Firewall Contract Job Trends in the South West

Firewall
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Firewall skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 41 37
Rank change year-on-year -43 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Firewall 59 81 150
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.74% 4.80% 4.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.77% 32.27% 27.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 47 121
10th Percentile £403 £319 £413
25th Percentile £483 £428 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +1.01% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £707 £671 £668
England median daily rate £500 £508 £508
% change year-on-year -1.48% - -3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 1
10th Percentile £36.55 - -
25th Percentile £37.00 - -
Median hourly rate £40.54 £17.79 £46.39
Median % change year-on-year +127.88% -61.65% -26.24%
75th Percentile £43.84 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £56.00 £16.52 £60.00
% change year-on-year +238.98% -72.47% -3.23%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South 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 South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 271 251 543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 7.99% 14.88% 16.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 167 352
10th Percentile £275 £235 £301
25th Percentile £413 £397 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +2.33% +4.37%
75th Percentile £581 £623 £650
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
England median daily rate £500 £495 £500
% change year-on-year +0.93% -0.92% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 4 41
10th Percentile £12.98 £13.67 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £16.32 £15.75
Median hourly rate £60.00 £41.40 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.95% +3.49% +308.16%
75th Percentile £68.25 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.00 £74.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £38.41 £40.00
% change year-on-year -15.39% -3.98% +134.40%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Firewall relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Firewall job vacancy trend in the South West

Firewall
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall

Firewall
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firewall in the South West over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Firewall in the South West

Firewall
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall

Firewall
Contract Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 29 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
Bristol -34 18 £525 +37.43% 5
Wiltshire -23 14 £650 +13.04% 10
Somerset -7 13 £550 -8.33% 7
Gloucestershire -13 6 £425 -19.05% 6
Devon -18 2 £490 +3.16% 6
Dorset -6 1 £300 -36.84% 7
Cornwall - 1 £505 -
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 4 (6.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.39%) Skype for Business
3 1 (1.69%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (3.39%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 17 (28.81%) Azure
2 8 (13.56%) AWS
2 8 (13.56%) GCP
3 5 (8.47%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (6.78%) Azure Sentinel
4 4 (6.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 3 (5.08%) Azure Monitor
5 3 (5.08%) GitHub
5 3 (5.08%) IaaS
5 3 (5.08%) PaaS
6 2 (3.39%) Entra ID
6 2 (3.39%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (3.39%) Google Compute Engine
6 2 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.69%) Azure Stack
7 1 (1.69%) Mimecast
7 1 (1.69%) n8n
7 1 (1.69%) OCI
7 1 (1.69%) OpenShift
7 1 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (25.42%) DHCP
1 15 (25.42%) DNS
1 15 (25.42%) Network Security
2 9 (15.25%) Wireless
3 8 (13.56%) VPN
4 6 (10.17%) HTTPS
5 5 (8.47%) TCP/IP
5 5 (8.47%) WAN
6 4 (6.78%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (6.78%) LAN
6 4 (6.78%) VLAN
7 3 (5.08%) BGP
7 3 (5.08%) Cisco IOS
7 3 (5.08%) OSPF
8 2 (3.39%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (3.39%) DMVPN
8 2 (3.39%) NAS
8 2 (3.39%) NGFW
8 2 (3.39%) SAN
8 2 (3.39%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.08%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.69%) EDRMS
2 1 (1.69%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.69%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.69%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 6 (10.17%) JIRA
2 5 (8.47%) Git
2 5 (8.47%) Jenkins
3 4 (6.78%) GitLab
4 2 (3.39%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (1.69%) Bitbucket
5 1 (1.69%) Burp Suite
5 1 (1.69%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.69%) Gatling
5 1 (1.69%) Gradle
5 1 (1.69%) LoadRunner
5 1 (1.69%) REST Assured
5 1 (1.69%) SonarQube
General
1 12 (20.34%) Analytical Skills
1 12 (20.34%) Social Skills
2 3 (5.08%) Public Sector
3 2 (3.39%) Banking
3 2 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (3.39%) Finance
4 1 (1.69%) Back Office
4 1 (1.69%) Legal
4 1 (1.69%) Manufacturing
4 1 (1.69%) Police
Job Titles
1 12 (20.34%) Network Engineer
2 9 (15.25%) Architect
3 7 (11.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 5 (8.47%) Technical Architect
5 4 (6.78%) Support Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Data Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Data Migration Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) GCP Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Migration Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Security Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Technical Support
7 2 (3.39%) Cloud Engineer
7 2 (3.39%) Cloud Network Engineer
7 2 (3.39%) Defect Manager
7 2 (3.39%) Desktop Engineer
7 2 (3.39%) Infrastructure Manager
7 2 (3.39%) Network Infrastructure Manager
7 2 (3.39%) Wintel Engineer
7 2 (3.39%) Wintel Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (10.17%) 802.1X
2 3 (5.08%) .NET
2 3 (5.08%) OAuth
2 3 (5.08%) OAuth2
2 3 (5.08%) OpenID
2 3 (5.08%) SAML
3 2 (3.39%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (3.39%) LDAP
3 2 (3.39%) Node.js
4 1 (1.69%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (1.69%) Jinja
4 1 (1.69%) NETCONF
4 1 (1.69%) Playwright
4 1 (1.69%) Quarkus
4 1 (1.69%) React
4 1 (1.69%) REST
4 1 (1.69%) Spring
4 1 (1.69%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 11 (18.64%) Data Centre
2 6 (10.17%) IoT
3 3 (5.08%) Cloud Native
3 3 (5.08%) Onboarding
3 3 (5.08%) Private Cloud
3 3 (5.08%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (3.39%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (3.39%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (3.39%) PKI
5 1 (1.69%) CAN bus
5 1 (1.69%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.69%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.69%) Public Cloud
5 1 (1.69%) Replication
5 1 (1.69%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 21 (35.59%) Windows
2 13 (22.03%) Windows Server
3 12 (20.34%) Linux
4 2 (3.39%) Data ONTAP
4 2 (3.39%) Windows 10
4 2 (3.39%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (1.69%) CentOS
5 1 (1.69%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.69%) Rocky
5 1 (1.69%) SUSE
5 1 (1.69%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.69%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (27.12%) Zero Trust
2 15 (25.42%) Problem-Solving
3 14 (23.73%) Infrastructure as Code
4 11 (18.64%) Security Architecture
5 10 (16.95%) DevOps
5 10 (16.95%) Identity Access Management
5 10 (16.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 8 (13.56%) CI/CD
6 8 (13.56%) Network Segmentation
7 7 (11.86%) ITIL
7 7 (11.86%) Regulatory Compliance
7 7 (11.86%) Risk Assessment
7 7 (11.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 7 (11.86%) Vulnerability Management
8 6 (10.17%) Load Balancing
8 6 (10.17%) Network Design
8 6 (10.17%) SIEM
8 6 (10.17%) Technical Leadership
9 5 (8.47%) Architectural Patterns
9 5 (8.47%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 10 (16.95%) PowerShell
2 5 (8.47%) Python
3 4 (6.78%) SQL
4 3 (5.08%) Bash
4 3 (5.08%) Bicep
5 2 (3.39%) Java
6 1 (1.69%) C
6 1 (1.69%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 27 (45.76%) Security Cleared
2 15 (25.42%) DV Cleared
2 15 (25.42%) SC Cleared
3 5 (8.47%) BPSS Clearance
3 5 (8.47%) Cisco Certification
4 4 (6.78%) Azure Certification
5 3 (5.08%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (5.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 2 (3.39%) CCNP
6 2 (3.39%) CISSP
6 2 (3.39%) Degree
7 1 (1.69%) CCNA
7 1 (1.69%) CCSK
7 1 (1.69%) CEH
7 1 (1.69%) CISA
7 1 (1.69%) CISM
7 1 (1.69%) CompTIA CySA+
7 1 (1.69%) GIAC
7 1 (1.69%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (1.69%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (5.08%) Data Quality
1 3 (5.08%) NIST
1 3 (5.08%) PCI DSS
2 2 (3.39%) GDPR
2 2 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.69%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (1.69%) GRC
3 1 (1.69%) HIPAA
3 1 (1.69%) NIST 800
3 1 (1.69%) QA
3 1 (1.69%) RMADS
3 1 (1.69%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (32.20%) Active Directory
2 18 (30.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (16.95%) VMware NSX
4 8 (13.56%) Hyper-V
5 4 (6.78%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (3.39%) Docker
7 1 (1.69%) iptables
7 1 (1.69%) KVM
7 1 (1.69%) NFS
7 1 (1.69%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (1.69%) VirtualBox
7 1 (1.69%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (25.42%) Terraform
2 9 (15.25%) Ansible
3 8 (13.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 5 (8.47%) Kubernetes
5 3 (5.08%) Grafana
5 3 (5.08%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (3.39%) CASB
6 2 (3.39%) McAfee ePO
6 2 (3.39%) Nagios
6 2 (3.39%) Prometheus
6 2 (3.39%) vCenter Server
7 1 (1.69%) Argo
7 1 (1.69%) FortiGate
7 1 (1.69%) Icinga
7 1 (1.69%) Kibana
7 1 (1.69%) logstash
7 1 (1.69%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (1.69%) SCCM
7 1 (1.69%) SCOM
7 1 (1.69%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 19 (32.20%) VMware
2 16 (27.12%) Microsoft
3 12 (20.34%) Cisco
4 6 (10.17%) ForeScout
5 5 (8.47%) Fortinet
6 4 (6.78%) Google
7 3 (5.08%) F5
7 3 (5.08%) Infoblox
7 3 (5.08%) InterSystems
7 3 (5.08%) Juniper
7 3 (5.08%) Palo Alto
7 3 (5.08%) SolarWinds
8 2 (3.39%) McAfee
8 2 (3.39%) NetApp
8 2 (3.39%) NetScout
8 2 (3.39%) Splunk
9 1 (1.69%) BMC
9 1 (1.69%) CheckPoint
9 1 (1.69%) Nokia
9 1 (1.69%) Siemens