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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 33 41
Rank change year-on-year -10 +8 +1
Contract jobs citing Firewall 147 109 105
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.49% 5.54% 3.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 35.94% 33.44% 32.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 120 65 70
10th Percentile £406 £278 £404
25th Percentile £472 £400 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £475 £750
Median % change year-on-year +13.68% -36.67% +66.67%
75th Percentile £616 £584 £850
90th Percentile £638 £645 -
England median daily rate £500 £513 £508
% change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -4.25%
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 £52.36 £14.73 £60.00
% change year-on-year +255.59% -75.46% -3.23%

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 409 326 322
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.50% 16.58% 12.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 190 218
10th Percentile £308 £192 £200
25th Percentile £380 £313 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £450 £483
Median % change year-on-year +8.61% -6.74% -0.72%
75th Percentile £589 £537 £666
90th Percentile £639 £603 £833
England median daily rate £500 £500 £495
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 12
10th Percentile £16.16 £20.00 £18.02
25th Percentile £17.94 £21.12 £22.06
Median hourly rate £38.88 £24.59 £34.37
Median % change year-on-year +58.15% -28.46% +24.96%
75th Percentile £66.18 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile £74.26 £25.90 £94.59
England median hourly rate £41.94 £29.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year +41.40% -25.85% +122.22%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -16 53 £558 +23.89% 41
Cumbria -3 41 £515 -1.90% 11
Cheshire +15 34 £563 -1.75% 10
Lancashire +5 13 £575 +15.00% 20
Merseyside -20 5 £330 -17.50% 7
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 (6.12%) CICS
2 2 (1.36%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (3.40%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 50 (34.01%) Azure
2 32 (21.77%) AWS
3 12 (8.16%) Entra ID
4 11 (7.48%) GCP
5 8 (5.44%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (5.44%) OCI
5 8 (5.44%) SaaS
6 7 (4.76%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (4.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (4.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 5 (3.40%) Azure AI
9 4 (2.72%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.72%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.72%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.72%) Nutanix
9 4 (2.72%) Vertex AI
10 3 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (1.36%) GitHub
12 1 (0.68%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 51 (34.69%) Network Security
2 37 (25.17%) VLAN
3 36 (24.49%) WAN
4 30 (20.41%) Wireless
5 26 (17.69%) DNS
5 26 (17.69%) VPN
6 20 (13.61%) TCP/IP
7 19 (12.93%) BGP
8 18 (12.24%) OSPF
8 18 (12.24%) SD-WAN
9 17 (11.56%) Wi-Fi
10 16 (10.88%) DHCP
10 16 (10.88%) Ethernet VPN
11 14 (9.52%) LAN
11 14 (9.52%) VXLAN
12 13 (8.84%) Structured Cabling
13 12 (8.16%) Cisco IOS
14 11 (7.48%) NAS
14 11 (7.48%) NX-OS
14 11 (7.48%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.12%) DataStage
2 2 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.68%) Redis
Development Applications
1 6 (4.08%) GitLab
1 6 (4.08%) JIRA
2 2 (1.36%) Git
3 1 (0.68%) Burp Suite
3 1 (0.68%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.68%) Gatling
3 1 (0.68%) Gradle
3 1 (0.68%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.68%) LoadRunner
3 1 (0.68%) REST Assured
3 1 (0.68%) SonarQube
3 1 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 29 (19.73%) Social Skills
2 27 (18.37%) Finance
3 20 (13.61%) Public Sector
4 11 (7.48%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (6.80%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (6.12%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (5.44%) Banking
8 4 (2.72%) Military
9 2 (1.36%) Retail
10 1 (0.68%) Advertising
10 1 (0.68%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.68%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.68%) Legal
Job Titles
1 50 (34.01%) Network Engineer
2 27 (18.37%) Architect
3 22 (14.97%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 20 (13.61%) Security Engineer
5 18 (12.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 18 (12.24%) Senior
6 13 (8.84%) Network Architect
7 10 (6.80%) Designer
7 10 (6.80%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 9 (6.12%) Infrastructure Designer
9 7 (4.76%) Cisco Engineer
10 6 (4.08%) Cloud Engineer
10 6 (4.08%) Platform Engineer
11 5 (3.40%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 5 (3.40%) Cisco Network Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) Infrastructure Architect
12 4 (2.72%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (11.56%) 802.1X
2 12 (8.16%) LDAP
3 9 (6.12%) Middleware
4 6 (4.08%) LangChain
4 6 (4.08%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.08%) scikit-learn
5 1 (0.68%) JSON
5 1 (0.68%) Node.js
5 1 (0.68%) Playwright
5 1 (0.68%) Quarkus
5 1 (0.68%) React
5 1 (0.68%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.68%) Spring
5 1 (0.68%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 56 (38.10%) Data Centre
2 24 (16.33%) Cloud Native
3 18 (12.24%) Security Posture
4 9 (6.12%) BYOD
4 9 (6.12%) Mainframe
4 9 (6.12%) VSAM
5 8 (5.44%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (4.76%) Onboarding
7 6 (4.08%) Public Cloud
8 5 (3.40%) Cloud Security Posture
8 5 (3.40%) Product Ownership
9 4 (2.72%) Private Cloud
10 3 (2.04%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (1.36%) PKI
12 1 (0.68%) Cyber Defence
12 1 (0.68%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 1 (0.68%) Linux Command Line
12 1 (0.68%) Management Information System
12 1 (0.68%) Security Operations Centre
12 1 (0.68%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 27 (18.37%) Linux
2 21 (14.29%) Windows
3 14 (9.52%) Unix
4 9 (6.12%) AIX
4 9 (6.12%) Solaris
4 9 (6.12%) Windows Server
5 5 (3.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.72%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.68%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (22.45%) Load Balancing
2 27 (18.37%) Network Segmentation
3 23 (15.65%) Change Management
3 23 (15.65%) Cybersecurity
4 22 (14.97%) CI/CD
5 21 (14.29%) Project Delivery
5 21 (14.29%) SIEM
6 20 (13.61%) DevOps
6 20 (13.61%) Roadmaps
6 20 (13.61%) Zero Trust
7 19 (12.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 19 (12.93%) ITIL
7 19 (12.93%) Network Monitoring
8 18 (12.24%) Vulnerability Management
9 17 (11.56%) Network Architecture
9 17 (11.56%) Network Design
9 17 (11.56%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (10.88%) High Availability
11 15 (10.20%) Cloud Security
11 15 (10.20%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 26 (17.69%) Python
2 17 (11.56%) PowerShell
3 9 (6.12%) COBOL
4 8 (5.44%) Bash
5 6 (4.08%) Bicep
6 4 (2.72%) Java
7 1 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.68%) Perl
Qualifications
1 66 (44.90%) Security Cleared
2 54 (36.73%) SC Cleared
3 50 (34.01%) Cisco Certification
4 44 (29.93%) CCNP
5 43 (29.25%) CCNA
6 13 (8.84%) CISSP
7 11 (7.48%) Degree
7 11 (7.48%) Network+ Certification
7 11 (7.48%) Server+ Certification
8 8 (5.44%) CompTIA Security+
9 6 (4.08%) DV Cleared
10 5 (3.40%) AWS Certification
10 5 (3.40%) Azure Certification
10 5 (3.40%) MCSA
10 5 (3.40%) MCSE
10 5 (3.40%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.72%) CISM
11 4 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
13 1 (0.68%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.76%) NIST
2 5 (3.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.72%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.72%) SLA
4 3 (2.04%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.36%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.68%) GDPR
System Software
1 22 (14.97%) Active Directory
2 11 (7.48%) Docker
3 8 (5.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.72%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.72%) vSphere
5 2 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.68%) Firmware
6 1 (0.68%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 21 (14.29%) Terraform
2 14 (9.52%) Ansible
3 12 (8.16%) Kubernetes
4 7 (4.76%) CASB
5 6 (4.08%) Nessus
6 5 (3.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (3.40%) Progress Chef
7 4 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (2.72%) SCCM
8 3 (2.04%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (1.36%) Grafana
9 2 (1.36%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.68%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.68%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.68%) Istio
Vendors
1 61 (41.50%) Cisco
2 39 (26.53%) Palo Alto
3 19 (12.93%) Microsoft
4 17 (11.56%) ServiceNow
5 15 (10.20%) Aruba
5 15 (10.20%) F5
5 15 (10.20%) VMware
6 13 (8.84%) IBM
7 11 (7.48%) Google
8 9 (6.12%) Arista
8 9 (6.12%) Splunk
9 8 (5.44%) CheckPoint
9 8 (5.44%) CyberArk
9 8 (5.44%) Fortinet
9 8 (5.44%) Meraki
10 7 (4.76%) Red Hat
11 6 (4.08%) Ekahau
12 5 (3.40%) ForeScout
12 5 (3.40%) Remedy
12 5 (3.40%) Tenable