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 5 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 53 31
Rank change year-on-year +9 -22 +8
Contract jobs citing Firewall 173 84 115
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.36% 3.88% 4.92%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 34.53% 28.47% 38.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 57 69
10th Percentile £353 £344 £444
25th Percentile £447 £410 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £650
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -26.92% +33.74%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £850
90th Percentile £630 £641 -
England median daily rate £503 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 £65.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £66.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.89% +40.00% +8.57%
75th Percentile £31.00 £67.25 £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £67.24 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +124.12% +9.09% -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 501 295 295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.63% 13.63% 12.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 175 186
10th Percentile £213 £147 £268
25th Percentile £350 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £446 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.36% -15.05% +10.53%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £689
90th Percentile £629 £677 £850
England median daily rate £500 £490 £508
% change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 8 10
10th Percentile £13.89 £17.60 £25.43
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.50 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £23.50 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -25.53% -51.61% +191.13%
75th Percentile £20.88 £67.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £28.83 £68.12 £57.65
England median hourly rate £28.00 £41.45 £57.35
% change year-on-year -32.45% -27.72% +1.52%

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 5 September 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
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 5 September 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
Cheshire +5 52 £528 +11.16% 7
Manchester -4 52 £482 -11.15% 33
Cumbria -6 45 £520 +7.72% 1
Lancashire +7 22 £510 +52.11% 9
Merseyside -17 2 £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 (4.62%) SAS
2 1 (0.58%) CICS
2 1 (0.58%) Confluence
2 1 (0.58%) nginx
Applications
1 7 (4.05%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.31%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.58%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 59 (34.10%) Azure
2 45 (26.01%) AWS
3 20 (11.56%) GCP
4 15 (8.67%) SaaS
5 13 (7.51%) Entra ID
5 13 (7.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 12 (6.94%) OCI
7 9 (5.20%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (4.62%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (4.05%) GitHub
10 6 (3.47%) IaaS
10 6 (3.47%) Serverless
10 6 (3.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (2.89%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (2.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (2.31%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (2.31%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (2.31%) AWS CloudTrail
12 4 (2.31%) AWS KMS
12 4 (2.31%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 75 (43.35%) Network Security
2 63 (36.42%) VPN
3 47 (27.17%) Wireless
4 45 (26.01%) WAN
5 43 (24.86%) BGP
6 41 (23.70%) OSPF
7 27 (15.61%) LAN
8 26 (15.03%) Cisco ASA
9 23 (13.29%) DNS
9 23 (13.29%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (12.72%) Cisco Firepower
11 21 (12.14%) VLAN
12 19 (10.98%) SD-WAN
13 18 (10.40%) EIGRP
14 15 (8.67%) Cisco IOS
14 15 (8.67%) Structured Cabling
15 14 (8.09%) BIG-IP
15 14 (8.09%) DHCP
16 13 (7.51%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 13 (7.51%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (1.16%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.58%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 15 (8.67%) GitLab
2 10 (5.78%) Jenkins
3 8 (4.62%) JIRA
4 4 (2.31%) Git
5 3 (1.73%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.16%) Burp Suite
6 2 (1.16%) Cucumber
6 2 (1.16%) Gatling
6 2 (1.16%) Gradle
6 2 (1.16%) LoadRunner
6 2 (1.16%) REST Assured
6 2 (1.16%) SonarQube
6 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 36 (20.81%) Social Skills
2 35 (20.23%) Finance
3 19 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (10.40%) Banking
5 13 (7.51%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (6.36%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.47%) Legal
8 4 (2.31%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.16%) Military
10 2 (1.16%) Retail
11 1 (0.58%) Games
11 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 71 (41.04%) Network Engineer
2 25 (14.45%) Architect
2 25 (14.45%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 22 (12.72%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 22 (12.72%) Senior
4 17 (9.83%) Security Engineer
5 11 (6.36%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (5.20%) Cloud Engineer
6 9 (5.20%) Network Architect
6 9 (5.20%) Senior Network Engineer
7 7 (4.05%) Consultant
7 7 (4.05%) Technical Architect
8 6 (3.47%) Cloud Security Engineer
8 6 (3.47%) Network Security Engineer
9 5 (2.89%) SIEM Engineer
9 5 (2.89%) Splunk Engineer
10 4 (2.31%) Azure Architect
10 4 (2.31%) Network Consultant
10 4 (2.31%) Security Architect
11 3 (1.73%) Network Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (23.12%) Terraform
2 5 (2.89%) ARM Templates
2 5 (2.89%) Azure Blueprints
3 4 (2.31%) React
4 3 (1.73%) 802.1X
4 3 (1.73%) LangChain
4 3 (1.73%) PyTorch
4 3 (1.73%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.16%) CSS
5 2 (1.16%) HTML
5 2 (1.16%) Middleware
5 2 (1.16%) Node.js
5 2 (1.16%) ODBC
5 2 (1.16%) Playwright
5 2 (1.16%) Quarkus
5 2 (1.16%) REST
5 2 (1.16%) Spring
5 2 (1.16%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.58%) JSON
6 1 (0.58%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 35 (20.23%) Data Centre
2 29 (16.76%) Cloud Native
3 17 (9.83%) Security Posture
4 16 (9.25%) Management Information System
5 13 (7.51%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.89%) PKI
7 4 (2.31%) Driving Licence
7 4 (2.31%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (1.73%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.16%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (1.16%) Handset
9 2 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.58%) BYOD
10 1 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.58%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 19 (10.98%) Linux
1 19 (10.98%) Windows
2 11 (6.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (2.89%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.16%) Unix
5 1 (0.58%) AIX
5 1 (0.58%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.58%) Solaris
5 1 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.32%) Load Balancing
2 40 (23.12%) CI/CD
3 38 (21.97%) Change Management
4 34 (19.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 34 (19.65%) Network Segmentation
5 31 (17.92%) DevOps
5 31 (17.92%) Zero Trust
6 30 (17.34%) Infrastructure as Code
7 27 (15.61%) Project Delivery
8 24 (13.87%) ITIL
9 23 (13.29%) SIEM
10 22 (12.72%) Cloud Security
11 21 (12.14%) High Availability
11 21 (12.14%) Network Architecture
12 20 (11.56%) Agile
13 17 (9.83%) Network Design
14 16 (9.25%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (9.25%) Roadmaps
15 15 (8.67%) Cybersecurity
16 14 (8.09%) Infrastructure Automation
Programming Languages
1 51 (29.48%) Python
2 24 (13.87%) PowerShell
3 20 (11.56%) Bash
4 13 (7.51%) Java
5 11 (6.36%) Bicep
6 7 (4.05%) SQL
7 5 (2.89%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (2.89%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (1.16%) ActionScript
8 2 (1.16%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.16%) Perl
8 2 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.58%) COBOL
9 1 (0.58%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 62 (35.84%) Security Cleared
2 56 (32.37%) Cisco Certification
2 56 (32.37%) SC Cleared
3 42 (24.28%) CCNP
4 38 (21.97%) CCNA
5 25 (14.45%) Degree
6 24 (13.87%) CISSP
7 15 (8.67%) AWS Certification
8 13 (7.51%) Azure Certification
8 13 (7.51%) Network+ Certification
9 11 (6.36%) Server+ Certification
10 8 (4.62%) CCIE
11 7 (4.05%) GCIH
12 5 (2.89%) GCFA
13 4 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (1.73%) CCIE Security
14 3 (1.73%) CCSP
15 2 (1.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 2 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
15 2 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.78%) NIST
2 8 (4.62%) PCI DSS
3 7 (4.05%) GDPR
4 6 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.58%) COBIT
7 1 (0.58%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.58%) ITGC
7 1 (0.58%) NIST 800
System Software
1 14 (8.09%) Docker
2 8 (4.62%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.73%) Firmware
3 3 (1.73%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.16%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.58%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.58%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 34 (19.65%) Ansible
2 21 (12.14%) Progress Chef
3 17 (9.83%) Kubernetes
4 9 (5.20%) CASB
5 4 (2.31%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (1.73%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (1.73%) Istio
7 2 (1.16%) Grafana
7 2 (1.16%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.58%) Nagios
8 1 (0.58%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.58%) Packer
8 1 (0.58%) Puppet
Vendors
1 80 (46.24%) Cisco
2 49 (28.32%) Palo Alto
3 26 (15.03%) F5
4 25 (14.45%) CheckPoint
5 24 (13.87%) Microsoft
6 17 (9.83%) Arista
6 17 (9.83%) Fortinet
7 16 (9.25%) Aruba
8 14 (8.09%) Google
8 14 (8.09%) ServiceNow
9 13 (7.51%) Red Hat
10 11 (6.36%) Splunk
11 10 (5.78%) Meraki
12 9 (5.20%) Juniper
13 8 (4.62%) AlgoSec
14 6 (3.47%) Citrix
14 6 (3.47%) Zscaler
15 5 (2.89%) Cribl.io
16 4 (2.31%) IBM
16 4 (2.31%) McAfee