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 14 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 33 42 41
Rank change year-on-year +9 -1 +17
Contract jobs citing Firewall 111 105 152
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 5.71% 3.95% 4.86%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 34.26% 32.51% 35.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 72 102
10th Percentile £256 £413 £288
25th Percentile £391 £475 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £700 £450
Median % change year-on-year -32.14% +55.56% -
75th Percentile £572 £850 £523
90th Percentile £638 - £575
England median daily rate £513 £513 £530
% change year-on-year - -3.30% +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - £45.60
25th Percentile - - £49.80
Median hourly rate - - £52.13
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £14.73 £66.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year -77.94% +7.66% +39.33%

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 324 323 424
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 16.68% 12.14% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 189 221 288
10th Percentile £189 £200 £288
25th Percentile £300 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £486
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% +0.82% +8.00%
75th Percentile £535 £665 £569
90th Percentile £600 £825 £638
England median daily rate £500 £495 £524
% change year-on-year +1.01% -5.49% +4.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 12 11
10th Percentile £20.00 £18.02 £15.72
25th Percentile £21.12 £22.06 £18.66
Median hourly rate £24.59 £34.37 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.46% +24.96% +27.74%
75th Percentile £25.47 £45.88 £50.77
90th Percentile £25.90 £94.59 £52.13
England median hourly rate £28.00 £40.00 £18.50
% change year-on-year -30.00% +116.22% -22.63%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 +21 57 £538 +4.37% 9
Manchester -12 33 £450 -43.75% 71
Cheshire -6 10 £573 +17.44% 18
Merseyside +3 8 £308 +83.58% 5
Lancashire +2 3 £500 +13.64% 30
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 16 (14.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.90%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (4.50%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.90%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 27 (24.32%) Azure
2 21 (18.92%) Microsoft 365
3 18 (16.22%) Entra ID
4 10 (9.01%) IaaS
5 5 (4.50%) AWS
6 3 (2.70%) GCP
7 2 (1.80%) Azure App Service
7 2 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (1.80%) Azure Storage
8 1 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (0.90%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.90%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.90%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.90%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 33 (29.73%) Wi-Fi
2 31 (27.93%) WAN
3 29 (26.13%) Network Security
4 28 (25.23%) BGP
4 28 (25.23%) Cisco ASA
4 28 (25.23%) Cisco Firepower
5 27 (24.32%) OSPF
6 23 (20.72%) EIGRP
6 23 (20.72%) VPN
7 22 (19.82%) Wireless
8 21 (18.92%) IPsec
9 19 (17.12%) HSRP
10 18 (16.22%) Cisco ISE
11 17 (15.32%) NetScaler
12 12 (10.81%) Cisco Wireless
13 11 (9.91%) Cisco Nexus
13 11 (9.91%) Intrusion Detection
14 9 (8.11%) LAN
15 8 (7.21%) SD-WAN
16 6 (5.41%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (13.51%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (5.41%) GitLab
2 3 (2.70%) Eclipse
3 2 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.90%) JIRA
General
1 11 (9.91%) Social Skills
1 11 (9.91%) Telecoms
2 9 (8.11%) Public Sector
3 8 (7.21%) Finance
4 6 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (5.41%) Banking
4 6 (5.41%) Legal
5 3 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (1.80%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.80%) Retail
7 1 (0.90%) Advertising
7 1 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.90%) Law
7 1 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 61 (54.95%) Network Engineer
2 28 (25.23%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 7 (6.31%) IT Engineer
3 7 (6.31%) Senior
4 6 (5.41%) Architect
4 6 (5.41%) Infrastructure Specialist
4 6 (5.41%) Security Engineer
4 6 (5.41%) Support Engineer
5 5 (4.50%) Analyst
5 5 (4.50%) Infrastructure Analyst
6 4 (3.60%) Cisco Engineer
6 4 (3.60%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 4 (3.60%) Senior Network Engineer
6 4 (3.60%) Windows Engineer
7 3 (2.70%) 2nd Line Support
7 3 (2.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 3 (2.70%) Lead
7 3 (2.70%) Linux Engineer
7 3 (2.70%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
7 3 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (16.22%) 802.1X
2 4 (3.60%) LDAP
3 2 (1.80%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.90%) Kafka
4 1 (0.90%) OAuth
4 1 (0.90%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.90%) OpenID
4 1 (0.90%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (15.32%) Data Centre
2 4 (3.60%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (2.70%) IVR
4 2 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (1.80%) Driving Licence
4 2 (1.80%) Onboarding
4 2 (1.80%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.90%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.90%) Blockchain
5 1 (0.90%) NHS
5 1 (0.90%) PKI
5 1 (0.90%) Private Cloud
5 1 (0.90%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (24.32%) Windows
2 17 (15.32%) Windows Server
3 7 (6.31%) Linux
4 3 (2.70%) Android
4 3 (2.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (2.70%) Windows 10
4 3 (2.70%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (1.80%) Windows XP
6 1 (0.90%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (23.42%) Network Design
1 26 (23.42%) Network Management
2 22 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (18.92%) Load Balancing
3 21 (18.92%) Network Architecture
4 14 (12.61%) Cybersecurity
5 13 (11.71%) Disaster Recovery
5 13 (11.71%) Impact Assessments
5 13 (11.71%) Information Security
5 13 (11.71%) ITIL
6 12 (10.81%) Business Continuity
6 12 (10.81%) Change Management
6 12 (10.81%) Project Delivery
7 11 (9.91%) BCP
7 11 (9.91%) High Availability
7 11 (9.91%) Vulnerability Scanning
8 10 (9.01%) Enterprise Architecture
9 9 (8.11%) Risk Assessment
10 8 (7.21%) Business Continuity Planning
10 8 (7.21%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 16 (14.41%) PowerShell
2 5 (4.50%) Python
3 4 (3.60%) Bash
4 3 (2.70%) C++
5 2 (1.80%) Bicep
6 1 (0.90%) Java
6 1 (0.90%) Perl
Qualifications
1 52 (46.85%) SC Cleared
1 52 (46.85%) Security Cleared
2 14 (12.61%) Cisco Certification
2 14 (12.61%) Microsoft Certification
3 13 (11.71%) Azure Certification
4 11 (9.91%) CCNA
5 9 (8.11%) CCNP
6 5 (4.50%) Degree
7 4 (3.60%) CCIE
8 2 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.80%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (1.80%) JNCIE
8 2 (1.80%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.80%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (0.90%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.90%) CCSA
9 1 (0.90%) CCSE
9 1 (0.90%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.60%) SLA
2 3 (2.70%) NIST
3 1 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.90%) NCSC
3 1 (0.90%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (21.62%) Active Directory
2 11 (9.91%) vSphere
3 10 (9.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (3.60%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (1.80%) Docker
7 1 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 14 (12.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (6.31%) Ansible
3 4 (3.60%) Kubernetes
3 4 (3.60%) Terraform
4 3 (2.70%) Dell DRAC
4 3 (2.70%) SCCM
4 3 (2.70%) SELinux
5 2 (1.80%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.90%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.90%) Grafana
6 1 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 68 (61.26%) Cisco
2 55 (49.55%) Palo Alto
3 29 (26.13%) Microsoft
4 22 (19.82%) Meraki
5 21 (18.92%) CheckPoint
6 13 (11.71%) VMware
7 9 (8.11%) Fortinet
7 9 (8.11%) SolarWinds
8 5 (4.50%) Splunk
9 4 (3.60%) CyberArk
9 4 (3.60%) Dell
9 4 (3.60%) Infoblox
9 4 (3.60%) Red Hat
9 4 (3.60%) ServiceNow
10 3 (2.70%) Apple
10 3 (2.70%) Aruba
10 3 (2.70%) HP
11 2 (1.80%) F5
12 1 (0.90%) Imperva
12 1 (0.90%) WatchGuard