Firewall Contract Job Trends in the North West

Firewall
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Firewall skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 48 33
Rank change year-on-year +1 -15 +4
Contract jobs citing Firewall 171 89 124
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.33% 4.02% 5.13%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 34.34% 29.87% 41.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 58 77
10th Percentile £350 £350 £450
25th Percentile £444 £410 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £602
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -21.10% +23.87%
75th Percentile £588 £569 £850
90th Percentile £630 £638 -
England median daily rate £504 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 £65.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £66.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.89% +40.00% +8.57%
75th Percentile £31.00 £67.25 £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £67.00 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +123.33% +9.09% -58.32%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

Firewall falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 498 298 302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.60% 13.47% 12.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 175 196
10th Percentile £218 £147 £256
25th Percentile £350 £325 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £435 £515
Median % change year-on-year +8.74% -15.53% +8.42%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £675
90th Percentile £625 £663 £838
England median daily rate £500 £492 £505
% change year-on-year +1.63% -2.57% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 10
10th Percentile £13.89 £19.25 £25.43
25th Percentile £16.50 £21.50 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £46.75 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -62.57% -3.73% +191.13%
75th Percentile £20.88 £67.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £28.83 £68.71 £57.65
England median hourly rate £27.11 £42.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -36.21% -24.77% -

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Firewall relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Firewall job vacancy trend in the North West

Firewall
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Firewall.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Firewall

Firewall
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firewall in the North West over the 6 months to 30 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Firewall in the North West

Firewall
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Firewall.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Firewall

Firewall
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Firewall within the North West region over the 6 months to 30 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
Manchester -3 52 £482 -4.55% 25
Cheshire +9 51 £527 +10.84% 7
Cumbria -5 45 £520 +0.29% 3
Lancashire +8 21 £519 - 7
Merseyside -20 2 £275 -33.33% 2
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 8 (4.68%) SAS
2 1 (0.58%) CICS
2 1 (0.58%) Confluence
2 1 (0.58%) nginx
Applications
1 7 (4.09%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.34%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 58 (33.92%) Azure
2 45 (26.32%) AWS
3 20 (11.70%) GCP
4 15 (8.77%) SaaS
5 12 (7.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 12 (7.02%) OCI
6 11 (6.43%) Entra ID
7 8 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (4.68%) Azure Sentinel
8 7 (4.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 6 (3.51%) GitHub
10 5 (2.92%) Serverless
11 4 (2.34%) Azure Key Vault
11 4 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
11 4 (2.34%) IaaS
12 3 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (1.75%) AWS CloudTrail
12 3 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 73 (42.69%) Network Security
2 63 (36.84%) VPN
3 47 (27.49%) Wireless
4 45 (26.32%) WAN
5 44 (25.73%) BGP
6 42 (24.56%) OSPF
7 27 (15.79%) LAN
8 26 (15.20%) Cisco ASA
9 23 (13.45%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (12.87%) Cisco Firepower
10 22 (12.87%) DNS
11 21 (12.28%) VLAN
12 19 (11.11%) SD-WAN
13 18 (10.53%) EIGRP
14 15 (8.77%) Cisco IOS
14 15 (8.77%) Structured Cabling
15 14 (8.19%) DHCP
16 13 (7.60%) BIG-IP
16 13 (7.60%) NX-OS
16 13 (7.60%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (1.17%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.58%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 15 (8.77%) GitLab
2 9 (5.26%) Jenkins
3 7 (4.09%) JIRA
4 4 (2.34%) Git
5 3 (1.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.17%) Burp Suite
6 2 (1.17%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.17%) Gatling
6 2 (1.17%) Gradle
6 2 (1.17%) LoadRunner
6 2 (1.17%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.17%) SonarQube
6 2 (1.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 36 (21.05%) Social Skills
2 34 (19.88%) Finance
3 19 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.94%) Banking
5 13 (7.60%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (6.43%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.51%) Legal
8 4 (2.34%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.17%) Military
10 2 (1.17%) Retail
11 1 (0.58%) Games
11 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 72 (42.11%) Network Engineer
2 25 (14.62%) Architect
2 25 (14.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 22 (12.87%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 22 (12.87%) Senior
4 16 (9.36%) Security Engineer
5 11 (6.43%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (5.26%) Network Architect
6 9 (5.26%) Senior Network Engineer
7 8 (4.68%) Cloud Engineer
8 7 (4.09%) Consultant
8 7 (4.09%) Technical Architect
9 6 (3.51%) Network Security Engineer
10 5 (2.92%) Cloud Security Engineer
10 5 (2.92%) SIEM Engineer
10 5 (2.92%) Splunk Engineer
11 4 (2.34%) Azure Architect
11 4 (2.34%) Network Consultant
11 4 (2.34%) Security Architect
12 3 (1.75%) Network Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (22.81%) Terraform
2 4 (2.34%) ARM Templates
2 4 (2.34%) Azure Blueprints
2 4 (2.34%) React
3 3 (1.75%) 802.1X
3 3 (1.75%) LangChain
3 3 (1.75%) PyTorch
3 3 (1.75%) scikit-learn
4 2 (1.17%) CSS
4 2 (1.17%) HTML
4 2 (1.17%) Middleware
4 2 (1.17%) Node.js
4 2 (1.17%) ODBC
4 2 (1.17%) Playwright
4 2 (1.17%) Quarkus
4 2 (1.17%) REST
4 2 (1.17%) Spring
4 2 (1.17%) Spring Boot
5 1 (0.58%) JSON
5 1 (0.58%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 35 (20.47%) Data Centre
2 28 (16.37%) Cloud Native
3 16 (9.36%) Security Posture
4 15 (8.77%) Management Information System
5 13 (7.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.92%) PKI
7 4 (2.34%) Driving Licence
7 4 (2.34%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.75%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.17%) Handset
9 2 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.58%) BYOD
10 1 (0.58%) Cloud Security Posture
10 1 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.58%) Mainframe
10 1 (0.58%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.58%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 18 (10.53%) Linux
1 18 (10.53%) Windows
2 10 (5.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (2.92%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.17%) Unix
5 1 (0.58%) AIX
5 1 (0.58%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.58%) Solaris
5 1 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (28.07%) Load Balancing
2 38 (22.22%) CI/CD
3 37 (21.64%) Change Management
4 34 (19.88%) Network Segmentation
5 32 (18.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 31 (18.13%) Zero Trust
7 30 (17.54%) DevOps
8 29 (16.96%) Infrastructure as Code
9 27 (15.79%) Project Delivery
10 24 (14.04%) ITIL
11 21 (12.28%) Cloud Security
11 21 (12.28%) High Availability
11 21 (12.28%) Network Architecture
11 21 (12.28%) SIEM
12 18 (10.53%) Agile
13 17 (9.94%) Network Design
14 16 (9.36%) Roadmaps
15 15 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
16 14 (8.19%) Cybersecurity
16 14 (8.19%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 49 (28.65%) Python
2 23 (13.45%) PowerShell
3 19 (11.11%) Bash
4 12 (7.02%) Java
5 10 (5.85%) Bicep
6 7 (4.09%) SQL
7 5 (2.92%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (2.92%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (1.17%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.17%) Perl
8 2 (1.17%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.58%) ActionScript
9 1 (0.58%) COBOL
9 1 (0.58%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 62 (36.26%) Security Cleared
2 57 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
3 56 (32.75%) SC Cleared
4 43 (25.15%) CCNP
5 38 (22.22%) CCNA
6 24 (14.04%) Degree
7 23 (13.45%) CISSP
8 14 (8.19%) AWS Certification
9 13 (7.60%) Network+ Certification
10 12 (7.02%) Azure Certification
11 11 (6.43%) Server+ Certification
12 8 (4.68%) CCIE
13 7 (4.09%) GCIH
14 5 (2.92%) GCFA
15 3 (1.75%) CCIE Security
15 3 (1.75%) CCSP
15 3 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
16 2 (1.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 2 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
16 2 (1.17%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.85%) NIST
2 8 (4.68%) PCI DSS
3 7 (4.09%) GDPR
4 6 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (1.17%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.58%) COBIT
7 1 (0.58%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.58%) ITGC
7 1 (0.58%) NIST 800
System Software
1 13 (7.60%) Docker
2 7 (4.09%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.75%) Firmware
3 3 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.17%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.58%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.58%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 34 (19.88%) Ansible
2 20 (11.70%) Progress Chef
3 16 (9.36%) Kubernetes
4 8 (4.68%) CASB
5 3 (1.75%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (1.75%) Istio
5 3 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.17%) Grafana
6 2 (1.17%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.58%) Nagios
7 1 (0.58%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.58%) Packer
7 1 (0.58%) Puppet
Vendors
1 80 (46.78%) Cisco
2 49 (28.65%) Palo Alto
3 25 (14.62%) CheckPoint
3 25 (14.62%) F5
4 23 (13.45%) Microsoft
5 17 (9.94%) Arista
5 17 (9.94%) Fortinet
6 16 (9.36%) Aruba
7 14 (8.19%) Google
7 14 (8.19%) ServiceNow
8 12 (7.02%) Red Hat
9 11 (6.43%) Splunk
10 10 (5.85%) Meraki
11 9 (5.26%) Juniper
12 8 (4.68%) AlgoSec
13 6 (3.51%) Citrix
14 5 (2.92%) Cribl.io
14 5 (2.92%) Zscaler
15 4 (2.34%) IBM
15 4 (2.34%) McAfee