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 12 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 35 32
Rank change year-on-year -4 -3 +9
Contract jobs citing Firewall 183 112 115
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.84% 5.07% 4.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 37.20% 36.48% 40.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 67 74
10th Percentile £380 £363 £454
25th Percentile £450 £413 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £475 £638
Median % change year-on-year +11.16% -25.49% +41.67%
75th Percentile £602 £594 £850
90th Percentile £630 £650 -
England median daily rate £511 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.10% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £47.50
75th Percentile £31.00 - £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.57 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +118.57% +9.09% -58.33%

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 492 307 284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.01% 13.90% 11.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 322 178 192
10th Percentile £241 £147 £250
25th Percentile £358 £325 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £446 £515
Median % change year-on-year +10.65% -13.40% +8.99%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £688
90th Percentile £630 £650 £848
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 3 9
10th Percentile £15.40 £21.20 £20.21
25th Percentile £16.88 £23.00 £26.25
Median hourly rate £17.50 £27.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.19% -43.16% +184.77%
75th Percentile £27.38 £49.08 £51.91
90th Percentile £74.26 £61.73 £62.32
England median hourly rate £27.75 £44.00 £54.94
% change year-on-year -36.93% -19.91% +3.66%

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 12 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 12 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 -6 60 £525 +11.70% 45
Cheshire +8 55 £547 +15.10% 11
Cumbria -3 45 £525 +1.25% 6
Lancashire +9 21 £519 - 4
Merseyside -21 2 £275 -33.33% 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 4 (2.19%) SAS
2 3 (1.64%) CICS
2 3 (1.64%) Confluence
3 1 (0.55%) nginx
Applications
1 7 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.19%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 65 (35.52%) Azure
2 52 (28.42%) AWS
3 25 (13.66%) GCP
4 16 (8.74%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 15 (8.20%) SaaS
6 13 (7.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (6.56%) OCI
8 10 (5.46%) Entra ID
9 7 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (3.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (3.83%) IBM Watson
10 6 (3.28%) Azure AI
10 6 (3.28%) GitHub
10 6 (3.28%) Vertex AI
11 4 (2.19%) Azure Key Vault
11 4 (2.19%) IaaS
11 4 (2.19%) Serverless
12 3 (1.64%) Azure Monitor
12 3 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
13 2 (1.09%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (36.61%) Network Security
2 57 (31.15%) VPN
3 51 (27.87%) Wireless
4 45 (24.59%) WAN
5 40 (21.86%) BGP
6 38 (20.77%) OSPF
7 32 (17.49%) DNS
8 29 (15.85%) VLAN
9 27 (14.75%) LAN
10 24 (13.11%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (10.38%) Cisco IOS
11 19 (10.38%) SD-WAN
11 19 (10.38%) Structured Cabling
12 18 (9.84%) DHCP
13 17 (9.29%) NX-OS
13 17 (9.29%) TCP/IP
14 16 (8.74%) NAS
14 16 (8.74%) SAN
15 15 (8.20%) Cisco ASA
15 15 (8.20%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.64%) DataStage
2 2 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (7.65%) GitLab
2 10 (5.46%) JIRA
3 8 (4.37%) Jenkins
4 4 (2.19%) Git
5 3 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.09%) Burp Suite
6 2 (1.09%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.09%) Gatling
6 2 (1.09%) Gradle
6 2 (1.09%) LoadRunner
6 2 (1.09%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.09%) SonarQube
6 2 (1.09%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 39 (21.31%) Finance
1 39 (21.31%) Social Skills
2 15 (8.20%) Banking
3 14 (7.65%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (7.10%) Documentation Skills
4 13 (7.10%) Public Sector
5 5 (2.73%) Financial Institution
6 4 (2.19%) Legal
7 3 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.09%) Military
8 2 (1.09%) Retail
9 1 (0.55%) Games
9 1 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.55%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.55%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 67 (36.61%) Network Engineer
2 27 (14.75%) Architect
3 25 (13.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 23 (12.57%) Security Engineer
5 22 (12.02%) Senior
6 20 (10.93%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 12 (6.56%) Cloud Engineer
8 11 (6.01%) Network Architect
8 11 (6.01%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (4.92%) Senior Network Engineer
10 7 (3.83%) Technical Architect
11 6 (3.28%) Cloud Security Engineer
11 6 (3.28%) Consultant
12 5 (2.73%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 4 (2.19%) Azure Architect
13 4 (2.19%) GCP Engineer
13 4 (2.19%) Network Consultant
13 4 (2.19%) Product Owner
13 4 (2.19%) SIEM Engineer
13 4 (2.19%) Splunk Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.92%) 802.1X
1 9 (4.92%) LangChain
1 9 (4.92%) PyTorch
1 9 (4.92%) scikit-learn
2 5 (2.73%) LDAP
3 4 (2.19%) Middleware
3 4 (2.19%) React
4 3 (1.64%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.64%) Azure Blueprints
5 2 (1.09%) CSS
5 2 (1.09%) HTML
5 2 (1.09%) Node.js
5 2 (1.09%) ODBC
5 2 (1.09%) Playwright
5 2 (1.09%) Quarkus
5 2 (1.09%) Spring
5 2 (1.09%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.55%) JSON
6 1 (0.55%) REST
6 1 (0.55%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 42 (22.95%) Data Centre
2 39 (21.31%) Cloud Native
3 29 (15.85%) Security Posture
4 14 (7.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (6.56%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.73%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (2.73%) PKI
7 4 (2.19%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.64%) BYOD
8 3 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.64%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.64%) Mainframe
8 3 (1.64%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.64%) VSAM
9 2 (1.09%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.09%) Handset
9 2 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 1 (0.55%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.55%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 28 (15.30%) Linux
2 26 (14.21%) Windows
3 13 (7.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (4.92%) Unix
5 5 (2.73%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.64%) AIX
6 3 (1.64%) Solaris
7 1 (0.55%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.55%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (26.78%) Load Balancing
2 48 (26.23%) CI/CD
3 36 (19.67%) DevOps
4 34 (18.58%) Change Management
4 34 (18.58%) Network Segmentation
4 34 (18.58%) SIEM
5 30 (16.39%) Cloud Security
6 29 (15.85%) Infrastructure as Code
6 29 (15.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 27 (14.75%) Zero Trust
8 26 (14.21%) Project Delivery
8 26 (14.21%) Roadmaps
9 25 (13.66%) Agile
9 25 (13.66%) ITIL
10 21 (11.48%) High Availability
11 19 (10.38%) Network Architecture
11 19 (10.38%) Scrum
12 18 (9.84%) Cybersecurity
12 18 (9.84%) ITSM
12 18 (9.84%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 54 (29.51%) Python
2 22 (12.02%) PowerShell
3 19 (10.38%) Bash
4 14 (7.65%) Java
5 9 (4.92%) Bicep
6 6 (3.28%) SQL
7 4 (2.19%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (2.19%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (1.64%) COBOL
9 2 (1.09%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.09%) Perl
9 2 (1.09%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.55%) ActionScript
10 1 (0.55%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 61 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 59 (32.24%) Cisco Certification
3 55 (30.05%) SC Cleared
4 46 (25.14%) CCNA
5 44 (24.04%) CCNP
6 28 (15.30%) Degree
7 23 (12.57%) CISSP
8 17 (9.29%) Network+ Certification
9 16 (8.74%) AWS Certification
10 15 (8.20%) Azure Certification
10 15 (8.20%) Server+ Certification
11 7 (3.83%) CompTIA Security+
11 7 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (3.28%) CCIE
13 5 (2.73%) MCSA
13 5 (2.73%) MCSE
14 4 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (2.19%) GCFA
14 4 (2.19%) GCIH
15 2 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.92%) NIST
2 7 (3.83%) PCI DSS
3 6 (3.28%) GDPR
4 4 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.09%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.55%) Data Quality
System Software
1 17 (9.29%) Docker
2 11 (6.01%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.64%) Firmware
3 3 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.55%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.55%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 40 (21.86%) Terraform
2 30 (16.39%) Ansible
3 20 (10.93%) Kubernetes
4 19 (10.38%) Progress Chef
5 14 (7.65%) CASB
6 5 (2.73%) Nessus
7 3 (1.64%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (1.64%) Istio
7 3 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.09%) Grafana
8 2 (1.09%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.55%) Nagios
9 1 (0.55%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.55%) Packer
9 1 (0.55%) Puppet
Vendors
1 76 (41.53%) Cisco
2 41 (22.40%) Palo Alto
3 26 (14.21%) Microsoft
4 23 (12.57%) Google
5 21 (11.48%) CheckPoint
5 21 (11.48%) F5
5 21 (11.48%) ServiceNow
6 20 (10.93%) Aruba
7 17 (9.29%) Arista
7 17 (9.29%) Fortinet
8 16 (8.74%) Splunk
9 15 (8.20%) Red Hat
10 10 (5.46%) IBM
11 9 (4.92%) Juniper
12 8 (4.37%) CyberArk
13 7 (3.83%) Zscaler
14 6 (3.28%) Meraki
14 6 (3.28%) VMware
15 5 (2.73%) ForeScout
15 5 (2.73%) Remedy