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 24 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 26 45
Rank change year-on-year -21 +19 -2
Contract jobs citing Firewall 129 141 103
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.66% 6.96% 3.68%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 34.86% 38.11% 24.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 71 75
10th Percentile £363 £250 £318
25th Percentile £463 £406 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £575
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -17.39% +22.99%
75th Percentile £610 £550 £627
90th Percentile £641 £588 £680
England median daily rate £513 £525 £514
% change year-on-year -2.38% +2.19% -3.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £41.94 - -
75th Percentile £74.26 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +43.11%

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 370 370 421
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.35% 18.25% 15.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 213 300
10th Percentile £206 £186 £210
25th Percentile £365 £313 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £450 £495
Median % change year-on-year +9.33% -9.09% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £603
90th Percentile £649 £610 £672
England median daily rate £495 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -1.00% +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 4 13
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.37 -
25th Percentile £18.13 £22.05 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.67 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.99% -5.11% +25.57%
75th Percentile £74.26 £32.39 £45.88
90th Percentile - £43.56 £49.18
England median hourly rate £28.38 £35.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -18.91% -23.71% +130.78%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 -25 42 £549 +15.53% 41
Cheshire 0 30 £610 +28.42% 13
Cumbria -4 30 £491 +3.29% 10
Lancashire 0 17 £550 +10.00% 17
Merseyside -21 6 £330 +53.49% 4
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 6 (4.65%) CICS
2 5 (3.88%) Apache
3 4 (3.10%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.78%) JBoss
4 1 (0.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 35 (27.13%) Azure
2 26 (20.16%) AWS
3 13 (10.08%) GCP
4 10 (7.75%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.75%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (4.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (3.88%) Azure AI
6 5 (3.88%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (3.88%) OpenShift
7 4 (3.10%) IBM Watson
7 4 (3.10%) Microsoft Purview
7 4 (3.10%) Nutanix
7 4 (3.10%) Vertex AI
8 3 (2.33%) Amazon EC2
8 3 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (2.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 2 (1.55%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.55%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 33 (25.58%) Network Security
2 27 (20.93%) VLAN
3 23 (17.83%) WAN
4 18 (13.95%) TCP/IP
5 17 (13.18%) BGP
5 17 (13.18%) DNS
5 17 (13.18%) VPN
6 14 (10.85%) NetScaler
6 14 (10.85%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (9.30%) Cisco ISE
8 11 (8.53%) MPLS
9 9 (6.98%) Wireless
10 8 (6.20%) SD-WAN
10 8 (6.20%) Software-Defined Networking
10 8 (6.20%) SSL
11 7 (5.43%) Cisco ASA
11 7 (5.43%) Ethernet VPN
11 7 (5.43%) Kerberos
11 7 (5.43%) OSPF
12 6 (4.65%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (4.65%) DataStage
2 2 (1.55%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.78%) Redis
3 1 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (6.20%) GitLab
2 3 (2.33%) Git
2 3 (2.33%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.33%) JIRA
2 3 (2.33%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.55%) Bitbucket
General
1 30 (23.26%) Finance
2 26 (20.16%) Social Skills
3 23 (17.83%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (13.18%) Public Sector
5 6 (4.65%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (3.88%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (3.10%) Banking
8 3 (2.33%) Legal
9 2 (1.55%) Military
10 1 (0.78%) Advertising
10 1 (0.78%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.78%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 45 (34.88%) Network Engineer
2 24 (18.60%) Security Engineer
3 17 (13.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 16 (12.40%) Platform Engineer
5 13 (10.08%) Senior
6 11 (8.53%) Architect
7 7 (5.43%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (5.43%) Network Architect
8 6 (4.65%) Cisco Engineer
8 6 (4.65%) Cybersecurity Engineer
8 6 (4.65%) Designer
8 6 (4.65%) Infrastructure Designer
8 6 (4.65%) Virtualisation Engineer
9 5 (3.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 5 (3.88%) Cloud Engineer
10 4 (3.10%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 4 (3.10%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
10 4 (3.10%) Senior Operations Analyst
10 4 (3.10%) Technical Analyst
10 4 (3.10%) Technical Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (12.40%) 802.1X
2 12 (9.30%) LDAP
3 7 (5.43%) Middleware
4 6 (4.65%) LangChain
4 6 (4.65%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.65%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.55%) JSON
5 2 (1.55%) Node.js
6 1 (0.78%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 43 (33.33%) Data Centre
2 13 (10.08%) Security Posture
3 10 (7.75%) Cloud Native
4 9 (6.98%) Product Ownership
5 7 (5.43%) Onboarding
6 6 (4.65%) BYOD
6 6 (4.65%) Mainframe
6 6 (4.65%) VSAM
7 5 (3.88%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (3.88%) Public Cloud
8 4 (3.10%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (3.10%) Private Cloud
9 3 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.55%) PKI
11 1 (0.78%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 1 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
11 1 (0.78%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
11 1 (0.78%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 45 (34.88%) Linux
2 38 (29.46%) Windows
3 15 (11.63%) Unix
3 15 (11.63%) Windows Server
4 10 (7.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (4.65%) AIX
5 6 (4.65%) Solaris
6 4 (3.10%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (3.10%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.78%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (25.58%) Cybersecurity
2 26 (20.16%) Containerisation
3 25 (19.38%) CI/CD
3 25 (19.38%) DevOps
4 23 (17.83%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (15.50%) Load Balancing
6 19 (14.73%) Vulnerability Management
7 18 (13.95%) SIEM
8 17 (13.18%) Project Delivery
9 15 (11.63%) Change Management
9 15 (11.63%) Incident Response
9 15 (11.63%) Network Architecture
9 15 (11.63%) Observability
10 14 (10.85%) Cloud Security
10 14 (10.85%) Infrastructure as Code
10 14 (10.85%) ITIL
10 14 (10.85%) Platform Engineering
10 14 (10.85%) Roadmaps
10 14 (10.85%) Vulnerability Assessment
11 13 (10.08%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 34 (26.36%) Python
2 31 (24.03%) PowerShell
3 24 (18.60%) Bash
4 11 (8.53%) Perl
5 6 (4.65%) COBOL
6 4 (3.10%) Java
7 2 (1.55%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (1.55%) Ruby
8 1 (0.78%) Bicep
8 1 (0.78%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 62 (48.06%) Security Cleared
2 49 (37.98%) SC Cleared
3 27 (20.93%) CCNP
3 27 (20.93%) Cisco Certification
4 19 (14.73%) CCNA
4 19 (14.73%) CISSP
5 10 (7.75%) CISM
6 9 (6.98%) CompTIA Security+
7 7 (5.43%) Degree
8 6 (4.65%) AWS Certification
8 6 (4.65%) DV Cleared
8 6 (4.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (3.88%) Azure Certification
9 5 (3.88%) MCSA
9 5 (3.88%) MCSE
10 4 (3.10%) CCDP
11 3 (2.33%) CCIE
12 1 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.78%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.78%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (6.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (6.20%) NIST
2 5 (3.88%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (3.10%) SLA
4 2 (1.55%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.78%) GDPR
System Software
1 28 (21.71%) Active Directory
2 24 (18.60%) Docker
3 21 (16.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (8.53%) vSphere
5 4 (3.10%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (1.55%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.78%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (18.60%) Kubernetes
2 12 (9.30%) Terraform
3 6 (4.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 6 (4.65%) FortiGate
3 6 (4.65%) Nessus
4 5 (3.88%) CASB
4 5 (3.88%) Fluentd
4 5 (3.88%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (3.10%) SCCM
6 3 (2.33%) Ansible
6 3 (2.33%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.78%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 51 (39.53%) Cisco
2 35 (27.13%) Palo Alto
3 26 (20.16%) VMware
4 19 (14.73%) Microsoft
5 15 (11.63%) Meraki
6 11 (8.53%) F5
6 11 (8.53%) IBM
7 10 (7.75%) Red Hat
8 9 (6.98%) Splunk
9 7 (5.43%) Google
10 6 (4.65%) Remedy
11 5 (3.88%) Citrix
11 5 (3.88%) Cribl.io
11 5 (3.88%) CyberArk
11 5 (3.88%) Juniper
11 5 (3.88%) Tenable
12 4 (3.10%) Veeam
13 3 (2.33%) CheckPoint
13 3 (2.33%) Oracle
13 3 (2.33%) ServiceNow