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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 60 34
Rank change year-on-year +12 -26 0
Contract jobs citing Firewall 162 74 112
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.08% 3.36% 4.62%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 33.68% 25.17% 36.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 53 41
10th Percentile £350 £350 £413
25th Percentile £447 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £599 £550 £588
90th Percentile £638 £645 £738
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 1
10th Percentile £30.81 £44.32 -
25th Percentile £33.53 £47.89 £46.25
Median hourly rate £38.56 £54.22 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.88% +14.15% +8.57%
75th Percentile £43.09 £60.92 £48.75
90th Percentile £45.51 £64.72 -
England median hourly rate £67.47 £31.39 £27.50
% change year-on-year +114.98% +14.13% -58.32%

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 481 294 307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.13% 13.36% 12.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 309 175 149
10th Percentile £200 £147 £243
25th Percentile £325 £325 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £447 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.47% -10.60% +2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £536 £600
90th Percentile £627 £680 £738
England median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 15 10
10th Percentile £13.68 - £25.43
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.50 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £19.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% -60.87% +191.13%
75th Percentile £23.75 £34.97 £51.91
90th Percentile £43.90 £67.25 £57.65
England median hourly rate £38.72 £34.00 £57.43
% change year-on-year +13.88% -40.79% +1.66%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 50 £500 -7.83% 61
Cheshire +8 43 £525 +13.51% 8
Cumbria -3 43 £509 +5.39% 2
Lancashire -1 23 £510 +52.11% 14
Merseyside -12 3 £275 -33.33% 3
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 8 (4.94%) SAS
2 1 (0.62%) Confluence
2 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.62%) nginx
2 1 (0.62%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (2.47%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (2.47%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.62%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 48 (29.63%) Azure
2 39 (24.07%) AWS
3 19 (11.73%) GCP
4 15 (9.26%) SaaS
5 14 (8.64%) Entra ID
6 13 (8.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 12 (7.41%) OCI
8 10 (6.17%) GitHub
8 10 (6.17%) IaaS
9 8 (4.94%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (3.70%) Serverless
10 6 (3.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (3.09%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (3.09%) Azure Sentinel
12 4 (2.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (2.47%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (2.47%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (2.47%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (2.47%) AWS CloudTrail
12 4 (2.47%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 69 (42.59%) Network Security
2 58 (35.80%) VPN
3 43 (26.54%) BGP
4 42 (25.93%) WAN
4 42 (25.93%) Wireless
5 41 (25.31%) OSPF
6 28 (17.28%) LAN
7 27 (16.67%) DNS
8 24 (14.81%) Cisco ASA
9 23 (14.20%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (12.35%) VLAN
11 19 (11.73%) Cisco Firepower
12 18 (11.11%) EIGRP
13 17 (10.49%) BIG-IP
14 16 (9.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 15 (9.26%) DHCP
15 15 (9.26%) SD-WAN
16 14 (8.64%) Structured Cabling
17 13 (8.02%) Cisco IOS
18 12 (7.41%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (9.26%) GitLab
2 14 (8.64%) Jenkins
3 5 (3.09%) JIRA
4 4 (2.47%) Git
5 3 (1.85%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.23%) Burp Suite
6 2 (1.23%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.23%) Gatling
6 2 (1.23%) Gradle
6 2 (1.23%) LoadRunner
6 2 (1.23%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.23%) SonarQube
6 2 (1.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 40 (24.69%) Finance
2 35 (21.60%) Social Skills
3 22 (13.58%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (10.49%) Banking
5 12 (7.41%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (6.79%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.70%) Legal
8 4 (2.47%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.23%) Military
11 1 (0.62%) Games
11 1 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.62%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.62%) Retail
11 1 (0.62%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 71 (43.83%) Network Engineer
2 27 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 23 (14.20%) Senior
4 22 (13.58%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 21 (12.96%) Security Engineer
6 13 (8.02%) Architect
7 11 (6.79%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 10 (6.17%) Network Security Engineer
8 10 (6.17%) Senior Network Engineer
9 8 (4.94%) Cloud Engineer
10 7 (4.32%) Consultant
11 6 (3.70%) Cloud Security Engineer
12 5 (3.09%) Network Architect
12 5 (3.09%) SIEM Engineer
12 5 (3.09%) Splunk Engineer
12 5 (3.09%) Technical Architect
13 3 (1.85%) IT Support
13 3 (1.85%) Network Project Manager
13 3 (1.85%) Project Manager
13 3 (1.85%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (23.46%) Terraform
2 5 (3.09%) ARM Templates
2 5 (3.09%) Azure Blueprints
3 4 (2.47%) React
4 3 (1.85%) LangChain
4 3 (1.85%) PyTorch
4 3 (1.85%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.23%) 802.1X
5 2 (1.23%) CSS
5 2 (1.23%) HTML
5 2 (1.23%) JSON
5 2 (1.23%) Node.js
5 2 (1.23%) ODBC
5 2 (1.23%) Playwright
5 2 (1.23%) Quarkus
5 2 (1.23%) REST
5 2 (1.23%) Spring
5 2 (1.23%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.62%) Middleware
6 1 (0.62%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 36 (22.22%) Data Centre
2 24 (14.81%) Cloud Native
3 21 (12.96%) Security Posture
4 17 (10.49%) Management Information System
5 12 (7.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (3.09%) Driving Licence
7 5 (3.09%) PKI
7 5 (3.09%) Public Cloud
8 4 (2.47%) Cyber Defence
8 4 (2.47%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (2.47%) Onboarding
8 4 (2.47%) Operational Technology
9 3 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.85%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (1.85%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.23%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (1.23%) Handset
11 1 (0.62%) Distributed Systems
11 1 (0.62%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 20 (12.35%) Windows
2 17 (10.49%) Linux
3 12 (7.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (3.70%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.62%) Android
5 1 (0.62%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.62%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.62%) Unix
5 1 (0.62%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (27.78%) Load Balancing
2 44 (27.16%) CI/CD
3 40 (24.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 33 (20.37%) Infrastructure as Code
5 32 (19.75%) Change Management
6 30 (18.52%) DevOps
7 27 (16.67%) SIEM
7 27 (16.67%) Zero Trust
8 26 (16.05%) ITIL
8 26 (16.05%) Project Delivery
9 25 (15.43%) Network Segmentation
10 24 (14.81%) Agile
10 24 (14.81%) Cloud Security
11 22 (13.58%) Network Architecture
12 20 (12.35%) Problem-Solving
13 19 (11.73%) Cybersecurity
14 17 (10.49%) High Availability
14 17 (10.49%) Incident Response
14 17 (10.49%) Security Operations
15 16 (9.88%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 57 (35.19%) Python
2 28 (17.28%) PowerShell
3 21 (12.96%) Bash
4 13 (8.02%) Java
5 7 (4.32%) SQL
6 6 (3.70%) ActionScript
6 6 (3.70%) Bicep
7 5 (3.09%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (3.09%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (1.23%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.23%) Perl
8 2 (1.23%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.62%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 61 (37.65%) Security Cleared
2 56 (34.57%) SC Cleared
3 46 (28.40%) Cisco Certification
4 32 (19.75%) CCNP
5 27 (16.67%) CCNA
6 24 (14.81%) CISSP
7 21 (12.96%) Degree
8 15 (9.26%) AWS Certification
9 13 (8.02%) Azure Certification
10 11 (6.79%) Network+ Certification
11 9 (5.56%) Server+ Certification
12 8 (4.94%) CCIE
13 7 (4.32%) GCIH
14 5 (3.09%) GCFA
15 4 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
16 3 (1.85%) CCIE Security
16 3 (1.85%) CCSP
17 2 (1.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 2 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.17%) PCI DSS
2 9 (5.56%) NIST
3 8 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (4.32%) GDPR
5 5 (3.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.62%) COBIT
7 1 (0.62%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.62%) ITGC
7 1 (0.62%) NIST 800
System Software
1 12 (7.41%) Docker
2 8 (4.94%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.23%) Firmware
4 2 (1.23%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.62%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.62%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 35 (21.60%) Ansible
2 24 (14.81%) Progress Chef
3 15 (9.26%) Kubernetes
4 9 (5.56%) CASB
5 4 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (1.85%) Istio
7 1 (0.62%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.62%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.62%) Nagios
7 1 (0.62%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.62%) Packer
7 1 (0.62%) Puppet
Vendors
1 74 (45.68%) Cisco
2 46 (28.40%) Palo Alto
3 30 (18.52%) F5
4 25 (15.43%) Microsoft
5 22 (13.58%) CheckPoint
6 17 (10.49%) Arista
6 17 (10.49%) Fortinet
7 16 (9.88%) Aruba
8 14 (8.64%) Google
9 12 (7.41%) Red Hat
10 10 (6.17%) Juniper
10 10 (6.17%) Meraki
10 10 (6.17%) ServiceNow
11 9 (5.56%) Splunk
12 8 (4.94%) AlgoSec
13 6 (3.70%) Citrix
13 6 (3.70%) Zscaler
14 5 (3.09%) Cribl.io
14 5 (3.09%) VMware
15 4 (2.47%) McAfee