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 8 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 30 40
Rank change year-on-year -14 +10 +1
Contract jobs citing Firewall 139 113 104
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.35% 5.79% 3.87%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 35.37% 34.35% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 68 72
10th Percentile £406 £259 £413
25th Percentile £469 £397 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £700
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -32.14% +55.56%
75th Percentile £615 £569 £850
90th Percentile £639 £638 -
England median daily rate £500 £518 £515
% change year-on-year -3.51% +0.62% -2.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £41.94 - -
75th Percentile £50.02 - -
90th Percentile £64.56 - -
England median hourly rate £52.36 £15.25 £60.00
% change year-on-year +243.34% -74.58% -3.23%

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 393 329 332
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.30% 16.85% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 192 231
10th Percentile £307 £190 £199
25th Percentile £377 £309 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £450 £490
Median % change year-on-year +5.94% -8.16% +0.51%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £666
90th Percentile £643 £600 £825
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 12
10th Percentile £16.21 £20.00 £18.02
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.12 £22.06
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.59 £34.37
Median % change year-on-year +70.59% -28.46% +9.97%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile - £25.90 £94.59
England median hourly rate £41.94 £31.41 £40.00
% change year-on-year +33.52% -21.48% +116.22%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 -11 54 £558 +23.89% 31
Cheshire +14 35 £550 -3.93% 10
Cumbria -4 32 £500 -6.98% 12
Lancashire +4 11 £525 +5.00% 15
Merseyside -22 6 £330 +53.49% 8
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 (6.47%) CICS
2 4 (2.88%) Apache
3 2 (1.44%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (3.60%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 47 (33.81%) Azure
2 30 (21.58%) AWS
3 12 (8.63%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.19%) GCP
5 8 (5.76%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (5.04%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (5.04%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (4.32%) OCI
7 6 (4.32%) SaaS
8 5 (3.60%) Azure AI
8 5 (3.60%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 4 (2.88%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.88%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.88%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.88%) Nutanix
9 4 (2.88%) Vertex AI
10 2 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.44%) Azure Monitor
11 1 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.72%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 50 (35.97%) Network Security
2 33 (23.74%) VLAN
3 30 (21.58%) WAN
4 22 (15.83%) DNS
5 21 (15.11%) VPN
5 21 (15.11%) Wireless
6 20 (14.39%) TCP/IP
7 17 (12.23%) BGP
7 17 (12.23%) SD-WAN
8 16 (11.51%) OSPF
9 15 (10.79%) Wi-Fi
10 14 (10.07%) Ethernet VPN
11 12 (8.63%) DHCP
11 12 (8.63%) VXLAN
12 10 (7.19%) LAN
13 9 (6.47%) MPLS
14 8 (5.76%) BIG-IP
14 8 (5.76%) Cisco ASA
14 8 (5.76%) Cisco IOS
14 8 (5.76%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.47%) DataStage
2 2 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.72%) Redis
Development Applications
1 6 (4.32%) JIRA
2 4 (2.88%) GitLab
3 1 (0.72%) Git
General
1 31 (22.30%) Finance
2 29 (20.86%) Social Skills
3 19 (13.67%) Public Sector
4 10 (7.19%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (6.47%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.76%) Banking
7 7 (5.04%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.88%) Military
9 2 (1.44%) Retail
10 1 (0.72%) Advertising
10 1 (0.72%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.72%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.72%) Legal
Job Titles
1 44 (31.65%) Network Engineer
2 24 (17.27%) Architect
3 20 (14.39%) Security Engineer
4 17 (12.23%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 17 (12.23%) Senior
5 16 (11.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (8.63%) Network Architect
7 10 (7.19%) Designer
8 9 (6.47%) Infrastructure Designer
9 8 (5.76%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 6 (4.32%) Cisco Engineer
10 6 (4.32%) Cloud Engineer
10 6 (4.32%) Platform Engineer
11 5 (3.60%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 4 (2.88%) Cisco Network Engineer
12 4 (2.88%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 4 (2.88%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 4 (2.88%) Infrastructure Architect
12 4 (2.88%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
12 4 (2.88%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (12.23%) 802.1X
2 12 (8.63%) LDAP
3 9 (6.47%) Middleware
4 6 (4.32%) LangChain
4 6 (4.32%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.32%) scikit-learn
5 1 (0.72%) JSON
5 1 (0.72%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 50 (35.97%) Data Centre
2 22 (15.83%) Cloud Native
3 17 (12.23%) Security Posture
4 9 (6.47%) BYOD
4 9 (6.47%) Mainframe
4 9 (6.47%) VSAM
5 7 (5.04%) Onboarding
6 6 (4.32%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (4.32%) Public Cloud
7 5 (3.60%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (3.60%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.88%) Private Cloud
9 3 (2.16%) Cyber Threat
10 1 (0.72%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.72%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 1 (0.72%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.72%) PKI
10 1 (0.72%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (0.72%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 30 (21.58%) Linux
2 21 (15.11%) Windows
3 18 (12.95%) Unix
4 9 (6.47%) AIX
4 9 (6.47%) Solaris
4 9 (6.47%) Windows Server
5 5 (3.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.88%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (2.88%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.72%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (18.71%) Load Balancing
2 24 (17.27%) Change Management
3 23 (16.55%) Cybersecurity
4 22 (15.83%) Network Segmentation
5 21 (15.11%) SIEM
6 20 (14.39%) Problem-Solving
6 20 (14.39%) Project Delivery
6 20 (14.39%) Roadmaps
7 19 (13.67%) CI/CD
7 19 (13.67%) ITIL
7 19 (13.67%) Network Monitoring
8 18 (12.95%) Vulnerability Management
8 18 (12.95%) Zero Trust
9 17 (12.23%) DevOps
9 17 (12.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 16 (11.51%) Network Design
11 15 (10.79%) Cloud Security
11 15 (10.79%) High Availability
11 15 (10.79%) Network Architecture
12 14 (10.07%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 23 (16.55%) Python
2 17 (12.23%) PowerShell
3 9 (6.47%) COBOL
4 7 (5.04%) Bash
5 6 (4.32%) Bicep
6 3 (2.16%) Java
7 1 (0.72%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.72%) Perl
Qualifications
1 58 (41.73%) Security Cleared
2 46 (33.09%) SC Cleared
3 42 (30.22%) Cisco Certification
4 41 (29.50%) CCNP
5 34 (24.46%) CCNA
6 13 (9.35%) CISSP
7 11 (7.91%) Degree
8 8 (5.76%) CompTIA Security+
9 7 (5.04%) Network+ Certification
9 7 (5.04%) Server+ Certification
10 6 (4.32%) DV Cleared
11 5 (3.60%) AWS Certification
11 5 (3.60%) Azure Certification
11 5 (3.60%) MCSA
11 5 (3.60%) MCSE
11 5 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (2.88%) CISM
12 4 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (1.44%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.04%) NIST
2 5 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.88%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.88%) SLA
4 3 (2.16%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.44%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.72%) GDPR
System Software
1 22 (15.83%) Active Directory
2 11 (7.91%) Docker
3 8 (5.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.88%) vSphere
5 2 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.72%) Firmware
6 1 (0.72%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 18 (12.95%) Terraform
2 11 (7.91%) Ansible
2 11 (7.91%) Kubernetes
3 7 (5.04%) CASB
4 6 (4.32%) Nessus
5 5 (3.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (3.60%) Progress Chef
6 4 (2.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.88%) SCCM
7 3 (2.16%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.44%) Grafana
8 2 (1.44%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.72%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.72%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 53 (38.13%) Cisco
2 38 (27.34%) Palo Alto
3 21 (15.11%) Microsoft
4 15 (10.79%) VMware
5 13 (9.35%) Aruba
5 13 (9.35%) F5
5 13 (9.35%) IBM
5 13 (9.35%) ServiceNow
6 11 (7.91%) Google
7 9 (6.47%) Meraki
7 9 (6.47%) Splunk
8 8 (5.76%) CheckPoint
8 8 (5.76%) CyberArk
8 8 (5.76%) Fortinet
9 7 (5.04%) Arista
9 7 (5.04%) Red Hat
10 6 (4.32%) Ekahau
11 5 (3.60%) ForeScout
11 5 (3.60%) Remedy
11 5 (3.60%) Tenable