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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 468 401 384
Rank change year-on-year -67 -17 -20
Contract jobs citing Firmware 164 106 149
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.35% 0.38% 0.45%
As % of the System Software category 3.51% 3.10% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 73 44 78
10th Percentile £261 £160 £162
25th Percentile £358 £300 £218
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -15.79%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £519
90th Percentile £620 £588 £575
UK median daily rate £450 £400 £413
% change year-on-year +12.43% -2.97% -15.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 30 26
10th Percentile £12.76 £52.00 £37.47
25th Percentile £58.44 £57.38 £51.11
Median hourly rate £63.75 £81.00 £64.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.30% +26.56% +13.78%
75th Percentile £71.00 £89.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £91.50 £71.63
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £81.00 £57.75
% change year-on-year -22.84% +40.26% +2.67%

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 4,669 3,424 3,805
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.03% 12.29% 11.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,038 2,193 2,532
10th Percentile £213 £213 £220
25th Percentile £384 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% +0.99%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 104 96
10th Percentile £17.75 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £29.56 £22.50 £17.44
Median hourly rate £65.00 £34.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.41% +25.45% -42.31%
75th Percentile £74.66 £80.00 £69.77
90th Percentile £92.11 £89.89 £84.28
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £32.77 £27.50
% change year-on-year +92.66% +19.16% -45.00%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 38 £400 -5.88% 90
East of England -31 35 £403 +84.00% 178
South East -50 32 £581 +22.37% 191
Midlands -28 31 £413 -28.26% 85
London -101 31 £450 +5.88% 172
North West -31 27 £400 -5.88% 47
West Midlands -28 21 £288 -50.00% 45
Yorkshire - 11 £365 - 27
East Midlands -5 10 £500 +27.55% 40
South West -34 8 £493 +11.93% 99
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 4 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (2.44%) OrCAD
2 2 (1.22%) Simulink
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 23 (14.02%) Azure
2 8 (4.88%) AWS
3 7 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (3.66%) Cohesity
5 5 (3.05%) Entra ID
6 4 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (1.83%) Rubrik
8 2 (1.22%) AWS IoT
8 2 (1.22%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.22%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.22%) Azure Stack
8 2 (1.22%) GitHub
8 2 (1.22%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (1.22%) IaaS
8 2 (1.22%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.22%) PaaS
8 2 (1.22%) SaaS
9 1 (0.61%) Figma
9 1 (0.61%) OCI
9 1 (0.61%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 22 (13.41%) Firewall
2 18 (10.98%) DNS
2 18 (10.98%) SAN
2 18 (10.98%) TCP/IP
3 15 (9.15%) WAN
4 14 (8.54%) SSL
4 14 (8.54%) Wireless
4 14 (8.54%) Wireshark
5 13 (7.93%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 13 (7.93%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 13 (7.93%) Software-Defined Radio
5 13 (7.93%) VLAN
6 12 (7.32%) BIG-IP
6 12 (7.32%) HTTP
6 12 (7.32%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (6.10%) LAN
7 10 (6.10%) SD-WAN
8 9 (5.49%) NAS
9 8 (4.88%) DHCP
9 8 (4.88%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.61%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 12 (7.32%) Fiddler
2 10 (6.10%) JIRA
3 7 (4.27%) Git
4 3 (1.83%) GitLab
4 3 (1.83%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (1.22%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.22%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.22%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.61%) Ranorex
General
1 34 (20.73%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.98%) Electronics
3 15 (9.15%) Aerospace
3 15 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.32%) Banking
4 12 (7.32%) Investment Banking
5 9 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (4.27%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.66%) Telecoms
8 5 (3.05%) Retail
9 4 (2.44%) Law
10 3 (1.83%) Legal
10 3 (1.83%) Military
11 2 (1.22%) Automotive
11 2 (1.22%) Avionics
11 2 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.61%) Finance
12 1 (0.61%) Games
Job Titles
1 29 (17.68%) Network Engineer
2 19 (11.59%) Software Engineer
3 18 (10.98%) Embedded Engineer
3 18 (10.98%) Lead
4 12 (7.32%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 12 (7.32%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 12 (7.32%) IP Network Engineer
4 12 (7.32%) Web Engineer
5 10 (6.10%) Senior
6 9 (5.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (4.27%) Developer
8 6 (3.66%) Analyst
8 6 (3.66%) Backup Engineer
8 6 (3.66%) Firmware Engineer
8 6 (3.66%) Storage and Backup Engineer
8 6 (3.66%) Storage Engineer
9 5 (3.05%) Data Centre Engineer
9 5 (3.05%) Electronics Engineer
9 5 (3.05%) Hardware Technician
9 5 (3.05%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.32%) Yocto
2 5 (3.05%) Redfish
3 4 (2.44%) Terraform
4 3 (1.83%) .NET
4 3 (1.83%) Flutter
4 3 (1.83%) REST
5 1 (0.61%) 802.1X
5 1 (0.61%) Flash
5 1 (0.61%) Framer.js
5 1 (0.61%) Middleware
5 1 (0.61%) PyQt
5 1 (0.61%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 36 (21.95%) Embedded Systems
2 24 (14.63%) Data Centre
3 17 (10.37%) RISC-V
4 16 (9.76%) Device Driver
5 15 (9.15%) Management Information System
6 13 (7.93%) FPGA
7 12 (7.32%) IoT
8 11 (6.71%) Clustering
9 10 (6.10%) MicroBlaze
9 10 (6.10%) Replication
10 9 (5.49%) Enterprise Storage
11 6 (3.66%) PCIe
11 6 (3.66%) Verilog
12 5 (3.05%) Driving Licence
12 5 (3.05%) EPoS
12 5 (3.05%) VHDL
13 4 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
13 4 (2.44%) Video Conferencing
14 3 (1.83%) Acoustics
14 3 (1.83%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 38 (23.17%) Linux
2 28 (17.07%) Windows
3 16 (9.76%) Embedded Linux
4 10 (6.10%) Windows Server
5 6 (3.66%) AIX
5 6 (3.66%) Android
6 4 (2.44%) Unix
6 4 (2.44%) VMS
7 3 (1.83%) Apple iOS
7 3 (1.83%) Data ONTAP
7 3 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (1.22%) SUSE
8 2 (1.22%) VxWorks
8 2 (1.22%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.61%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.61%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.61%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (18.29%) Software Engineering
2 22 (13.41%) Capacity Planning
3 21 (12.80%) ITIL
4 19 (11.59%) Disaster Recovery
4 19 (11.59%) Validation
5 16 (9.76%) High Availability
5 16 (9.76%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (9.76%) Signal Processing
6 15 (9.15%) Agile
7 14 (8.54%) Data Centre Operations
7 14 (8.54%) Migration
8 13 (7.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 12 (7.32%) Data Loss Prevention
9 12 (7.32%) Load Balancing
9 12 (7.32%) Malware Detection/Protection
10 11 (6.71%) Cybersecurity
10 11 (6.71%) Digital Signal Processing
10 11 (6.71%) Project Delivery
10 11 (6.71%) Root Cause Analysis
10 11 (6.71%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 33 (20.12%) C++
2 32 (19.51%) C
3 18 (10.98%) Python
4 14 (8.54%) PowerShell
5 9 (5.49%) Ada
6 6 (3.66%) C#
7 5 (3.05%) Java
7 5 (3.05%) SystemVerilog
8 4 (2.44%) Embedded C
8 4 (2.44%) Embedded C++
8 4 (2.44%) MATLAB
8 4 (2.44%) Perl
9 3 (1.83%) Bash
9 3 (1.83%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.83%) Swift
10 2 (1.22%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.61%) Rust
11 1 (0.61%) Tcl
11 1 (0.61%) VB
Qualifications
1 41 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 26 (15.85%) Degree
2 26 (15.85%) SC Cleared
3 10 (6.10%) Cisco Certification
3 10 (6.10%) DV Cleared
4 9 (5.49%) ITIL Certification
5 5 (3.05%) CCNA
5 5 (3.05%) CCNP
5 5 (3.05%) CISSP
6 4 (2.44%) CEH
6 4 (2.44%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (1.83%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.83%) CCIE
7 3 (1.83%) ISACA
7 3 (1.83%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.22%) MCSE
9 1 (0.61%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.61%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.10%) Def Stans
2 9 (5.49%) DO-178B
2 9 (5.49%) DO-254
3 8 (4.88%) NIST
4 7 (4.27%) MISRA
5 6 (3.66%) QA
6 4 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (2.44%) NCSC
6 4 (2.44%) SLA
7 3 (1.83%) NIST 800
8 2 (1.22%) GDPR
8 2 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.61%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.61%) DO-160
9 1 (0.61%) JTAG
System Software
1 34 (20.73%) VMware Infrastructure
2 26 (15.85%) Embedded Firmware
3 12 (7.32%) Active Directory
4 9 (5.49%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (4.88%) vSphere
6 6 (3.66%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.44%) BitLocker
7 4 (2.44%) Hyper-V
7 4 (2.44%) PowerHA
8 3 (1.83%) NFS
9 2 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.61%) KVM
10 1 (0.61%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.61%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 7 (4.27%) vCenter Server
2 6 (3.66%) Dell DRAC
2 6 (3.66%) FortiGate
2 6 (3.66%) Tivoli Storage Manager
3 4 (2.44%) Ansible
3 4 (2.44%) SCCM
4 3 (1.83%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (1.83%) SnapMirror
4 3 (1.83%) vMotion
5 2 (1.22%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Clustering
5 2 (1.22%) VxRail
Vendors
1 37 (22.56%) VMware
2 28 (17.07%) Cisco
3 18 (10.98%) NetApp
4 15 (9.15%) F5
5 14 (8.54%) Microsoft
6 13 (7.93%) McAfee
7 12 (7.32%) Blue Coat
8 9 (5.49%) EMC
8 9 (5.49%) Xilinx
9 8 (4.88%) Dell
9 8 (4.88%) Fortinet
10 7 (4.27%) HP
10 7 (4.27%) IBM
10 7 (4.27%) Palo Alto
11 6 (3.66%) Altera
11 6 (3.66%) Juniper
11 6 (3.66%) ServiceNow
12 5 (3.05%) Commvault
12 5 (3.05%) Intel
12 5 (3.05%) Veeam