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 18 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 76 51 35
Rank change year-on-year -25 -16 +33
Contract jobs citing Firewall 54 84 149
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.33% 3.98% 5.01%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 22.04% 26.67% 32.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 59 87
10th Percentile £320 £369 £333
25th Percentile £466 £408 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +13.68% -13.64% +17.02%
75th Percentile £603 £558 £610
90th Percentile £715 £615 £685
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 14
10th Percentile - - £56.55
25th Percentile £36.25 - -
Median hourly rate £37.50 - £65.98
75th Percentile £38.75 - -
90th Percentile - - £76.25
England median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +72.00%

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 245 315 462
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 10.57% 14.91% 15.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 194 263
10th Percentile £225 £250 £250
25th Percentile £325 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £494 £550
Median % change year-on-year +7.85% -10.23% +15.79%
75th Percentile £600 £580 £663
90th Percentile £720 £684 £736
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 19 69
10th Percentile £15.62 £11.75 £46.25
25th Percentile £25.94 £38.13 £48.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £67.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -25.93% +19.49% -13.09%
75th Percentile £64.75 £75.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £66.14 - £76.25
England median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.70
% change year-on-year -17.07% -26.39% +23.78%

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 18 December 2025.

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 18 December 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
Wiltshire -1 24 £589 +2.39% 12
Somerset 0 9 £575 +15.00% 13
Dorset 0 8 £540 +16.76% 2
Gloucestershire -16 7 £513 -6.48% 8
Devon -4 3 £350 -15.15%
Bristol -17 2 £275 -45.00% 21
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 7 (12.96%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.70%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.85%) IIS
3 1 (1.85%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 18 (33.33%) Azure
2 10 (18.52%) AWS
3 7 (12.96%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (11.11%) Azure Sentinel
4 6 (11.11%) GCP
5 5 (9.26%) Azure Monitor
5 5 (9.26%) Entra ID
6 3 (5.56%) IaaS
6 3 (5.56%) PaaS
6 3 (5.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 2 (3.70%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (3.70%) Amazon ELB
7 2 (3.70%) Amazon S3
7 2 (3.70%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.85%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (1.85%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 17 (31.48%) DNS
2 10 (18.52%) Network Security
2 10 (18.52%) VPN
3 4 (7.41%) WAN
4 3 (5.56%) 4G
4 3 (5.56%) 5G
4 3 (5.56%) BGP
4 3 (5.56%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (5.56%) DHCP
4 3 (5.56%) LAN
4 3 (5.56%) OSPF
4 3 (5.56%) TCP/IP
5 2 (3.70%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (3.70%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (3.70%) SD-WAN
5 2 (3.70%) Skype
5 2 (3.70%) SSL
5 2 (3.70%) VLAN
5 2 (3.70%) VSAN
5 2 (3.70%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (3.70%) Git
1 2 (3.70%) GitLab
1 2 (3.70%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.85%) JIRA
2 1 (1.85%) MSI
2 1 (1.85%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 28 (51.85%) Social Skills
2 8 (14.81%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (14.81%) Documentation Skills
3 6 (11.11%) Public Sector
4 3 (5.56%) Military
5 2 (3.70%) Finance
5 2 (3.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.85%) Banking
6 1 (1.85%) Legal
6 1 (1.85%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 13 (24.07%) Architect
2 9 (16.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 5 (9.26%) Analyst
3 5 (9.26%) Network Engineer
3 5 (9.26%) Security Engineer
3 5 (9.26%) Solutions Architect
4 3 (5.56%) Engineering Specialist
4 3 (5.56%) Mobile Engineer
4 3 (5.56%) Test Specialist
5 2 (3.70%) Azure Engineer
5 2 (3.70%) Enterprise Architect
5 2 (3.70%) Network Architect
5 2 (3.70%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 2 (3.70%) Security Architect
5 2 (3.70%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (3.70%) SIEM Engineer
5 2 (3.70%) SOC Analyst
5 2 (3.70%) Support Engineer
5 2 (3.70%) Technical Architect
5 2 (3.70%) Technical Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (22.22%) OAuth
1 12 (22.22%) OAuth2
1 12 (22.22%) OpenID
1 12 (22.22%) SAML
2 3 (5.56%) Microsoft Graph
3 2 (3.70%) ModSecurity
4 1 (1.85%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.85%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (1.85%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 6 (11.11%) Data Centre
1 6 (11.11%) PKI
1 6 (11.11%) Private Cloud
2 4 (7.41%) Hybrid Cloud
2 4 (7.41%) Replication
3 3 (5.56%) Cyber Defence
3 3 (5.56%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (5.56%) Mobile App
3 3 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 3 (5.56%) Security Posture
4 2 (3.70%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.85%) CCTV
5 1 (1.85%) Device Driver
5 1 (1.85%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.85%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 25 (46.30%) Windows
2 21 (38.89%) Windows Server
3 3 (5.56%) Android
3 3 (5.56%) Apple iOS
3 3 (5.56%) Windows 10
3 3 (5.56%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (3.70%) Linux
4 2 (3.70%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (1.85%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (29.63%) Problem-Solving
2 14 (25.93%) RBAC
3 13 (24.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 13 (24.07%) Load Balancing
4 11 (20.37%) Identity Access Management
5 9 (16.67%) Identity Management
5 9 (16.67%) Mentoring
5 9 (16.67%) SIEM
6 8 (14.81%) Change Management
6 8 (14.81%) Infrastructure as Code
6 8 (14.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 7 (12.96%) Cybersecurity
7 7 (12.96%) Incident Response
7 7 (12.96%) Zero Trust
8 6 (11.11%) Technical Leadership
9 5 (9.26%) DevOps
9 5 (9.26%) Performance Optimisation
9 5 (9.26%) Runbook
9 5 (9.26%) Service Management
9 5 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 22 (40.74%) PowerShell
2 8 (14.81%) Python
3 5 (9.26%) Bicep
4 4 (7.41%) Bash
5 3 (5.56%) Java
5 3 (5.56%) Perl
5 3 (5.56%) SQL
6 1 (1.85%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 32 (59.26%) Security Cleared
2 17 (31.48%) SC Cleared
3 15 (27.78%) DV Cleared
4 13 (24.07%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (5.56%) Azure Certification
6 2 (3.70%) Degree
7 1 (1.85%) CCNP
7 1 (1.85%) CEH
7 1 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (1.85%) CISM
7 1 (1.85%) CISSP
7 1 (1.85%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (1.85%) OSCP
7 1 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (14.81%) NCSC
2 6 (11.11%) NIST
3 3 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.85%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 23 (42.59%) Active Directory
2 10 (18.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (9.26%) Hyper-V
4 2 (3.70%) Docker
4 2 (3.70%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (1.85%) UAG
5 1 (1.85%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 14 (25.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 12 (22.22%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (16.67%) Terraform
4 5 (9.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (7.41%) Ansible
6 3 (5.56%) Check_MK
7 2 (3.70%) OPNET
7 2 (3.70%) vCenter Server
8 1 (1.85%) FortiGate
8 1 (1.85%) Icinga
Vendors
1 30 (55.56%) Microsoft
2 12 (22.22%) VMware
3 9 (16.67%) Cisco
4 7 (12.96%) Fortinet
5 5 (9.26%) F5
6 4 (7.41%) CheckPoint
6 4 (7.41%) Juniper
6 4 (7.41%) Splunk
7 3 (5.56%) Palo Alto
7 3 (5.56%) SolarWinds
8 1 (1.85%) Citrix
8 1 (1.85%) Google
8 1 (1.85%) Infoblox
8 1 (1.85%) Logitech
8 1 (1.85%) NetScout
8 1 (1.85%) Nokia
8 1 (1.85%) Sophos
8 1 (1.85%) Tenable
8 1 (1.85%) Veeam