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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 33 42
Rank change year-on-year -7 +9 -6
Contract jobs citing Firewall 161 105 107
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.79% 5.35% 3.94%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 37.18% 32.81% 33.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 64 70
10th Percentile £407 £274 £404
25th Percentile £466 £400 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £475 £676
Median % change year-on-year +13.68% -29.73% +50.22%
75th Percentile £611 £584 £850
90th Percentile £638 £646 -
England median daily rate £500 £508 £513
% change year-on-year -1.48% -0.98% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £41.94 - -
75th Percentile £50.02 - -
90th Percentile £64.56 - -
England median hourly rate £56.00 £17.79 £60.00
% change year-on-year +214.78% -70.35% -3.65%

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 433 320 322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.89% 16.31% 11.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 192 216
10th Percentile £314 £190 £205
25th Percentile £397 £309 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £450 £495
Median % change year-on-year +8.56% -9.09% +4.21%
75th Percentile £588 £536 £663
90th Percentile £638 £600 £838
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 1 13
10th Percentile £14.50 - £21.10
25th Percentile £17.57 £22.98 £26.00
Median hourly rate £29.16 £24.59 £41.23
Median % change year-on-year +18.61% -40.37% +1.67%
75th Percentile £50.02 £26.19 £45.88
90th Percentile £74.26 - £90.20
England median hourly rate £32.50 £38.41 £40.00
% change year-on-year -15.39% -3.98% +131.45%

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 31 May 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firewall in the North West over the 6 months to 31 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firewall in the North West

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 31 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
Manchester -18 56 £550 +22.22% 40
Cumbria -3 45 £517 -6.05% 10
Cheshire +15 39 £543 +14.41% 11
Lancashire +3 16 £575 +15.00% 10
Merseyside -19 4 £330 -17.50% 6
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 9 (5.59%) CICS
2 2 (1.24%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.73%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.24%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.62%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 59 (36.65%) Azure
2 40 (24.84%) AWS
3 17 (10.56%) GCP
4 12 (7.45%) Entra ID
4 12 (7.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
4 12 (7.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 10 (6.21%) OCI
5 10 (6.21%) SaaS
6 8 (4.97%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (4.35%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (3.11%) Azure AI
8 5 (3.11%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (2.48%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.48%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.48%) Nutanix
9 4 (2.48%) Vertex AI
10 3 (1.86%) GitHub
11 2 (1.24%) Azure Monitor
12 1 (0.62%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 55 (34.16%) Network Security
2 42 (26.09%) VLAN
3 37 (22.98%) Wireless
4 36 (22.36%) WAN
5 32 (19.88%) DNS
6 27 (16.77%) VPN
7 21 (13.04%) BGP
8 20 (12.42%) DHCP
8 20 (12.42%) OSPF
8 20 (12.42%) SD-WAN
8 20 (12.42%) TCP/IP
9 18 (11.18%) Structured Cabling
10 17 (10.56%) Cisco IOS
10 17 (10.56%) Ethernet VPN
10 17 (10.56%) Wi-Fi
11 16 (9.94%) NAS
11 16 (9.94%) SAN
12 15 (9.32%) NX-OS
12 15 (9.32%) VXLAN
13 14 (8.70%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.59%) DataStage
2 2 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.62%) Redis
Development Applications
1 8 (4.97%) GitLab
2 7 (4.35%) JIRA
3 2 (1.24%) Git
3 2 (1.24%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.62%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.62%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.62%) Gatling
4 1 (0.62%) Gradle
4 1 (0.62%) LoadRunner
4 1 (0.62%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.62%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 33 (20.50%) Finance
1 33 (20.50%) Social Skills
2 19 (11.80%) Public Sector
3 11 (6.83%) Documentation Skills
4 10 (6.21%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.59%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (4.97%) Banking
7 3 (1.86%) Military
8 2 (1.24%) Retail
9 1 (0.62%) Advertising
9 1 (0.62%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.62%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.62%) Legal
9 1 (0.62%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 50 (31.06%) Network Engineer
2 29 (18.01%) Architect
3 25 (15.53%) Security Engineer
4 24 (14.91%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 21 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 20 (12.42%) Senior
7 13 (8.07%) Network Architect
8 11 (6.83%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (6.21%) Designer
10 9 (5.59%) Cloud Engineer
10 9 (5.59%) Infrastructure Designer
11 7 (4.35%) Cisco Engineer
12 6 (3.73%) Platform Engineer
12 6 (3.73%) Technical Architect
13 5 (3.11%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 5 (3.11%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 5 (3.11%) Infrastructure Architect
14 4 (2.48%) Cloud Security Engineer
14 4 (2.48%) Cybersecurity Engineer
14 4 (2.48%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (9.32%) 802.1X
2 12 (7.45%) LDAP
3 10 (6.21%) Middleware
4 6 (3.73%) LangChain
4 6 (3.73%) PyTorch
4 6 (3.73%) scikit-learn
5 1 (0.62%) JSON
5 1 (0.62%) Node.js
5 1 (0.62%) Playwright
5 1 (0.62%) Quarkus
5 1 (0.62%) React
5 1 (0.62%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.62%) Spring
5 1 (0.62%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 61 (37.89%) Data Centre
2 32 (19.88%) Cloud Native
3 25 (15.53%) Security Posture
4 10 (6.21%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (5.59%) BYOD
5 9 (5.59%) Mainframe
5 9 (5.59%) VSAM
6 7 (4.35%) Onboarding
7 6 (3.73%) Management Information System
7 6 (3.73%) Public Cloud
8 5 (3.11%) Cloud Security Posture
8 5 (3.11%) Product Ownership
9 4 (2.48%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.86%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (1.24%) PKI
12 1 (0.62%) Cyber Defence
12 1 (0.62%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 1 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
12 1 (0.62%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 34 (21.12%) Linux
2 28 (17.39%) Windows
3 14 (8.70%) Unix
4 11 (6.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (5.59%) AIX
5 9 (5.59%) Solaris
5 9 (5.59%) Windows Server
6 4 (2.48%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (2.48%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.62%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (24.22%) Load Balancing
2 32 (19.88%) CI/CD
2 32 (19.88%) Network Segmentation
3 29 (18.01%) Change Management
3 29 (18.01%) DevOps
4 27 (16.77%) SIEM
5 26 (16.15%) Roadmaps
6 23 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
7 22 (13.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 22 (13.66%) Project Delivery
7 22 (13.66%) Zero Trust
8 21 (13.04%) Cloud Security
9 20 (12.42%) Network Monitoring
10 19 (11.80%) ITIL
10 19 (11.80%) ITSM
11 18 (11.18%) High Availability
11 18 (11.18%) Vulnerability Management
12 17 (10.56%) Infrastructure as Code
12 17 (10.56%) Problem-Solving
13 16 (9.94%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 36 (22.36%) Python
2 25 (15.53%) PowerShell
3 15 (9.32%) Bash
4 10 (6.21%) Java
5 9 (5.59%) COBOL
6 6 (3.73%) Bicep
7 2 (1.24%) Perl
8 1 (0.62%) ActionScript
8 1 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 70 (43.48%) Security Cleared
2 57 (35.40%) Cisco Certification
2 57 (35.40%) SC Cleared
3 50 (31.06%) CCNP
4 49 (30.43%) CCNA
5 19 (11.80%) CISSP
6 18 (11.18%) Degree
7 15 (9.32%) Network+ Certification
7 15 (9.32%) Server+ Certification
8 12 (7.45%) Azure Certification
9 11 (6.83%) AWS Certification
10 8 (4.97%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (3.73%) DV Cleared
12 5 (3.11%) MCSA
12 5 (3.11%) MCSE
12 5 (3.11%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (2.48%) CISM
13 4 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
14 2 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (1.24%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.35%) NIST
2 5 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.48%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.48%) SLA
4 3 (1.86%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.24%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.62%) GDPR
System Software
1 22 (13.66%) Active Directory
2 17 (10.56%) Docker
3 8 (4.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.48%) vSphere
5 3 (1.86%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.62%) Firmware
6 1 (0.62%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 30 (18.63%) Terraform
2 18 (11.18%) Kubernetes
3 17 (10.56%) Ansible
4 11 (6.83%) Progress Chef
5 7 (4.35%) CASB
6 6 (3.73%) Nessus
7 5 (3.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (2.48%) SCCM
9 3 (1.86%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (1.24%) Grafana
10 2 (1.24%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.62%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.62%) Istio
11 1 (0.62%) Packer
Vendors
1 65 (40.37%) Cisco
2 37 (22.98%) Palo Alto
3 21 (13.04%) ServiceNow
4 18 (11.18%) Microsoft
5 17 (10.56%) Aruba
5 17 (10.56%) F5
5 17 (10.56%) Google
6 15 (9.32%) VMware
7 13 (8.07%) IBM
7 13 (8.07%) Red Hat
8 11 (6.83%) Arista
9 10 (6.21%) Splunk
10 9 (5.59%) Fortinet
11 8 (4.97%) CheckPoint
11 8 (4.97%) CyberArk
12 6 (3.73%) Ekahau
13 5 (3.11%) ForeScout
13 5 (3.11%) Remedy
13 5 (3.11%) Tenable
14 4 (2.48%) Meraki