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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 54 35 35
Rank change year-on-year -19 0 +23
Contract jobs citing Firewall 83 105 137
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 3.80% 4.39% 4.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.82% 36.08% 32.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 55 103
10th Percentile £346 £432 £330
25th Percentile £410 £500 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £602 £486
Median % change year-on-year -21.10% +23.87% +5.94%
75th Percentile £584 £838 £600
90th Percentile £644 £850 £636
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 3
10th Percentile £44.32 - -
25th Percentile £47.89 £46.25 £40.63
Median hourly rate £54.22 £47.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +14.15% +8.57% -37.50%
75th Percentile £60.92 £48.75 £54.94
90th Percentile £64.72 - £59.78
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £65.99
% change year-on-year -14.29% -46.96% +57.06%

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 288 291 428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.19% 12.17% 15.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 167 284
10th Percentile £147 £269 £313
25th Percentile £333 £409 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £486
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +8.02% +2.32%
75th Percentile £541 £688 £588
90th Percentile £680 £825 £638
England median daily rate £488 £508 £500
% change year-on-year -3.94% +1.50% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 10 10
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.43 £15.72
25th Percentile £17.75 £37.55 £15.75
Median hourly rate £20.00 £48.56 £16.68
Median % change year-on-year -58.81% +191.13% -44.93%
75th Percentile £48.27 £51.91 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.25 £57.65 £49.35
England median hourly rate £41.72 £57.35 £56.49
% change year-on-year -27.25% +1.52% +34.02%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Firewall as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Firewall 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 September 2025.

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 September 2025.

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 September 2025. 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
Cheshire -4 36 £475 -8.21% 15
Cumbria +19 22 £483 -1.38% 9
Manchester -42 17 £543 -32.19% 36
Merseyside -3 6 £413 +83.33% 8
Lancashire 0 2 £335 -24.51% 29
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (6.02%) OpenStack
2 4 (4.82%) Apache
2 4 (4.82%) JBoss
2 4 (4.82%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.20%) Distributed Ledger
1 1 (1.20%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 22 (26.51%) Azure
2 17 (20.48%) AWS
3 12 (14.46%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (8.43%) Entra ID
5 6 (7.23%) GCP
6 5 (6.02%) Azure Sentinel
7 4 (4.82%) OpenShift
8 3 (3.61%) Microsoft Purview
8 3 (3.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (2.41%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (2.41%) Amazon S3
9 2 (2.41%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (2.41%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (2.41%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (2.41%) IaaS
10 1 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (1.20%) Amazon ELB
10 1 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (1.20%) Azure Key Vault
10 1 (1.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (32.53%) Network Security
2 20 (24.10%) BGP
3 17 (20.48%) OSPF
4 15 (18.07%) WAN
5 13 (15.66%) Wi-Fi
6 12 (14.46%) Cisco ASA
6 12 (14.46%) DNS
6 12 (14.46%) IPsec
6 12 (14.46%) TCP/IP
6 12 (14.46%) VPN
7 11 (13.25%) MPLS
8 10 (12.05%) Intrusion Detection
9 9 (10.84%) LAN
10 8 (9.64%) Cisco Firepower
10 8 (9.64%) EIGRP
10 8 (9.64%) HSRP
10 8 (9.64%) SSL
10 8 (9.64%) VLAN
11 7 (8.43%) Internet
12 6 (7.23%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (7.23%) SQL Server
2 3 (3.61%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.20%) Redis
Development Applications
1 3 (3.61%) GitLab
2 2 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.20%) Eclipse
3 1 (1.20%) Git
General
1 17 (20.48%) Finance
2 14 (16.87%) Public Sector
3 10 (12.05%) Social Skills
4 8 (9.64%) Banking
5 6 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (4.82%) Telecoms
7 3 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (3.61%) Japanese Language
7 3 (3.61%) Legal
8 2 (2.41%) Military
9 1 (1.20%) Financial Institution
9 1 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.20%) Law
9 1 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.20%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 39 (46.99%) Network Engineer
2 20 (24.10%) Security Engineer
3 11 (13.25%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 8 (9.64%) Designer
4 8 (9.64%) Network Designer
4 8 (9.64%) Network Security Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) Cloud Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 5 (6.02%) Senior
6 4 (4.82%) Azure Engineer
6 4 (4.82%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 4 (4.82%) Firewall Engineer
6 4 (4.82%) Solutions Designer
7 3 (3.61%) Analyst
7 3 (3.61%) Senior Network Engineer
8 2 (2.41%) Architect
8 2 (2.41%) Consultant
8 2 (2.41%) Infrastructure Analyst
8 2 (2.41%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (7.23%) 802.1X
2 5 (6.02%) Kafka
3 4 (4.82%) LDAP
4 2 (2.41%) JSON
5 1 (1.20%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (1.20%) Middleware
5 1 (1.20%) Node.js
5 1 (1.20%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (1.20%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.64%) Data Centre
2 7 (8.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 5 (6.02%) Security Posture
4 4 (4.82%) Onboarding
4 4 (4.82%) Operational Technology
4 4 (4.82%) PKI
5 3 (3.61%) Cloud Security Posture
6 2 (2.41%) CMDB
6 2 (2.41%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (2.41%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.20%) Blockchain
7 1 (1.20%) Cloud Native
7 1 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.20%) Private Cloud
7 1 (1.20%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (24.10%) Windows
2 10 (12.05%) Linux
3 6 (7.23%) Windows Server
4 4 (4.82%) Unix
5 1 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (21.69%) Network Design
2 16 (19.28%) Network Architecture
3 14 (16.87%) Cloud Security
4 13 (15.66%) High Availability
4 13 (15.66%) Incident Response
4 13 (15.66%) Network Management
5 10 (12.05%) Load Balancing
5 10 (12.05%) Migration
5 10 (12.05%) SIEM
6 9 (10.84%) Cybersecurity
6 9 (10.84%) Information Security
6 9 (10.84%) Vulnerability Assessment
7 8 (9.64%) ITIL
7 8 (9.64%) Use Case
8 7 (8.43%) Impact Assessments
8 7 (8.43%) Vulnerability Scanning
9 6 (7.23%) Infrastructure as Code
9 6 (7.23%) Infrastructure Automation
9 6 (7.23%) Network Monitoring
9 6 (7.23%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 7 (8.43%) Python
2 5 (6.02%) PowerShell
3 3 (3.61%) Perl
4 2 (2.41%) Bash
4 2 (2.41%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (1.20%) C++
5 1 (1.20%) Java
5 1 (1.20%) PL/SQL
5 1 (1.20%) SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (31.33%) Security Cleared
2 25 (30.12%) SC Cleared
3 16 (19.28%) Cisco Certification
4 15 (18.07%) CCNP
5 10 (12.05%) CISSP
5 10 (12.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (10.84%) Azure Certification
6 9 (10.84%) Degree
7 6 (7.23%) CISM
8 5 (6.02%) CCIE
8 5 (6.02%) CompTIA Security+
8 5 (6.02%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (4.82%) JNCIE
9 4 (4.82%) Master's Degree
10 3 (3.61%) CCDP
10 3 (3.61%) MCSA
10 3 (3.61%) MCSE
11 2 (2.41%) CCNA
11 2 (2.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 1 (1.20%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.43%) NIST
2 3 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.61%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.20%) GDPR
3 1 (1.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 12 (14.46%) Active Directory
2 6 (7.23%) Docker
3 2 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (2.41%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 6 (7.23%) Ansible
2 4 (4.82%) Kubernetes
2 4 (4.82%) Terraform
3 3 (3.61%) CASB
3 3 (3.61%) Nessus
4 2 (2.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (2.41%) Fluentd
4 2 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.41%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.20%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (1.20%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.20%) Grafana
5 1 (1.20%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.20%) QRadar
5 1 (1.20%) SELinux
Vendors
1 42 (50.60%) Cisco
2 33 (39.76%) Palo Alto
3 20 (24.10%) Microsoft
4 15 (18.07%) CheckPoint
5 12 (14.46%) Meraki
5 12 (14.46%) Zscaler
6 11 (13.25%) F5
7 9 (10.84%) Fortinet
7 9 (10.84%) SolarWinds
8 7 (8.43%) Splunk
9 5 (6.02%) Oracle
10 4 (4.82%) CyberArk
10 4 (4.82%) Darktrace
10 4 (4.82%) Dell
10 4 (4.82%) IBM
11 3 (3.61%) Remedy
11 3 (3.61%) Tenable
11 3 (3.61%) VMware
12 2 (2.41%) Red Hat
12 2 (2.41%) Varonis