Firewall Contracts in the North West

Firewall
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring Firewall skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Firewall over the 6 months leading up to 30 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 33 39 32
Rank change year-on-year +6 -7 +26
Contract jobs citing Firewall 113 115 156
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 5.54% 4.16% 5.13%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 37.05% 34.64% 36.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 77 106
10th Percentile £358 £378 £288
25th Percentile £410 £494 £341
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £600 £450
Median % change year-on-year -21.67% +33.33% -2.70%
75th Percentile £584 £850 £525
90th Percentile £650 - £593
England median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £46.25 -
Median hourly rate - £47.50 £52.13
Median % change year-on-year - -8.88% -25.53%
75th Percentile - £48.75 £57.57
90th Percentile - - £60.83
England median hourly rate £30.00 £60.00 £62.55
% change year-on-year -50.00% -4.08% +39.78%

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 305 332 429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.95% 12.01% 14.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 183 232 282
10th Percentile £187 £210 £288
25th Percentile £350 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £538 £669 £565
90th Percentile £638 £825 £638
England median daily rate £493 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -1.40% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 14 11
10th Percentile £27.70 £21.28 £15.72
25th Percentile £34.78 £26.06 £17.11
Median hourly rate £47.37 £45.88 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.25% +66.84% +42.86%
75th Percentile £59.17 £50.44 £49.98
90th Percentile £65.76 £51.91 £52.13
England median hourly rate £37.50 £46.69 £20.71
% change year-on-year -19.68% +125.50% -17.18%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Firewall as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Firewall in the North West

Firewall
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Firewall in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Firewall in the North West

Firewall
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firewall in the North West over the 6 months to 30 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Firewall in the North West

Firewall
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Firewall in the North West.

Hourly rate trend 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 30 June 2025. 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
Cumbria +19 52 £513 -0.49% 20
Manchester -23 29 £450 -43.75% 150
Cheshire -5 22 £475 -5.00% 41
Merseyside +6 7 £400 +138.81% 33
Lancashire - 3 £500 - 50
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (7.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (3.54%) OpenStack
2 4 (3.54%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.65%) Apache
3 3 (2.65%) JBoss
Applications
1 2 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.88%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.88%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 24 (21.24%) Azure
2 16 (14.16%) Microsoft 365
3 13 (11.50%) AWS
4 11 (9.73%) Entra ID
5 6 (5.31%) IaaS
6 5 (4.42%) GCP
7 3 (2.65%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (2.65%) Microsoft Purview
8 2 (1.77%) Azure App Service
8 2 (1.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.77%) Azure Storage
9 1 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.88%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.88%) Azure Key Vault
9 1 (0.88%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.88%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 30 (26.55%) BGP
1 30 (26.55%) OSPF
2 29 (25.66%) Network Security
2 29 (25.66%) Wi-Fi
3 26 (23.01%) WAN
4 23 (20.35%) Cisco ASA
4 23 (20.35%) Cisco Firepower
4 23 (20.35%) IPsec
5 21 (18.58%) VPN
6 20 (17.70%) EIGRP
7 17 (15.04%) HSRP
8 16 (14.16%) Cisco ISE
8 16 (14.16%) Wireless
9 15 (13.27%) NetScaler
10 12 (10.62%) MPLS
11 11 (9.73%) Intrusion Detection
12 9 (7.96%) DHCP
13 8 (7.08%) Cisco Wireless
13 8 (7.08%) SD-WAN
13 8 (7.08%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (8.85%) SQL Server
2 3 (2.65%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 6 (5.31%) GitLab
2 3 (2.65%) Eclipse
3 2 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.88%) JIRA
General
1 12 (10.62%) Social Skills
2 11 (9.73%) Finance
3 8 (7.08%) Banking
3 8 (7.08%) Public Sector
4 6 (5.31%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (5.31%) Legal
4 6 (5.31%) Telecoms
5 3 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.77%) Japanese Language
6 2 (1.77%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.77%) Retail
7 1 (0.88%) Advertising
7 1 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.88%) Law
7 1 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 59 (52.21%) Network Engineer
2 26 (23.01%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 13 (11.50%) Security Engineer
4 8 (7.08%) Designer
4 8 (7.08%) Network Designer
5 6 (5.31%) Architect
5 6 (5.31%) IT Engineer
5 6 (5.31%) Network Security Engineer
5 6 (5.31%) Senior
6 5 (4.42%) Analyst
6 5 (4.42%) Cloud Engineer
6 5 (4.42%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 5 (4.42%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 5 (4.42%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
7 4 (3.54%) Cisco Engineer
7 4 (3.54%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 4 (3.54%) Lead
7 4 (3.54%) Senior Network Engineer
7 4 (3.54%) Solutions Designer
8 3 (2.65%) Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (14.16%) 802.1X
2 4 (3.54%) Kafka
2 4 (3.54%) LDAP
3 2 (1.77%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.88%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.88%) OAuth
4 1 (0.88%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.88%) OpenID
4 1 (0.88%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (14.16%) Data Centre
2 5 (4.42%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (3.54%) Operational Technology
3 4 (3.54%) PKI
4 3 (2.65%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.77%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (1.77%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.88%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.88%) Blockchain
6 1 (0.88%) CMDB
6 1 (0.88%) IVR
6 1 (0.88%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.88%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.88%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 25 (22.12%) Windows
2 12 (10.62%) Windows Server
3 8 (7.08%) Linux
4 3 (2.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.77%) Windows 10
5 2 (1.77%) Windows XP
6 1 (0.88%) Android
6 1 (0.88%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (25.66%) Network Design
2 24 (21.24%) Network Architecture
2 24 (21.24%) Network Management
3 18 (15.93%) Load Balancing
4 17 (15.04%) Problem-Solving
5 15 (13.27%) High Availability
6 12 (10.62%) Impact Assessments
6 12 (10.62%) Information Security
7 11 (9.73%) Cybersecurity
8 10 (8.85%) Project Delivery
9 9 (7.96%) Network Monitoring
9 9 (7.96%) Use Case
10 8 (7.08%) Change Management
10 8 (7.08%) DevOps
10 8 (7.08%) Disaster Recovery
10 8 (7.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 8 (7.08%) ITIL
11 7 (6.19%) Business Continuity
11 7 (6.19%) CI/CD
11 7 (6.19%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 11 (9.73%) PowerShell
2 5 (4.42%) Python
3 4 (3.54%) Bash
4 3 (2.65%) C++
5 2 (1.77%) Bicep
6 1 (0.88%) Java
6 1 (0.88%) Perl
Qualifications
1 46 (40.71%) SC Cleared
1 46 (40.71%) Security Cleared
2 18 (15.93%) Cisco Certification
3 14 (12.39%) CCNP
4 11 (9.73%) Azure Certification
4 11 (9.73%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (8.85%) CCNA
6 9 (7.96%) Degree
7 6 (5.31%) CCIE
8 4 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (3.54%) JNCIE
8 4 (3.54%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.77%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (0.88%) CCSA
10 1 (0.88%) CCSE
10 1 (0.88%) CISM
10 1 (0.88%) CISSP
10 1 (0.88%) CRISC
10 1 (0.88%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.42%) NIST
2 3 (2.65%) PCI DSS
3 2 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.77%) SLA
4 1 (0.88%) GDPR
4 1 (0.88%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.88%) NCSC
System Software
1 16 (14.16%) Active Directory
2 7 (6.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (5.31%) Docker
3 6 (5.31%) vSphere
4 2 (1.77%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 1 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 10 (8.85%) Ansible
2 7 (6.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 4 (3.54%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.54%) Terraform
4 3 (2.65%) Dell DRAC
4 3 (2.65%) SELinux
5 2 (1.77%) FortiGate
5 2 (1.77%) SCCM
6 1 (0.88%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.88%) Grafana
6 1 (0.88%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.88%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.88%) QRadar
6 1 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 66 (58.41%) Cisco
2 51 (45.13%) Palo Alto
3 26 (23.01%) Microsoft
4 20 (17.70%) Meraki
5 19 (16.81%) CheckPoint
6 12 (10.62%) Fortinet
7 9 (7.96%) SolarWinds
7 9 (7.96%) Zscaler
8 8 (7.08%) Dell
8 8 (7.08%) VMware
9 5 (4.42%) F5
9 5 (4.42%) Splunk
10 4 (3.54%) CyberArk
10 4 (3.54%) Darktrace
10 4 (3.54%) Infoblox
10 4 (3.54%) Red Hat
10 4 (3.54%) ServiceNow
11 3 (2.65%) HP
11 3 (2.65%) IBM
11 3 (2.65%) Oracle