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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 30 35
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 -1
Contract jobs citing Firewall 189 116 118
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.14% 5.40% 4.59%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 39.79% 36.48% 37.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 72 80
10th Percentile £397 £363 £411
25th Percentile £453 £413 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £475 £600
Median % change year-on-year +13.05% -20.83% +33.33%
75th Percentile £610 £603 £831
90th Percentile £638 £650 £850
England median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £33.53 - -
25th Percentile £40.32 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £52.13 - £47.50
75th Percentile £63.45 - £48.75
90th Percentile £69.93 - -
England median hourly rate £63.75 £30.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +112.50% -50.00% -8.38%

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 475 318 313
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.91% 14.79% 12.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 187 218
10th Percentile £285 £153 £210
25th Percentile £375 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £450 £502
Median % change year-on-year +9.33% -10.36% +8.54%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £672
90th Percentile £638 £641 £833
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 2 13
10th Percentile £15.71 £25.02 £21.10
25th Percentile £17.06 £32.54 £26.00
Median hourly rate £17.75 £45.08 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -60.63% -1.74% +172.12%
75th Percentile £32.54 £57.62 £51.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £65.14 £51.91
England median hourly rate £26.69 £44.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -39.34% -2.22% -1.10%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -8 66 £500 +5.26% 21
Cheshire +15 55 £570 +20.00% 13
Cumbria -3 44 £530 +3.41%
Lancashire +12 22 £519 +3.83% 6
Merseyside -18 2 - - 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 9 (4.76%) CICS
2 3 (1.59%) SAS
3 2 (1.06%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (4.23%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.53%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 73 (38.62%) Azure
2 49 (25.93%) AWS
3 24 (12.70%) GCP
4 19 (10.05%) Entra ID
5 16 (8.47%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 13 (6.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (6.35%) OCI
8 11 (5.82%) SaaS
9 8 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (3.70%) Azure AI
10 7 (3.70%) IBM Watson
11 6 (3.17%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (3.17%) GitHub
11 6 (3.17%) Microsoft 365
11 6 (3.17%) Vertex AI
12 5 (2.65%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (2.65%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (2.12%) IaaS
14 3 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 63 (33.33%) Network Security
2 52 (27.51%) VPN
3 51 (26.98%) Wireless
4 45 (23.81%) WAN
5 36 (19.05%) BGP
6 35 (18.52%) DNS
7 33 (17.46%) OSPF
8 29 (15.34%) VLAN
9 26 (13.76%) LAN
10 20 (10.58%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (10.05%) Cisco IOS
11 19 (10.05%) DHCP
11 19 (10.05%) SD-WAN
11 19 (10.05%) Structured Cabling
11 19 (10.05%) TCP/IP
12 17 (8.99%) NX-OS
13 16 (8.47%) NAS
13 16 (8.47%) SAN
14 14 (7.41%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (6.88%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.76%) DataStage
2 2 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.53%) Redis
3 1 (0.53%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (5.29%) GitLab
2 9 (4.76%) JIRA
3 4 (2.12%) Git
3 4 (2.12%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.59%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (1.06%) Burp Suite
5 2 (1.06%) Cucumber
5 2 (1.06%) Gatling
5 2 (1.06%) Gradle
5 2 (1.06%) LoadRunner
5 2 (1.06%) REST Assured
5 2 (1.06%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.53%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 42 (22.22%) Finance
1 42 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 14 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (7.41%) Public Sector
3 13 (6.88%) Banking
3 13 (6.88%) Documentation Skills
4 9 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (2.65%) Legal
6 3 (1.59%) Financial Institution
6 3 (1.59%) Military
7 2 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.06%) Retail
8 1 (0.53%) Advertising
8 1 (0.53%) Games
8 1 (0.53%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.53%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 62 (32.80%) Network Engineer
2 31 (16.40%) Architect
3 28 (14.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 26 (13.76%) Security Engineer
5 22 (11.64%) Senior
6 18 (9.52%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 12 (6.35%) Cloud Engineer
7 12 (6.35%) Network Architect
8 11 (5.82%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (5.29%) Designer
10 9 (4.76%) Infrastructure Designer
10 9 (4.76%) Senior Network Engineer
11 7 (3.70%) Technical Architect
12 6 (3.17%) Cloud Security Engineer
12 6 (3.17%) Consultant
13 5 (2.65%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 5 (2.65%) Infrastructure Architect
13 5 (2.65%) Security Architect
14 4 (2.12%) Platform Engineer
14 4 (2.12%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.35%) LDAP
2 10 (5.29%) Middleware
3 9 (4.76%) 802.1X
3 9 (4.76%) LangChain
3 9 (4.76%) PyTorch
3 9 (4.76%) scikit-learn
4 3 (1.59%) ARM Templates
4 3 (1.59%) Azure Blueprints
5 2 (1.06%) JSON
5 2 (1.06%) Node.js
5 2 (1.06%) Playwright
5 2 (1.06%) Quarkus
5 2 (1.06%) React
5 2 (1.06%) Spring
5 2 (1.06%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.53%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.53%) ODBC
6 1 (0.53%) REST
6 1 (0.53%) Software Packaging
6 1 (0.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 50 (26.46%) Data Centre
2 39 (20.63%) Cloud Native
3 30 (15.87%) Security Posture
4 14 (7.41%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (5.29%) Management Information System
6 9 (4.76%) BYOD
6 9 (4.76%) Mainframe
6 9 (4.76%) VSAM
7 5 (2.65%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (2.65%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.12%) PKI
8 4 (2.12%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.59%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (1.59%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (1.06%) Private Cloud
11 1 (0.53%) Animation
11 1 (0.53%) Driving Licence
11 1 (0.53%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.53%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 35 (18.52%) Linux
2 29 (15.34%) Windows
3 15 (7.94%) Unix
4 14 (7.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (4.76%) AIX
5 9 (4.76%) Solaris
6 7 (3.70%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.53%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.53%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (25.93%) Load Balancing
2 43 (22.75%) CI/CD
3 42 (22.22%) Change Management
4 37 (19.58%) DevOps
5 34 (17.99%) Network Segmentation
6 32 (16.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 32 (16.93%) Roadmaps
6 32 (16.93%) SIEM
7 31 (16.40%) ITIL
8 28 (14.81%) Project Delivery
9 26 (13.76%) Cloud Security
9 26 (13.76%) Infrastructure as Code
9 26 (13.76%) Zero Trust
10 23 (12.17%) Agile
11 22 (11.64%) High Availability
12 21 (11.11%) Cybersecurity
12 21 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
13 19 (10.05%) ITSM
13 19 (10.05%) Scrum
14 18 (9.52%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 51 (26.98%) Python
2 29 (15.34%) PowerShell
3 20 (10.58%) Bash
4 14 (7.41%) Java
5 10 (5.29%) Bicep
6 9 (4.76%) COBOL
7 3 (1.59%) Perl
8 1 (0.53%) ActionScript
8 1 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.53%) SQL
8 1 (0.53%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.53%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 62 (32.80%) Security Cleared
2 60 (31.75%) Cisco Certification
3 53 (28.04%) SC Cleared
4 47 (24.87%) CCNA
5 45 (23.81%) CCNP
6 25 (13.23%) Degree
7 19 (10.05%) CISSP
8 16 (8.47%) AWS Certification
8 16 (8.47%) Azure Certification
9 15 (7.94%) Network+ Certification
9 15 (7.94%) Server+ Certification
10 7 (3.70%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (3.17%) CCIE
12 5 (2.65%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (2.65%) MCSA
12 5 (2.65%) MCSE
13 4 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
15 1 (0.53%) CSPO
15 1 (0.53%) RHCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.70%) NIST
2 5 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.59%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.59%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.06%) GDPR
4 2 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (1.06%) SOC 2
5 1 (0.53%) Data Quality
System Software
1 21 (11.11%) Active Directory
2 19 (10.05%) Docker
3 8 (4.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.59%) Firmware
4 3 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.59%) vSphere
5 2 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (1.06%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.53%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 40 (21.16%) Terraform
2 26 (13.76%) Ansible
3 22 (11.64%) Kubernetes
4 15 (7.94%) Progress Chef
5 10 (5.29%) CASB
6 5 (2.65%) Nessus
7 3 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (1.59%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.06%) Grafana
8 2 (1.06%) Istio
8 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 2 (1.06%) SCCM
9 1 (0.53%) Nagios
9 1 (0.53%) Packer
9 1 (0.53%) Puppet
Vendors
1 71 (37.57%) Cisco
2 36 (19.05%) Palo Alto
3 25 (13.23%) Microsoft
4 23 (12.17%) F5
4 23 (12.17%) Google
5 21 (11.11%) ServiceNow
6 20 (10.58%) Aruba
7 17 (8.99%) Arista
7 17 (8.99%) Fortinet
8 16 (8.47%) IBM
8 16 (8.47%) Red Hat
9 15 (7.94%) CheckPoint
9 15 (7.94%) VMware
10 12 (6.35%) Splunk
11 9 (4.76%) Juniper
12 8 (4.23%) CyberArk
13 7 (3.70%) Zscaler
14 6 (3.17%) Meraki
15 5 (2.65%) Ekahau
15 5 (2.65%) ForeScout