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 1 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 470 407 371
Rank change year-on-year -63 -36 +4
Contract jobs citing Firmware 165 107 162
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.36% 0.39% 0.49%
As % of the System Software category 3.60% 3.23% 4.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 50 76
10th Percentile £256 £201 £225
25th Percentile £358 £314 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £556 £509 £526
90th Percentile £626 £588 £575
UK median daily rate £450 £401 £475
% change year-on-year +12.36% -15.68% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 28 36
10th Percentile £12.76 £51.72 £22.34
25th Percentile £52.44 £55.88 £51.06
Median hourly rate £67.50 £81.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +40.87% +2.22%
75th Percentile £75.00 £90.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.90 £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 4,587 3,312 3,862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.04% 12.01% 11.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,010 2,129 2,627
10th Percentile £213 £220 £225
25th Percentile £385 £375 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £680 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 95 120
10th Percentile £17.00 £15.03 £14.06
25th Percentile £33.70 £22.75 £17.08
Median hourly rate £63.14 £37.50 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +68.36% +55.09% -46.10%
75th Percentile £75.00 £80.50 £62.81
90th Percentile £90.00 £91.50 £71.45
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £30.00 £24.18
% change year-on-year +100.00% +24.07% -51.64%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 -27 47 £388 -8.82% 61
Midlands -33 34 £500 -13.04% 64
South East -41 32 £600 +33.33% 124
North West -30 31 £400 -5.88% 41
East of England -24 30 £414 -2.65% 153
London -87 27 £450 +12.36% 104
West Midlands -35 23 £413 -28.26% 37
Yorkshire - 15 £365 - 14
East Midlands -7 11 £500 +27.55% 27
South West -35 8 £425 -3.41% 69
North East - 1 - - 9
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 (3.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (3.03%) Simulink
2 3 (1.82%) OrCAD
3 1 (0.61%) Adobe After Effects
3 1 (0.61%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (0.61%) Blender
3 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (16.36%) Azure
2 10 (6.06%) AWS
3 9 (5.45%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (3.64%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (2.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 3 (1.82%) Azure Monitor
6 3 (1.82%) Azure Stack
7 2 (1.21%) AWS IoT
7 2 (1.21%) GitHub
7 2 (1.21%) GitHub Copilot
7 2 (1.21%) IaaS
7 2 (1.21%) Nutanix
7 2 (1.21%) PaaS
7 2 (1.21%) SaaS
8 1 (0.61%) Cohesity
8 1 (0.61%) Figma
8 1 (0.61%) Google Workspace
8 1 (0.61%) OCI
8 1 (0.61%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 26 (15.76%) DNS
2 24 (14.55%) Firewall
3 19 (11.52%) SAN
4 18 (10.91%) TCP/IP
4 18 (10.91%) Wireshark
5 17 (10.30%) SSL
6 16 (9.70%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 16 (9.70%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 16 (9.70%) VLAN
7 15 (9.09%) BIG-IP
7 15 (9.09%) HTTP
7 15 (9.09%) WAN
7 15 (9.09%) Wireless
8 14 (8.48%) Software-Defined Radio
9 12 (7.27%) DHCP
10 11 (6.67%) LAN
11 10 (6.06%) SD-WAN
11 10 (6.06%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (4.85%) Ethernet
12 8 (4.85%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.61%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 15 (9.09%) Fiddler
2 9 (5.45%) JIRA
3 5 (3.03%) Git
4 3 (1.82%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (1.21%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.21%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.21%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.61%) Ranorex
General
1 29 (17.58%) Social Skills
2 15 (9.09%) Banking
2 15 (9.09%) Investment Banking
3 14 (8.48%) Aerospace
3 14 (8.48%) Electronics
4 12 (7.27%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (3.03%) Manufacturing
5 5 (3.03%) Retail
6 4 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.42%) Law
7 3 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.82%) Legal
8 2 (1.21%) Military
8 2 (1.21%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.61%) Automotive
9 1 (0.61%) Finance
9 1 (0.61%) Games
9 1 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.61%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.61%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 30 (18.18%) Network Engineer
2 19 (11.52%) Software Engineer
3 17 (10.30%) Embedded Engineer
3 17 (10.30%) Lead
4 15 (9.09%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 15 (9.09%) IP Network Engineer
4 15 (9.09%) Web Engineer
5 12 (7.27%) Senior
6 11 (6.67%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 9 (5.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 8 (4.85%) Developer
9 7 (4.24%) Administrator
9 7 (4.24%) Data Centre Engineer
10 6 (3.64%) Analyst
10 6 (3.64%) Firmware Engineer
10 6 (3.64%) FPGA Engineer
11 5 (3.03%) Embedded Linux Engineer
11 5 (3.03%) Hardware Technician
11 5 (3.03%) ICT Engineer
11 5 (3.03%) Network Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.27%) Yocto
2 10 (6.06%) Redfish
3 8 (4.85%) Terraform
4 3 (1.82%) .NET
4 3 (1.82%) Flutter
4 3 (1.82%) OpenTelemetry
4 3 (1.82%) REST
5 2 (1.21%) 802.1X
6 1 (0.61%) Framer.js
6 1 (0.61%) JSON
6 1 (0.61%) Middleware
6 1 (0.61%) PyQt
6 1 (0.61%) Streamlit
6 1 (0.61%) WPF
6 1 (0.61%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (19.39%) Embedded Systems
2 25 (15.15%) Data Centre
3 17 (10.30%) Management Information System
3 17 (10.30%) RISC-V
4 16 (9.70%) Device Driver
5 15 (9.09%) FPGA
6 10 (6.06%) Clustering
6 10 (6.06%) MicroBlaze
7 9 (5.45%) IoT
7 9 (5.45%) Verilog
8 8 (4.85%) PCIe
8 8 (4.85%) VHDL
9 7 (4.24%) Replication
10 6 (3.64%) Driving Licence
11 5 (3.03%) Enterprise Storage
11 5 (3.03%) EPoS
11 5 (3.03%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (2.42%) Security Posture
13 3 (1.82%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 39 (23.64%) Linux
2 30 (18.18%) Windows
3 16 (9.70%) Embedded Linux
4 11 (6.67%) Windows Server
5 7 (4.24%) AIX
6 6 (3.64%) Android
7 5 (3.03%) Unix
7 5 (3.03%) VMS
8 4 (2.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (1.82%) Apple iOS
9 3 (1.82%) SUSE
10 2 (1.21%) VxWorks
10 2 (1.21%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.61%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.61%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.61%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (18.18%) Software Engineering
2 20 (12.12%) Capacity Planning
3 19 (11.52%) ITIL
3 19 (11.52%) Validation
4 17 (10.30%) Data Centre Operations
4 17 (10.30%) Migration
5 16 (9.70%) Load Balancing
5 16 (9.70%) Problem-Solving
6 15 (9.09%) Agile
6 15 (9.09%) Data Loss Prevention
6 15 (9.09%) Malware Detection/Protection
6 15 (9.09%) Signal Processing
7 14 (8.48%) Disaster Recovery
7 14 (8.48%) High Availability
8 12 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 11 (6.67%) Digital Signal Processing
9 11 (6.67%) Project Delivery
9 11 (6.67%) Test Automation
10 10 (6.06%) Asset Management
11 9 (5.45%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 33 (20.00%) C++
2 31 (18.79%) C
3 23 (13.94%) Python
4 15 (9.09%) PowerShell
5 9 (5.45%) Ada
6 8 (4.85%) SystemVerilog
7 7 (4.24%) C#
7 7 (4.24%) MATLAB
8 6 (3.64%) Bash
9 5 (3.03%) Java
9 5 (3.03%) Perl
10 4 (2.42%) Embedded C
10 4 (2.42%) Embedded C++
11 3 (1.82%) Kotlin
11 3 (1.82%) Swift
12 2 (1.21%) VB.NET
13 1 (0.61%) Rust
13 1 (0.61%) Tcl
13 1 (0.61%) VB
Qualifications
1 41 (24.85%) Security Cleared
2 31 (18.79%) SC Cleared
3 24 (14.55%) Degree
4 11 (6.67%) Cisco Certification
5 8 (4.85%) ITIL Certification
6 6 (3.64%) CCNA
6 6 (3.64%) CCNP
6 6 (3.64%) DV Cleared
7 5 (3.03%) CISSP
8 4 (2.42%) Azure Certification
8 4 (2.42%) CEH
8 4 (2.42%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.82%) CCIE
9 3 (1.82%) Master's Degree
9 3 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (1.21%) ISACA
10 2 (1.21%) MCSE
11 1 (0.61%) HNC
11 1 (0.61%) MCSA
11 1 (0.61%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.67%) DO-254
2 10 (6.06%) Def Stans
3 9 (5.45%) DO-178B
4 7 (4.24%) MISRA
4 7 (4.24%) NIST
5 6 (3.64%) QA
6 3 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.82%) SLA
7 2 (1.21%) GDPR
7 2 (1.21%) NCSC
7 2 (1.21%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.61%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.61%) JTAG
System Software
1 33 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 26 (15.76%) Embedded Firmware
3 15 (9.09%) Active Directory
4 11 (6.67%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (5.45%) vSphere
6 5 (3.03%) Hyper-V
6 5 (3.03%) PowerHA
7 4 (2.42%) BitLocker
7 4 (2.42%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (1.21%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.61%) Docker
9 1 (0.61%) KVM
9 1 (0.61%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 10 (6.06%) Dell DRAC
2 8 (4.85%) Ansible
2 8 (4.85%) vCenter Server
3 6 (3.64%) FortiGate
3 6 (3.64%) Tivoli Storage Manager
4 4 (2.42%) SCCM
5 3 (1.82%) Failover Clustering
5 3 (1.82%) Microsoft Clustering
5 3 (1.82%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.82%) vMotion
5 3 (1.82%) VxRail
6 2 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.61%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 35 (21.21%) VMware
2 31 (18.79%) Cisco
3 18 (10.91%) F5
4 16 (9.70%) McAfee
4 16 (9.70%) NetApp
5 15 (9.09%) Blue Coat
6 13 (7.88%) Dell
6 13 (7.88%) Microsoft
7 11 (6.67%) Xilinx
8 9 (5.45%) Fortinet
9 8 (4.85%) Altera
9 8 (4.85%) Microsemi
9 8 (4.85%) ServiceNow
10 7 (4.24%) IBM
10 7 (4.24%) Juniper
10 7 (4.24%) Meraki
10 7 (4.24%) Palo Alto
11 6 (3.64%) EMC
11 6 (3.64%) HP
12 5 (3.03%) Infoblox
569 Firmware jobs in England