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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 29 36
Rank change year-on-year -10 +7 +5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 145 117 116
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.57% 6.07% 4.22%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 36.62% 35.89% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 69 79
10th Percentile £406 £246 £395
25th Percentile £469 £385 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £475 £602
Median % change year-on-year +11.16% -21.10% +33.78%
75th Percentile £598 £575 £838
90th Percentile £635 £638 £850
England median daily rate £503 £521 £505
% change year-on-year -3.41% +3.07% -4.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £41.94 - -
Median hourly rate £58.10 - -
75th Percentile £74.26 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £52.36 £16.60 £63.00
% change year-on-year +215.42% -73.65% +1.61%

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 396 326 380
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.47% 16.91% 13.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 200 269
10th Percentile £315 £179 £197
25th Percentile £405 £300 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -8.72% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £650
90th Percentile £643 £602 £825
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 3 14
10th Percentile £17.49 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £22.12 £21.12 £18.48
Median hourly rate £58.10 £24.59 £33.62
Median % change year-on-year +136.32% -26.86% +7.57%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile - £25.90 £85.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £36.65 £40.00
% change year-on-year +22.80% -8.39% +111.30%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 51 £540 +20.00% 21
Cheshire +11 40 £563 +4.90% 6
Cumbria -2 32 £500 -9.09% 3
Lancashire -5 15 £550 +10.00% 9
Merseyside -15 6 £330 +53.49% 6
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 (6.21%) CICS
2 4 (2.76%) Apache
3 2 (1.38%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (30.34%) Azure
2 27 (18.62%) AWS
3 13 (8.97%) Entra ID
4 12 (8.28%) GCP
5 9 (6.21%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (5.52%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (4.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 5 (3.45%) Azure AI
8 5 (3.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 4 (2.76%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.76%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.76%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.76%) Nutanix
9 4 (2.76%) Vertex AI
10 3 (2.07%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.07%) OpenShift
11 2 (1.38%) Azure DevOps
11 2 (1.38%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (1.38%) Power Platform
12 1 (0.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 51 (35.17%) Network Security
2 38 (26.21%) VLAN
3 28 (19.31%) WAN
4 23 (15.86%) VPN
5 22 (15.17%) DNS
6 21 (14.48%) Wireless
7 20 (13.79%) BGP
7 20 (13.79%) TCP/IP
8 13 (8.97%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (8.28%) SD-WAN
10 11 (7.59%) DHCP
10 11 (7.59%) OSPF
11 10 (6.90%) LAN
11 10 (6.90%) NetScaler
12 9 (6.21%) Cisco ISE
12 9 (6.21%) MPLS
13 8 (5.52%) Cisco ASA
13 8 (5.52%) Ethernet VPN
13 8 (5.52%) Software-Defined Networking
14 7 (4.83%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.21%) DataStage
2 2 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.69%) Redis
Development Applications
1 6 (4.14%) JIRA
2 3 (2.07%) GitLab
3 1 (0.69%) Git
General
1 35 (24.14%) Social Skills
2 32 (22.07%) Finance
3 19 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (11.03%) Public Sector
5 9 (6.21%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.52%) Banking
7 7 (4.83%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.07%) Legal
8 3 (2.07%) Military
9 1 (0.69%) Advertising
9 1 (0.69%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.69%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.69%) Retail
Job Titles
1 47 (32.41%) Network Engineer
2 24 (16.55%) Architect
2 24 (16.55%) Security Engineer
3 17 (11.72%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 12 (8.28%) Network Architect
4 12 (8.28%) Platform Engineer
4 12 (8.28%) Senior
5 10 (6.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (6.21%) Designer
6 9 (6.21%) Infrastructure Designer
7 6 (4.14%) Cisco Engineer
7 6 (4.14%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (3.45%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 5 (3.45%) Cybersecurity Engineer
9 4 (2.76%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 4 (2.76%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 4 (2.76%) Infrastructure Architect
9 4 (2.76%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
9 4 (2.76%) Product Owner
9 4 (2.76%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (13.10%) 802.1X
2 12 (8.28%) LDAP
3 9 (6.21%) Middleware
4 6 (4.14%) LangChain
4 6 (4.14%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.14%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.38%) JSON
6 1 (0.69%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 48 (33.10%) Data Centre
2 18 (12.41%) Cloud Native
3 17 (11.72%) Security Posture
4 13 (8.97%) Product Ownership
5 9 (6.21%) BYOD
5 9 (6.21%) Mainframe
5 9 (6.21%) VSAM
6 8 (5.52%) Onboarding
7 6 (4.14%) Public Cloud
8 5 (3.45%) Cloud Security Posture
9 4 (2.76%) Private Cloud
10 3 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
12 1 (0.69%) Cyber Defence
12 1 (0.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 1 (0.69%) Management Information System
12 1 (0.69%) PKI
12 1 (0.69%) Security Operations Centre
12 1 (0.69%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 36 (24.83%) Linux
2 29 (20.00%) Windows
3 18 (12.41%) Unix
4 15 (10.34%) Windows Server
5 11 (7.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (6.21%) AIX
6 9 (6.21%) Solaris
7 4 (2.76%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.76%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.69%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (22.07%) Cybersecurity
2 26 (17.93%) Problem-Solving
3 24 (16.55%) Change Management
4 22 (15.17%) SIEM
5 21 (14.48%) Load Balancing
5 21 (14.48%) Network Segmentation
6 20 (13.79%) CI/CD
7 19 (13.10%) ITIL
7 19 (13.10%) ITSM
7 19 (13.10%) Project Delivery
7 19 (13.10%) Roadmaps
8 18 (12.41%) Cloud Security
8 18 (12.41%) Vulnerability Management
9 17 (11.72%) Network Monitoring
10 15 (10.34%) Containerisation
10 15 (10.34%) DevOps
10 15 (10.34%) High Availability
10 15 (10.34%) Threat Modelling
10 15 (10.34%) Validation
11 14 (9.66%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 26 (17.93%) PowerShell
2 22 (15.17%) Python
3 15 (10.34%) Bash
4 9 (6.21%) COBOL
5 6 (4.14%) Bicep
5 6 (4.14%) Perl
6 3 (2.07%) Java
7 2 (1.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 62 (42.76%) Security Cleared
2 51 (35.17%) SC Cleared
3 44 (30.34%) Cisco Certification
4 43 (29.66%) CCNP
5 36 (24.83%) CCNA
6 16 (11.03%) CISSP
7 15 (10.34%) Degree
8 8 (5.52%) CompTIA Security+
9 7 (4.83%) CISM
10 6 (4.14%) Azure Certification
10 6 (4.14%) DV Cleared
10 6 (4.14%) Network+ Certification
10 6 (4.14%) Server+ Certification
11 5 (3.45%) AWS Certification
11 5 (3.45%) MCSA
11 5 (3.45%) MCSE
11 5 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (2.76%) CCDP
12 4 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.59%) NIST
2 8 (5.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (3.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (2.76%) SLA
5 3 (2.07%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (1.38%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.69%) GDPR
System Software
1 27 (18.62%) Active Directory
2 14 (9.66%) Docker
3 11 (7.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.76%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.76%) vSphere
5 2 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.69%) Firmware
6 1 (0.69%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 17 (11.72%) Kubernetes
2 12 (8.28%) Terraform
3 7 (4.83%) CASB
4 6 (4.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 6 (4.14%) Nessus
5 5 (3.45%) Ansible
5 5 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (3.45%) Progress Chef
6 4 (2.76%) FortiGate
6 4 (2.76%) SCCM
7 3 (2.07%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (2.07%) Fluentd
8 2 (1.38%) Grafana
8 2 (1.38%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 54 (37.24%) Cisco
2 33 (22.76%) Palo Alto
3 25 (17.24%) Microsoft
4 18 (12.41%) VMware
5 13 (8.97%) IBM
5 13 (8.97%) Red Hat
5 13 (8.97%) ServiceNow
6 12 (8.28%) Splunk
7 11 (7.59%) Google
7 11 (7.59%) Meraki
8 8 (5.52%) Aruba
8 8 (5.52%) CheckPoint
8 8 (5.52%) CyberArk
9 7 (4.83%) F5
9 7 (4.83%) Fortinet
10 6 (4.14%) Ekahau
10 6 (4.14%) Remedy
11 5 (3.45%) Citrix
11 5 (3.45%) ForeScout
11 5 (3.45%) Tenable