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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 30 43
Rank change year-on-year -14 +13 -3
Contract jobs citing Firewall 137 113 106
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.32% 5.74% 3.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 35.40% 34.45% 30.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 68 72
10th Percentile £406 £259 £413
25th Percentile £469 £387 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £700
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -32.14% +55.56%
75th Percentile £611 £569 £850
90th Percentile £638 £638 -
England median daily rate £500 £517 £514
% change year-on-year -3.29% +0.63% -3.07%
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 £61.50
% change year-on-year +243.34% -75.20% -0.81%

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 387 328 343
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.20% 16.65% 12.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 193 236
10th Percentile £307 £191 £199
25th Percentile £380 £300 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.11% -5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £525 £663
90th Percentile £641 £600 £825
England median daily rate £500 £500 £495
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 14
10th Percentile £16.21 £20.00 £17.72
25th Percentile £17.96 £21.12 £18.48
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.59 £26.75
Median % change year-on-year +70.59% -8.09% -14.40%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile - £25.90 £83.76
England median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +29.05% -18.75% +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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -9 53 £549 +21.94% 29
Cheshire +16 35 £550 -3.93% 7
Cumbria -4 31 £491 -8.72% 2
Lancashire +1 11 £525 +5.00% 13
Merseyside -17 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 (6.57%) CICS
2 4 (2.92%) Apache
3 2 (1.46%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (3.65%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 46 (33.58%) Azure
2 30 (21.90%) AWS
3 12 (8.76%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.30%) GCP
5 8 (5.84%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (5.11%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (5.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (4.38%) OCI
7 6 (4.38%) SaaS
8 5 (3.65%) Azure AI
8 5 (3.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 4 (2.92%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.92%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.92%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.92%) Nutanix
9 4 (2.92%) Vertex AI
10 2 (1.46%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
11 1 (0.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 1 (0.73%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 49 (35.77%) Network Security
2 32 (23.36%) VLAN
3 30 (21.90%) WAN
4 21 (15.33%) DNS
4 21 (15.33%) VPN
5 20 (14.60%) TCP/IP
5 20 (14.60%) Wireless
6 17 (12.41%) BGP
6 17 (12.41%) SD-WAN
7 16 (11.68%) OSPF
8 15 (10.95%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (10.22%) Ethernet VPN
10 12 (8.76%) VXLAN
11 11 (8.03%) DHCP
12 10 (7.30%) LAN
13 9 (6.57%) MPLS
14 8 (5.84%) BIG-IP
14 8 (5.84%) Cisco ASA
14 8 (5.84%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 8 (5.84%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (6.57%) DataStage
2 2 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.73%) Redis
Development Applications
1 6 (4.38%) JIRA
2 4 (2.92%) GitLab
3 1 (0.73%) Git
General
1 31 (22.63%) Finance
2 28 (20.44%) Social Skills
3 19 (13.87%) Public Sector
4 10 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (6.57%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.84%) Banking
7 6 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.92%) Military
9 1 (0.73%) Advertising
9 1 (0.73%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.73%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.73%) Legal
9 1 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (31.39%) Network Engineer
2 23 (16.79%) Architect
3 20 (14.60%) Security Engineer
4 17 (12.41%) Senior
5 16 (11.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 16 (11.68%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 11 (8.03%) Network Architect
7 9 (6.57%) Designer
7 9 (6.57%) Infrastructure Designer
8 8 (5.84%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 6 (4.38%) Cisco Engineer
9 6 (4.38%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (4.38%) Platform Engineer
10 5 (3.65%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 4 (2.92%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 4 (2.92%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 4 (2.92%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 4 (2.92%) Infrastructure Architect
11 4 (2.92%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
11 4 (2.92%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (12.41%) 802.1X
2 12 (8.76%) LDAP
3 9 (6.57%) Middleware
4 6 (4.38%) LangChain
4 6 (4.38%) PyTorch
4 6 (4.38%) scikit-learn
5 1 (0.73%) JSON
5 1 (0.73%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 48 (35.04%) Data Centre
2 22 (16.06%) Cloud Native
3 17 (12.41%) Security Posture
4 9 (6.57%) BYOD
4 9 (6.57%) Mainframe
4 9 (6.57%) VSAM
5 7 (5.11%) Onboarding
6 6 (4.38%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (4.38%) Public Cloud
7 5 (3.65%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (3.65%) Product Ownership
8 4 (2.92%) Private Cloud
9 3 (2.19%) Cyber Threat
10 1 (0.73%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 1 (0.73%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.73%) PKI
10 1 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
10 1 (0.73%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 30 (21.90%) Linux
2 21 (15.33%) Windows
3 18 (13.14%) Unix
4 9 (6.57%) AIX
4 9 (6.57%) Solaris
4 9 (6.57%) Windows Server
5 5 (3.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.92%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (2.92%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.73%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (18.25%) Load Balancing
2 24 (17.52%) Change Management
3 23 (16.79%) Cybersecurity
4 21 (15.33%) Network Segmentation
4 21 (15.33%) SIEM
5 20 (14.60%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (14.60%) Project Delivery
6 19 (13.87%) CI/CD
6 19 (13.87%) ITIL
6 19 (13.87%) Network Monitoring
6 19 (13.87%) Roadmaps
7 18 (13.14%) Vulnerability Management
7 18 (13.14%) Zero Trust
8 17 (12.41%) DevOps
8 17 (12.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 15 (10.95%) Cloud Security
9 15 (10.95%) High Availability
9 15 (10.95%) Network Architecture
9 15 (10.95%) Network Design
10 14 (10.22%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 23 (16.79%) Python
2 17 (12.41%) PowerShell
3 9 (6.57%) COBOL
4 7 (5.11%) Bash
5 6 (4.38%) Bicep
6 3 (2.19%) Java
7 1 (0.73%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.73%) Perl
Qualifications
1 57 (41.61%) Security Cleared
2 45 (32.85%) SC Cleared
3 41 (29.93%) Cisco Certification
4 40 (29.20%) CCNP
5 33 (24.09%) CCNA
6 13 (9.49%) CISSP
7 11 (8.03%) Degree
8 8 (5.84%) CompTIA Security+
9 6 (4.38%) DV Cleared
9 6 (4.38%) Network+ Certification
9 6 (4.38%) Server+ Certification
10 5 (3.65%) AWS Certification
10 5 (3.65%) Azure Certification
10 5 (3.65%) MCSA
10 5 (3.65%) MCSE
10 5 (3.65%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.92%) CISM
11 4 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.46%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.11%) NIST
2 5 (3.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.92%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.92%) SLA
4 3 (2.19%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.46%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.73%) GDPR
System Software
1 22 (16.06%) Active Directory
2 11 (8.03%) Docker
3 8 (5.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.92%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.92%) vSphere
5 2 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.73%) Firmware
6 1 (0.73%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 18 (13.14%) Terraform
2 11 (8.03%) Ansible
2 11 (8.03%) Kubernetes
3 7 (5.11%) CASB
4 6 (4.38%) Nessus
5 5 (3.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (3.65%) Progress Chef
6 4 (2.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (2.92%) SCCM
7 3 (2.19%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.46%) Grafana
8 2 (1.46%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.73%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.73%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 51 (37.23%) Cisco
2 38 (27.74%) Palo Alto
3 21 (15.33%) Microsoft
4 15 (10.95%) VMware
5 13 (9.49%) Aruba
5 13 (9.49%) F5
5 13 (9.49%) IBM
6 12 (8.76%) ServiceNow
7 11 (8.03%) Google
8 9 (6.57%) Meraki
8 9 (6.57%) Splunk
9 8 (5.84%) CheckPoint
9 8 (5.84%) CyberArk
10 7 (5.11%) Arista
10 7 (5.11%) Fortinet
10 7 (5.11%) Red Hat
11 6 (4.38%) Ekahau
12 5 (3.65%) ForeScout
12 5 (3.65%) Remedy
12 5 (3.65%) Tenable