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 15 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 33 43
Rank change year-on-year -2 +10 -7
Contract jobs citing Firewall 166 107 110
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.79% 5.36% 3.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 38.79% 34.41% 33.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 139 67 72
10th Percentile £391 £363 £413
25th Percentile £459 £413 £498
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £475 £688
Median % change year-on-year +13.05% -30.91% +52.78%
75th Percentile £611 £584 £850
90th Percentile £638 £650 -
England median daily rate £500 £508 £513
% change year-on-year -1.48% -0.98% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £46.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 - £47.50
75th Percentile £50.02 - £48.75
90th Percentile £64.56 - -
England median hourly rate £56.00 £27.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +103.64% -54.17% -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 428 311 332
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.34% 15.57% 11.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 273 186 226
10th Percentile £308 £191 £210
25th Percentile £375 £350 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.94% -10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £669
90th Percentile £638 £638 £825
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 12
10th Percentile £14.50 £27.70 £20.93
25th Percentile £17.57 £34.78 £25.13
Median hourly rate £29.16 £47.37 £40.44
Median % change year-on-year -38.45% +17.14% +29.41%
75th Percentile £50.02 £59.17 £46.60
90th Percentile £74.26 £65.76 £50.78
England median hourly rate £30.77 £37.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year -17.95% -9.64% +130.56%

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 15 June 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 15 June 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 15 June 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 -17 53 £545 +17.20% 38
Cheshire +18 43 £547 +4.39% 10
Cumbria -3 43 £508 -0.98% 13
Lancashire +11 23 £450 -10.00% 10
Merseyside -18 3 £330 -17.50% 5
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 (5.42%) CICS
2 2 (1.20%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.61%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 61 (36.75%) Azure
2 40 (24.10%) AWS
3 18 (10.84%) GCP
4 13 (7.83%) Entra ID
4 13 (7.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 12 (7.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 11 (6.63%) OCI
6 11 (6.63%) SaaS
7 7 (4.22%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (4.22%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (3.01%) Azure AI
8 5 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (3.01%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.41%) GitHub
9 4 (2.41%) IBM Watson
9 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.41%) Vertex AI
10 3 (1.81%) Nutanix
11 2 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
12 1 (0.60%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 57 (34.34%) Network Security
2 43 (25.90%) VLAN
3 37 (22.29%) Wireless
4 36 (21.69%) WAN
5 31 (18.67%) DNS
6 28 (16.87%) VPN
7 23 (13.86%) BGP
8 22 (13.25%) OSPF
9 20 (12.05%) SD-WAN
10 19 (11.45%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (10.84%) DHCP
11 18 (10.84%) TCP/IP
12 17 (10.24%) Ethernet VPN
12 17 (10.24%) Structured Cabling
13 16 (9.64%) Cisco IOS
13 16 (9.64%) NAS
13 16 (9.64%) SAN
13 16 (9.64%) VXLAN
14 15 (9.04%) LAN
14 15 (9.04%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (5.42%) DataStage
2 2 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.60%) Redis
Development Applications
1 9 (5.42%) GitLab
2 7 (4.22%) JIRA
3 3 (1.81%) Git
3 3 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.20%) Burp Suite
4 2 (1.20%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.20%) Gatling
4 2 (1.20%) Gradle
4 2 (1.20%) LoadRunner
4 2 (1.20%) REST Assured
4 2 (1.20%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 33 (19.88%) Social Skills
2 31 (18.67%) Finance
3 16 (9.64%) Public Sector
4 12 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.63%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (5.42%) Banking
6 9 (5.42%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.41%) Legal
8 3 (1.81%) Military
9 2 (1.20%) Retail
10 1 (0.60%) Advertising
10 1 (0.60%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.60%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.60%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 50 (30.12%) Network Engineer
2 28 (16.87%) Architect
3 27 (16.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 25 (15.06%) Security Engineer
5 21 (12.65%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 21 (12.65%) Senior
6 12 (7.23%) Network Architect
6 12 (7.23%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (6.02%) Cloud Engineer
7 10 (6.02%) Designer
8 9 (5.42%) Infrastructure Designer
9 7 (4.22%) Cisco Engineer
10 6 (3.61%) Technical Architect
11 5 (3.01%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 5 (3.01%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 5 (3.01%) Infrastructure Architect
11 5 (3.01%) Platform Engineer
12 4 (2.41%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 4 (2.41%) GCP Engineer
12 4 (2.41%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (8.43%) 802.1X
2 12 (7.23%) LDAP
3 10 (6.02%) Middleware
4 6 (3.61%) LangChain
4 6 (3.61%) PyTorch
4 6 (3.61%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.20%) Node.js
5 2 (1.20%) Playwright
5 2 (1.20%) Quarkus
5 2 (1.20%) React
5 2 (1.20%) Spring
5 2 (1.20%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.60%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.60%) Azure Blueprints
6 1 (0.60%) JSON
6 1 (0.60%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 61 (36.75%) Data Centre
2 33 (19.88%) Cloud Native
3 25 (15.06%) Security Posture
4 11 (6.63%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (5.42%) BYOD
5 9 (5.42%) Mainframe
5 9 (5.42%) VSAM
6 7 (4.22%) Onboarding
7 6 (3.61%) Management Information System
8 5 (3.01%) Cloud Security Posture
8 5 (3.01%) Product Ownership
8 5 (3.01%) Public Cloud
9 4 (2.41%) PKI
10 3 (1.81%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.81%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (1.81%) Private Cloud
11 1 (0.60%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 1 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
11 1 (0.60%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 35 (21.08%) Linux
2 27 (16.27%) Windows
3 14 (8.43%) Unix
4 11 (6.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (5.42%) AIX
5 9 (5.42%) Solaris
6 8 (4.82%) Windows Server
7 3 (1.81%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (1.81%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.60%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (23.49%) Load Balancing
2 35 (21.08%) CI/CD
3 31 (18.67%) DevOps
3 31 (18.67%) Network Segmentation
4 29 (17.47%) Change Management
5 28 (16.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 28 (16.87%) Project Delivery
6 27 (16.27%) Roadmaps
6 27 (16.27%) SIEM
7 24 (14.46%) Cybersecurity
8 23 (13.86%) Zero Trust
9 22 (13.25%) Network Monitoring
10 21 (12.65%) Cloud Security
10 21 (12.65%) ITIL
11 20 (12.05%) High Availability
12 19 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
12 19 (11.45%) ITSM
13 18 (10.84%) Network Design
13 18 (10.84%) Problem-Solving
13 18 (10.84%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (22.89%) Python
2 24 (14.46%) PowerShell
3 16 (9.64%) Bash
4 11 (6.63%) Java
5 9 (5.42%) COBOL
6 7 (4.22%) Bicep
7 2 (1.20%) Perl
8 1 (0.60%) ActionScript
8 1 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 65 (39.16%) Security Cleared
2 58 (34.94%) Cisco Certification
3 53 (31.93%) SC Cleared
4 50 (30.12%) CCNP
5 48 (28.92%) CCNA
6 19 (11.45%) CISSP
6 19 (11.45%) Degree
7 15 (9.04%) Network+ Certification
7 15 (9.04%) Server+ Certification
8 12 (7.23%) Azure Certification
9 11 (6.63%) AWS Certification
10 8 (4.82%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (3.01%) MCSA
11 5 (3.01%) MCSE
11 5 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (2.41%) CCIE
12 4 (2.41%) CISM
12 4 (2.41%) DV Cleared
13 3 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
14 2 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.22%) NIST
2 5 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.41%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.41%) SLA
4 3 (1.81%) GDPR
4 3 (1.81%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (1.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 21 (12.65%) Active Directory
2 16 (9.64%) Docker
3 7 (4.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.81%) Firmware
4 3 (1.81%) Virtual Desktop
4 3 (1.81%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.81%) vSphere
5 1 (0.60%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 33 (19.88%) Terraform
2 19 (11.45%) Ansible
2 19 (11.45%) Kubernetes
3 11 (6.63%) Progress Chef
4 7 (4.22%) CASB
5 6 (3.61%) Nessus
6 4 (2.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (1.81%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (1.81%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (1.81%) SCCM
8 2 (1.20%) Grafana
8 2 (1.20%) Istio
8 2 (1.20%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.60%) Packer
Vendors
1 62 (37.35%) Cisco
2 36 (21.69%) Palo Alto
3 21 (12.65%) ServiceNow
4 19 (11.45%) F5
5 18 (10.84%) Microsoft
6 17 (10.24%) Google
7 16 (9.64%) Aruba
8 14 (8.43%) VMware
9 13 (7.83%) IBM
9 13 (7.83%) Red Hat
10 12 (7.23%) Arista
11 10 (6.02%) Splunk
12 9 (5.42%) Fortinet
13 8 (4.82%) CyberArk
14 7 (4.22%) CheckPoint
15 5 (3.01%) Ekahau
15 5 (3.01%) ForeScout
15 5 (3.01%) Remedy
15 5 (3.01%) Tenable
16 4 (2.41%) Juniper