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 8 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 428 401 348
Rank change year-on-year -27 -53 +160
Contract jobs citing Firmware 153 72 200
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.38% 0.30% 0.54%
As % of the System Software category 3.59% 2.36% 4.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 37 123
10th Percentile £293 £200 £205
25th Percentile £358 £327 £286
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £440 £425
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% +3.53% -10.53%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £575
90th Percentile £705 £653 -
UK median daily rate £425 £425 £425
% change year-on-year - - -15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 15 47
10th Percentile £42.50 £37.75 £22.71
25th Percentile £55.00 £48.03 £47.50
Median hourly rate £66.50 £57.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.15% -7.60% +13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £78.75 £67.38
90th Percentile - £88.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £59.63 £60.50
% change year-on-year +11.53% -1.45% +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 4,256 3,049 4,005
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.50% 12.58% 10.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,892 2,109 2,780
10th Percentile £213 £213 £194
25th Percentile £400 £388 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £725 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 70 210
10th Percentile £19.00 £14.99 £14.06
25th Percentile £27.00 £18.13 £14.48
Median hourly rate £57.77 £28.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.30% +33.33% -58.00%
75th Percentile £74.00 £64.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £95.00 £88.00 £75.30
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £27.94 £22.50
% change year-on-year +89.69% +24.18% -58.33%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 -25 47 £365 -18.89% 34
Midlands -42 33 £400 - 23
London -48 33 £444 +10.94% 24
West Midlands -30 30 £400 - 12
North West -20 28 £450 -7.69% 25
South East -59 27 £600 +26.32% 87
Yorkshire - 18 £365 - 5
East of England -25 16 £338 -38.64% 37
South West -26 13 £450 +52.54% 30
East Midlands -27 3 £175 - 11
North East -16 1 - - 4
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 (4.58%) Confluence
2 6 (3.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.31%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (4.58%) Simulink
2 1 (0.65%) Adobe After Effects
2 1 (0.65%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 1 (0.65%) Blender
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.65%) OrCAD
Cloud Services
1 26 (16.99%) Azure
2 10 (6.54%) Entra ID
3 7 (4.58%) AWS
3 7 (4.58%) GitHub
4 6 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (3.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (1.96%) Azure Stack
8 2 (1.31%) AWS IoT
9 1 (0.65%) AWS Direct Connect
9 1 (0.65%) Cohesity
9 1 (0.65%) Figma
9 1 (0.65%) Google Workspace
9 1 (0.65%) IaaS
9 1 (0.65%) OCI
9 1 (0.65%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.65%) Rubrik
9 1 (0.65%) SaaS
9 1 (0.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (16.34%) DNS
2 20 (13.07%) SSL
2 20 (13.07%) Wireshark
3 19 (12.42%) BIG-IP
3 19 (12.42%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 19 (12.42%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 19 (12.42%) Firewall
3 19 (12.42%) HTTP
3 19 (12.42%) TCP/IP
4 17 (11.11%) SAN
5 16 (10.46%) Ethernet
6 12 (7.84%) VLAN
6 12 (7.84%) Wireless
7 8 (5.23%) Software-Defined Radio
8 7 (4.58%) Modbus
8 7 (4.58%) RS-232
8 7 (4.58%) RS-485
8 7 (4.58%) WAN
9 6 (3.92%) DHCP
9 6 (3.92%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 19 (12.42%) Fiddler
2 15 (9.80%) JIRA
3 3 (1.96%) Git
4 2 (1.31%) MSTest
4 2 (1.31%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (1.31%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.65%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.65%) Rational Rhapsody
5 1 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 36 (23.53%) Social Skills
2 19 (12.42%) Banking
2 19 (12.42%) Investment Banking
3 14 (9.15%) Electronics
4 11 (7.19%) Aerospace
5 9 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.61%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.96%) Games
8 2 (1.31%) Finance
8 2 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.65%) Law
9 1 (0.65%) Legal
9 1 (0.65%) Mandarin Language
9 1 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.65%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 33 (21.57%) Network Engineer
2 20 (13.07%) Embedded Engineer
3 19 (12.42%) Blue Coat Engineer
3 19 (12.42%) IP Network Engineer
3 19 (12.42%) Web Engineer
4 15 (9.80%) Software Engineer
5 11 (7.19%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 11 (7.19%) Senior
6 10 (6.54%) Data Centre Engineer
7 9 (5.88%) Lead
8 8 (5.23%) Administrator
8 8 (5.23%) Firmware Engineer
9 7 (4.58%) FPGA Engineer
10 6 (3.92%) Cloud Engineer
10 6 (3.92%) Desktop Engineer
10 6 (3.92%) Storage Engineer
11 5 (3.27%) Systems Engineer
11 5 (3.27%) Technical Leader
12 4 (2.61%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
12 4 (2.61%) Senior FPGA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (7.19%) Redfish
2 6 (3.92%) Yocto
3 3 (1.96%) .NET
3 3 (1.96%) OpenTelemetry
4 2 (1.31%) 802.1X
4 2 (1.31%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 2 (1.31%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (0.65%) Framer.js
5 1 (0.65%) JSON
5 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.65%) REST
5 1 (0.65%) WPF
5 1 (0.65%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (18.95%) Data Centre
2 26 (16.99%) Embedded Systems
3 20 (13.07%) Management Information System
4 19 (12.42%) FPGA
5 10 (6.54%) PCIe
5 10 (6.54%) Verilog
6 9 (5.88%) VHDL
7 7 (4.58%) Clustering
7 7 (4.58%) Device Driver
8 6 (3.92%) MicroBlaze
8 6 (3.92%) Onboarding
8 6 (3.92%) PKI
8 6 (3.92%) Replication
8 6 (3.92%) RISC-V
9 5 (3.27%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (2.61%) Algorithms
10 4 (2.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (2.61%) Enterprise Storage
10 4 (2.61%) IoT
11 2 (1.31%) CUDA
Operating Systems
1 36 (23.53%) Linux
2 33 (21.57%) Windows
3 10 (6.54%) Embedded Linux
4 7 (4.58%) FreeRTOS
5 6 (3.92%) AIX
6 5 (3.27%) VMS
7 4 (2.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (1.96%) SUSE
8 3 (1.96%) Unix
9 2 (1.31%) Android
9 2 (1.31%) Debian
9 2 (1.31%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.65%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.65%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (15.03%) Validation
2 21 (13.73%) Load Balancing
2 21 (13.73%) Software Engineering
3 20 (13.07%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (12.42%) Data Loss Prevention
4 19 (12.42%) Malware Detection/Protection
5 17 (11.11%) Data Centre Operations
6 16 (10.46%) Runbook
7 14 (9.15%) Test Automation
8 13 (8.50%) Capacity Planning
8 13 (8.50%) Computer Science
8 13 (8.50%) Migration
9 12 (7.84%) High Availability
9 12 (7.84%) ITIL
10 11 (7.19%) Systems Engineering
11 10 (6.54%) Agile
11 10 (6.54%) Customer Requirements
11 10 (6.54%) Disaster Recovery
11 10 (6.54%) ITSM
11 10 (6.54%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 29 (18.95%) Python
2 22 (14.38%) C
3 21 (13.73%) C++
4 18 (11.76%) PowerShell
5 10 (6.54%) Bash
5 10 (6.54%) MATLAB
6 9 (5.88%) SystemVerilog
7 8 (5.23%) C#
8 7 (4.58%) Embedded C++
9 5 (3.27%) Embedded C
10 4 (2.61%) Tcl
11 3 (1.96%) Perl
12 2 (1.31%) Java
12 2 (1.31%) VB.NET
13 1 (0.65%) Ada
13 1 (0.65%) VB
Qualifications
1 37 (24.18%) Security Cleared
2 26 (16.99%) SC Cleared
3 21 (13.73%) Degree
4 10 (6.54%) DV Cleared
5 8 (5.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.61%) CEH
6 4 (2.61%) CISSP
6 4 (2.61%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (1.96%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.96%) CCNA
7 3 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.96%) HNC
7 3 (1.96%) HND
8 2 (1.31%) CCNP
8 2 (1.31%) ISTQB
8 2 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.65%) JNCIA
9 1 (0.65%) JNCIS
9 1 (0.65%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.88%) DO-254
2 5 (3.27%) Def Stans
2 5 (3.27%) DO-178B
2 5 (3.27%) MISRA
3 4 (2.61%) NIST
4 3 (1.96%) QA
5 1 (0.65%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.65%) GDPR
5 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.65%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.65%) SLA
System Software
1 33 (21.57%) VMware Infrastructure
2 24 (15.69%) Embedded Firmware
3 16 (10.46%) Active Directory
4 9 (5.88%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (5.23%) Hyper-V
6 5 (3.27%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (2.61%) Docker
7 4 (2.61%) KVM
7 4 (2.61%) VMware NSX
7 4 (2.61%) vSphere
8 3 (1.96%) BitLocker
8 3 (1.96%) PowerHA
9 2 (1.31%) Ceph
9 2 (1.31%) Lustre
9 2 (1.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.65%) NFS
Systems Management
1 10 (6.54%) Dell DRAC
2 7 (4.58%) Ansible
2 7 (4.58%) vCenter Server
3 5 (3.27%) FortiGate
3 5 (3.27%) Terraform
4 4 (2.61%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (2.61%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.96%) Failover Clustering
5 3 (1.96%) Microsoft Clustering
5 3 (1.96%) SCCM
5 3 (1.96%) Tivoli Storage Manager
5 3 (1.96%) VxRail
6 2 (1.31%) Grafana
6 2 (1.31%) HP ALM
6 2 (1.31%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.65%) PaperCut
7 1 (0.65%) Podman
7 1 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.65%) SnapMirror
Vendors
1 36 (23.53%) VMware
2 24 (15.69%) Cisco
2 24 (15.69%) NetApp
3 19 (12.42%) Blue Coat
3 19 (12.42%) F5
3 19 (12.42%) McAfee
4 14 (9.15%) Microsoft
5 11 (7.19%) Dell
6 9 (5.88%) Xilinx
7 8 (5.23%) Altera
7 8 (5.23%) EMC
7 8 (5.23%) IBM
7 8 (5.23%) Microsemi
8 7 (4.58%) Fortinet
8 7 (4.58%) Juniper
9 5 (3.27%) HP
9 5 (3.27%) Palo Alto
9 5 (3.27%) SolarWinds
10 4 (2.61%) Broadcom
10 4 (2.61%) ServiceNow