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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 29 39
Rank change year-on-year -20 +10 +11
Contract jobs citing Firewall 107 127 121
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.28% 5.91% 4.56%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 29.64% 37.80% 28.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 57 91
10th Percentile £342 £242 £398
25th Percentile £457 £413 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £580
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -18.10% +22.11%
75th Percentile £573 £550 £629
90th Percentile £637 £577 £675
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 2
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £41.94 - £40.63
Median hourly rate £54.22 - £43.75
75th Percentile £72.51 - £46.88
90th Percentile £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +112.84%

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 361 336 431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.44% 15.63% 16.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 179 313
10th Percentile £170 £180 £302
25th Percentile £330 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £459 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.61% -8.20% +2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £625
90th Percentile £667 £614 £672
England median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 5 12
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.52 £15.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.25 £16.16
Median hourly rate £27.00 £24.76 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +9.05% +39.73% -10.87%
75th Percentile £67.25 £51.00 £46.88
90th Percentile £74.26 £51.90 £49.69
England median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -1.43% -38.04% +50.64%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1 January 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
Cumbria -3 31 £515 +11.17% 7
Cheshire -4 31 £525 +3.96% 9
Manchester -32 25 £575 +15.00% 27
Lancashire -3 13 £550 +15.79% 20
Merseyside -18 4 £330 +53.49% 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 5 (4.67%) Apache
1 5 (4.67%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.93%) JBoss
2 1 (0.93%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.93%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.93%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.93%) Finacle
1 1 (0.93%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 19 (17.76%) Azure
2 18 (16.82%) AWS
3 9 (8.41%) GCP
4 8 (7.48%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (5.61%) OpenShift
6 5 (4.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (3.74%) Amazon EC2
7 4 (3.74%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (2.80%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (2.80%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (2.80%) Entra ID
9 2 (1.87%) Amazon ECS
9 2 (1.87%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (1.87%) Amazon MSK
9 2 (1.87%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.87%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.87%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.87%) Nutanix
9 2 (1.87%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 33 (30.84%) Network Security
2 28 (26.17%) WAN
3 22 (20.56%) VLAN
4 20 (18.69%) TCP/IP
5 18 (16.82%) BGP
6 17 (15.89%) Wi-Fi
7 16 (14.95%) VPN
8 15 (14.02%) Cisco ISE
8 15 (14.02%) NetScaler
9 12 (11.21%) DNS
10 11 (10.28%) LAN
11 9 (8.41%) Cisco ASA
11 9 (8.41%) MPLS
12 8 (7.48%) Software-Defined Networking
12 8 (7.48%) Wireless
13 7 (6.54%) SD-WAN
13 7 (6.54%) SSL
14 6 (5.61%) OSPF
15 5 (4.67%) Internet
15 5 (4.67%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.87%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.93%) Redis
2 1 (0.93%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (7.48%) GitLab
2 4 (3.74%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.80%) Git
3 3 (2.80%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.87%) Bitbucket
4 2 (1.87%) JIRA
5 1 (0.93%) Eclipse
General
1 21 (19.63%) Analytical Skills
2 20 (18.69%) Public Sector
3 18 (16.82%) Finance
4 17 (15.89%) Social Skills
5 5 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (3.74%) Banking
7 3 (2.80%) Military
8 2 (1.87%) Legal
8 2 (1.87%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.93%) Japanese Language
9 1 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.93%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 50 (46.73%) Network Engineer
2 20 (18.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 14 (13.08%) Platform Engineer
3 14 (13.08%) Security Engineer
4 12 (11.21%) Senior
5 6 (5.61%) Cisco Engineer
5 6 (5.61%) Virtualisation Engineer
6 5 (4.67%) Architect
6 5 (4.67%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 5 (4.67%) Network Architect
6 5 (4.67%) Senior Network Engineer
7 4 (3.74%) Firewall Engineer
7 4 (3.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 3 (2.80%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 3 (2.80%) Consultant
8 3 (2.80%) Operations Analyst
8 3 (2.80%) Senior Analyst
8 3 (2.80%) Senior Technical Analyst
8 3 (2.80%) Software Engineer
8 3 (2.80%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (15.89%) 802.1X
2 4 (3.74%) LDAP
3 3 (2.80%) JSON
3 3 (2.80%) Node.js
4 1 (0.93%) Kafka
4 1 (0.93%) Middleware
4 1 (0.93%) RabbitMQ
4 1 (0.93%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 34 (31.78%) Data Centre
2 8 (7.48%) Product Ownership
3 7 (6.54%) Onboarding
4 5 (4.67%) Security Posture
5 3 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (2.80%) Cloud Security Posture
5 3 (2.80%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (1.87%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.87%) PKI
6 2 (1.87%) Private Cloud
6 2 (1.87%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.93%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.93%) CMDB
7 1 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.93%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 34 (31.78%) Linux
2 30 (28.04%) Windows
3 12 (11.21%) Windows Server
4 8 (7.48%) Unix
5 7 (6.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.87%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.93%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (23.36%) Containerisation
2 20 (18.69%) Load Balancing
3 19 (17.76%) Cybersecurity
3 19 (17.76%) Network Architecture
4 18 (16.82%) DevOps
5 17 (15.89%) CI/CD
5 17 (15.89%) Network Design
6 15 (14.02%) Incident Response
6 15 (14.02%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (13.08%) Infrastructure as Code
7 14 (13.08%) Network Management
8 13 (12.15%) High Availability
8 13 (12.15%) Impact Assessments
9 12 (11.21%) Observability
9 12 (11.21%) Platform Engineering
9 12 (11.21%) Project Delivery
10 11 (10.28%) Infrastructure Automation
11 10 (9.35%) Cloud Security
11 10 (9.35%) ITSM
11 10 (9.35%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 28 (26.17%) Python
2 21 (19.63%) Bash
3 20 (18.69%) PowerShell
4 13 (12.15%) Perl
5 3 (2.80%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (1.87%) Java
6 2 (1.87%) Ruby
7 1 (0.93%) C++
7 1 (0.93%) Lisp
7 1 (0.93%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.93%) SQL
Qualifications
1 59 (55.14%) Security Cleared
2 51 (47.66%) SC Cleared
3 28 (26.17%) Cisco Certification
4 27 (25.23%) CCNP
5 15 (14.02%) CCNA
5 15 (14.02%) CISSP
6 11 (10.28%) CISM
7 8 (7.48%) Degree
8 7 (6.54%) CompTIA Security+
9 6 (5.61%) CCDP
10 4 (3.74%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (2.80%) Azure Certification
11 3 (2.80%) DV Cleared
11 3 (2.80%) MCSA
11 3 (2.80%) MCSE
12 2 (1.87%) AWS Certification
12 2 (1.87%) CCIE
12 2 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.87%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 1 (0.93%) Check Point Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.41%) NIST
2 5 (4.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.80%) SLA
4 2 (1.87%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.93%) GDPR
5 1 (0.93%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 19 (17.76%) Docker
2 17 (15.89%) Active Directory
3 16 (14.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (8.41%) vSphere
5 2 (1.87%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (1.87%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.93%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 20 (18.69%) Kubernetes
2 10 (9.35%) Terraform
3 6 (5.61%) FortiGate
4 5 (4.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 5 (4.67%) Fluentd
5 3 (2.80%) Ansible
5 3 (2.80%) CASB
5 3 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (2.80%) Nessus
6 2 (1.87%) SCCM
7 1 (0.93%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.93%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.93%) SELinux
Vendors
1 54 (50.47%) Cisco
2 43 (40.19%) Palo Alto
3 21 (19.63%) Meraki
4 17 (15.89%) VMware
5 16 (14.95%) Microsoft
6 12 (11.21%) F5
7 10 (9.35%) Splunk
8 7 (6.54%) CheckPoint
8 7 (6.54%) Red Hat
9 5 (4.67%) Cribl.io
9 5 (4.67%) Fortinet
9 5 (4.67%) Juniper
10 4 (3.74%) Citrix
10 4 (3.74%) Oracle
10 4 (3.74%) Remedy
10 4 (3.74%) SolarWinds
11 3 (2.80%) CyberArk
11 3 (2.80%) LogRhythm
11 3 (2.80%) Tenable
11 3 (2.80%) Zscaler