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 27 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 49
Rank change year-on-year -14 +24 -9
Contract jobs citing Firewall 142 145 99
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.08% 7.03% 3.57%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 37.27% 38.67% 23.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 72 71
10th Percentile £378 £251 £313
25th Percentile £464 £409 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £475 £575
Median % change year-on-year +13.16% -17.39% +23.66%
75th Percentile £615 £550 £627
90th Percentile £638 £599 £683
England median daily rate £513 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -2.38% +2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £41.94 - -
75th Percentile £74.26 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +43.11%

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 381 375 418
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.62% 18.18% 15.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 214 297
10th Percentile £259 £182 £210
25th Percentile £380 £313 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £499 £453 £495
Median % change year-on-year +10.22% -8.59% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £643 £616 £672
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 4 13
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.37 -
25th Percentile £18.13 £22.05 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.67 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.99% -5.11% +7.87%
75th Percentile £74.26 £32.39 £45.88
90th Percentile - £43.56 £49.18
England median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -2.86% -22.22% +133.16%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 -26 48 £558 +14.36% 40
Cumbria -1 37 £500 +5.26% 7
Cheshire 0 30 £615 +29.47% 12
Lancashire -3 17 £550 +10.00% 19
Merseyside -22 6 £330 +53.49% 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 (5.63%) CICS
2 5 (3.52%) Apache
3 4 (2.82%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.70%) Confluence
4 1 (0.70%) JBoss
4 1 (0.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.70%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.70%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 38 (26.76%) Azure
2 29 (20.42%) AWS
3 16 (11.27%) GCP
4 10 (7.04%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.04%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (6.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (3.52%) Azure AI
6 5 (3.52%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (3.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 5 (3.52%) OpenShift
7 4 (2.82%) IBM Watson
7 4 (2.82%) Microsoft Purview
7 4 (2.82%) Nutanix
7 4 (2.82%) Vertex AI
8 3 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
8 3 (2.11%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (1.41%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 36 (25.35%) Network Security
2 34 (23.94%) VLAN
3 27 (19.01%) WAN
4 23 (16.20%) TCP/IP
5 20 (14.08%) DNS
6 18 (12.68%) BGP
6 18 (12.68%) VPN
6 18 (12.68%) Wi-Fi
7 15 (10.56%) Wireless
8 14 (9.86%) NetScaler
9 12 (8.45%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (7.75%) MPLS
11 9 (6.34%) DHCP
11 9 (6.34%) LAN
12 8 (5.63%) OSPF
12 8 (5.63%) SD-WAN
12 8 (5.63%) Software-Defined Networking
12 8 (5.63%) SSL
13 7 (4.93%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (4.93%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.63%) DataStage
2 2 (1.41%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.70%) Redis
3 1 (0.70%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (5.63%) GitLab
2 4 (2.82%) JIRA
3 3 (2.11%) Git
3 3 (2.11%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.11%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.41%) Bitbucket
General
1 33 (23.24%) Social Skills
2 32 (22.54%) Finance
3 22 (15.49%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (12.68%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.63%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (4.23%) Banking
6 6 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (2.11%) Legal
8 2 (1.41%) Military
9 1 (0.70%) Advertising
9 1 (0.70%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.70%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 52 (36.62%) Network Engineer
2 26 (18.31%) Security Engineer
3 20 (14.08%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 16 (11.27%) Platform Engineer
5 15 (10.56%) Senior
6 13 (9.15%) Architect
7 9 (6.34%) Network Architect
8 8 (5.63%) Designer
8 8 (5.63%) Infrastructure Designer
9 7 (4.93%) Cloud Engineer
9 7 (4.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 6 (4.23%) Cisco Engineer
10 6 (4.23%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 6 (4.23%) Senior Network Engineer
10 6 (4.23%) Virtualisation Engineer
11 5 (3.52%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 4 (2.82%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 4 (2.82%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
12 4 (2.82%) Senior Operations Analyst
12 4 (2.82%) Technical Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (14.79%) 802.1X
2 12 (8.45%) LDAP
3 9 (6.34%) Middleware
4 6 (4.23%) LangChain
4 6 (4.23%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.23%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.41%) JSON
5 2 (1.41%) Node.js
6 1 (0.70%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 49 (34.51%) Data Centre
2 17 (11.97%) Security Posture
3 13 (9.15%) Cloud Native
4 11 (7.75%) Product Ownership
5 8 (5.63%) BYOD
5 8 (5.63%) Mainframe
5 8 (5.63%) Onboarding
5 8 (5.63%) VSAM
6 5 (3.52%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (3.52%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.82%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (2.82%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.41%) PKI
10 1 (0.70%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 1 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.70%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (0.70%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 48 (33.80%) Linux
2 39 (27.46%) Windows
3 17 (11.97%) Unix
4 15 (10.56%) Windows Server
5 11 (7.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (5.63%) AIX
6 8 (5.63%) Solaris
7 4 (2.82%) Windows Server 2012
7 4 (2.82%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.70%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (23.94%) Cybersecurity
2 28 (19.72%) CI/CD
3 27 (19.01%) DevOps
4 26 (18.31%) Containerisation
4 26 (18.31%) Problem-Solving
5 22 (15.49%) Load Balancing
6 21 (14.79%) SIEM
7 19 (13.38%) Vulnerability Management
8 18 (12.68%) Project Delivery
9 17 (11.97%) Change Management
9 17 (11.97%) Cloud Security
9 17 (11.97%) Roadmaps
10 16 (11.27%) Observability
10 16 (11.27%) Root Cause Analysis
11 15 (10.56%) Incident Response
11 15 (10.56%) Infrastructure as Code
11 15 (10.56%) ITIL
11 15 (10.56%) Network Architecture
12 14 (9.86%) ITSM
12 14 (9.86%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 35 (24.65%) Python
2 32 (22.54%) PowerShell
3 25 (17.61%) Bash
4 11 (7.75%) Perl
5 8 (5.63%) COBOL
6 5 (3.52%) Java
7 2 (1.41%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (1.41%) Ruby
8 1 (0.70%) Bicep
8 1 (0.70%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 69 (48.59%) Security Cleared
2 56 (39.44%) SC Cleared
3 35 (24.65%) Cisco Certification
4 34 (23.94%) CCNP
5 26 (18.31%) CCNA
6 19 (13.38%) CISSP
7 11 (7.75%) Degree
8 10 (7.04%) CISM
9 9 (6.34%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (4.93%) AWS Certification
11 6 (4.23%) Azure Certification
11 6 (4.23%) DV Cleared
11 6 (4.23%) Microsoft Certification
12 5 (3.52%) MCSA
12 5 (3.52%) MCSE
13 4 (2.82%) CCDP
13 4 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (2.82%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (2.82%) Server+ Certification
14 3 (2.11%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (6.34%) NIST
2 5 (3.52%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.82%) SLA
4 3 (2.11%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.70%) GDPR
5 1 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.70%) SOC 2
System Software
1 28 (19.72%) Active Directory
2 26 (18.31%) Docker
3 21 (14.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (7.75%) vSphere
5 4 (2.82%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (1.41%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.70%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 26 (18.31%) Kubernetes
2 14 (9.86%) Terraform
3 6 (4.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 6 (4.23%) CASB
3 6 (4.23%) FortiGate
3 6 (4.23%) Nessus
4 5 (3.52%) Fluentd
4 5 (3.52%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (3.52%) Progress Chef
5 4 (2.82%) SCCM
6 3 (2.11%) Ansible
7 1 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 55 (38.73%) Cisco
2 39 (27.46%) Palo Alto
3 28 (19.72%) VMware
4 21 (14.79%) Microsoft
5 15 (10.56%) Meraki
6 13 (9.15%) IBM
7 11 (7.75%) F5
7 11 (7.75%) Red Hat
8 10 (7.04%) Google
8 10 (7.04%) Splunk
9 7 (4.93%) CheckPoint
9 7 (4.93%) ServiceNow
10 6 (4.23%) Aruba
10 6 (4.23%) Ekahau
10 6 (4.23%) Remedy
11 5 (3.52%) Citrix
11 5 (3.52%) Cribl.io
11 5 (3.52%) CyberArk
11 5 (3.52%) Juniper
11 5 (3.52%) Tenable