C#
7 8 (5.30%) MATLAB
8 3 (1.99%) Embedded C++
8 3 (1.99%) Perl
9 2 (1.32%) Embedded C
9 2 (1.32%) Java
9 2 (1.32%) Tcl
9 2 (1.32%) VB.NET
10 1 (0.66%) VB
Qualifications
1 30 (19.87%) Security Cleared
2 25 (16.56%) SC Cleared
3 21 (13.91%) Degree
4 11 (7.28%) Cisco Certification
5 6 (3.97%) CCNA
5 6 (3.97%) CCNP
6 4 (2.65%) Azure Certification
6 4 (2.65%) CEH
6 4 (2.65%) CISSP
6 4 (2.65%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.65%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (1.99%) CCIE
7 3 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (1.32%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.32%) HNC
8 2 (1.32%) HND
8 2 (1.32%) ISTQB
8 2 (1.32%) MCSE
9 1 (0.66%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.62%) DO-178B
2 9 (5.96%) DO-254
3 8 (5.30%) Def Stans
3 8 (5.30%) MISRA
4 6 (3.97%) QA
5 4 (2.65%) NIST
6 3 (1.99%) GDPR
7 1 (0.66%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.66%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.66%) SLA
System Software
1 32 (21.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (13.25%) Embedded Firmware
3 18 (11.92%) Active Directory
4 8 (5.30%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (4.64%) Hyper-V
6 5 (3.31%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (2.65%) BitLocker
7 4 (2.65%) vSphere
8 3 (1.99%) KVM
8 3 (1.99%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.66%) Docker
9 1 (0.66%) NFS
9 1 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 12 (7.95%) Dell DRAC
2 6 (3.97%) Ansible
2 6 (3.97%) FortiGate
3 5 (3.31%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (3.31%) Terraform
4 4 (2.65%) SCCM
4 4 (2.65%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 3 (1.99%) Failover Clustering
5 3 (1.99%) Microsoft Clustering
5 3 (1.99%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.99%) vCenter Server
5 3 (1.99%) VxRail
6 2 (1.32%) HP ALM
6 2 (1.32%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.66%) Grafana
7 1 (0.66%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.66%) PaperCut
7 1 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.66%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 36 (23.84%) VMware
2 31 (20.53%) Cisco
3 18 (11.92%) F5
3 18 (11.92%) Microsoft
4 17 (11.26%) McAfee
4 17 (11.26%) NetApp
5 16 (10.60%) Blue Coat
6 10 (6.62%) Xilinx
7 9 (5.96%) Fortinet
7 9 (5.96%) Microsemi
8 8 (5.30%) Dell
8 8 (5.30%) IBM
9 7 (4.64%) Altera
9 7 (4.64%) HP
9 7 (4.64%) Juniper
9 7 (4.64%) Meraki
9 7 (4.64%) Palo Alto
9 7 (4.64%) ServiceNow
10 5 (3.31%) Actel
10 5 (3.31%) Infoblox