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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 59 54 41
Rank change year-on-year -5 -13 +28
Contract jobs citing Firewall 59 98 143
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South West 2.99% 3.69% 4.45%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.60% 24.69% 31.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 76 91
10th Percentile £275 £425 £263
25th Percentile £344 £463 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% - +1.94%
75th Percentile £575 £563 £575
90th Percentile £638 £663 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 9
10th Percentile - - £63.58
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £17.79 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £76.04
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £65.99
% change year-on-year -14.29% -46.96% +57.06%

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 250 397 458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 12.66% 14.93% 14.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 167 235 269
10th Percentile £213 £320 £218
25th Percentile £296 £453 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.62% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £630
90th Percentile £649 £672 £700
England median daily rate £488 £508 £500
% change year-on-year -3.94% +1.50% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 28 59
10th Percentile £26.70 £11.75 £40.85
25th Percentile £40.07 £15.00 £48.32
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +15.06% -8.32%
75th Percentile £65.00 £74.06 £65.98
90th Percentile - £78.00 £72.13
England median hourly rate £41.72 £57.35 £56.49
% change year-on-year -27.25% +1.52% +34.02%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Job vacancy trend for Firewall 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 September 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 September 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 -9 22 £488 -0.51% 4
Bristol +11 15 £413 -23.96% 8
Gloucestershire +19 6 £500 -9.09% 13
Dorset -8 6 £540 +16.76% 5
Somerset +3 4 £350 -16.42% 10
Devon +2 2 £363 -29.27% 7
Avon - 2 £275 - 3
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South 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 7 (11.86%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (5.08%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.69%) IIS
3 1 (1.69%) nginx
3 1 (1.69%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 14 (23.73%) AWS
2 13 (22.03%) Azure
3 9 (15.25%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (8.47%) GCP
5 2 (3.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 2 (3.39%) Amazon EC2
5 2 (3.39%) Amazon ELB
5 2 (3.39%) Amazon S3
5 2 (3.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 1 (1.69%) Akamai
6 1 (1.69%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.69%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.69%) Entra ID
6 1 (1.69%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (1.69%) OpenShift
6 1 (1.69%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (20.34%) WAN
2 10 (16.95%) VPN
3 9 (15.25%) Network Security
4 8 (13.56%) DNS
4 8 (13.56%) LAN
5 6 (10.17%) 5G
5 6 (10.17%) TCP/IP
6 4 (6.78%) BGP
6 4 (6.78%) OSPF
6 4 (6.78%) VSAN
7 3 (5.08%) 4G
7 3 (5.08%) LTE
7 3 (5.08%) SD-WAN
7 3 (5.08%) VoIP
7 3 (5.08%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (3.39%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (3.39%) HSRP
8 2 (3.39%) Skype
8 2 (3.39%) SSL
8 2 (3.39%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 5 (8.47%) Jenkins
2 3 (5.08%) GitLab
3 2 (3.39%) Git
General
1 17 (28.81%) Social Skills
2 6 (10.17%) Manufacturing
2 6 (10.17%) Public Sector
3 4 (6.78%) Military
4 3 (5.08%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (5.08%) Telecoms
5 2 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (3.39%) Finance
6 1 (1.69%) Electronics
6 1 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.69%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 13 (22.03%) Administrator
2 10 (16.95%) Architect
2 10 (16.95%) Network Administrator
3 6 (10.17%) Network Architect
4 5 (8.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 5 (8.47%) IT Engineer
4 5 (8.47%) Network Engineer
4 5 (8.47%) Support Engineer
5 4 (6.78%) IT Support
5 4 (6.78%) IT Support Engineer
5 4 (6.78%) Senior
6 3 (5.08%) Linux Administrator
6 3 (5.08%) Network Manager
6 3 (5.08%) Network Project Manager
6 3 (5.08%) Project Manager
6 3 (5.08%) Security Architect
6 3 (5.08%) Security Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 3 (5.08%) Technical Support
6 3 (5.08%) Test Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (5.08%) ModSecurity
2 2 (3.39%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.69%) .NET
3 1 (1.69%) 802.1X
3 1 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.69%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 9 (15.25%) Data Centre
1 9 (15.25%) PKI
2 5 (8.47%) CMDB
2 5 (8.47%) Cyber Defence
3 3 (5.08%) Cloud Native
3 3 (5.08%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (5.08%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (5.08%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (5.08%) Private Cloud
3 3 (5.08%) Replication
4 2 (3.39%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (3.39%) Mobile App
4 2 (3.39%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.69%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.69%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.69%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 17 (28.81%) Windows
2 9 (15.25%) Linux
2 9 (15.25%) Windows Server
3 7 (11.86%) Windows 10
4 5 (8.47%) Android
5 3 (5.08%) Mac OS
5 3 (5.08%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (3.39%) Apple iOS
6 2 (3.39%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.69%) Solaris
7 1 (1.69%) Ubuntu
7 1 (1.69%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (1.69%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (27.12%) Service Management
2 13 (22.03%) Change Management
3 12 (20.34%) ITIL
4 11 (18.64%) Customer Service
5 8 (13.56%) Cybersecurity
5 8 (13.56%) High Availability
5 8 (13.56%) Incident Response
5 8 (13.56%) Service Delivery
6 7 (11.86%) CI/CD
6 7 (11.86%) Network Architecture
7 6 (10.17%) DevOps
7 6 (10.17%) Roadmaps
7 6 (10.17%) Security Hardening
8 5 (8.47%) Disaster Recovery
8 5 (8.47%) Infrastructure as Code
8 5 (8.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 5 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
9 4 (6.78%) Cloud Security
9 4 (6.78%) Problem-Solving
9 4 (6.78%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 9 (15.25%) Python
2 6 (10.17%) Bash
2 6 (10.17%) PowerShell
3 4 (6.78%) Perl
3 4 (6.78%) SQL
4 3 (5.08%) Java
5 1 (1.69%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 39 (66.10%) Security Cleared
2 21 (35.59%) DV Cleared
3 18 (30.51%) SC Cleared
4 3 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (5.08%) ITIL Certification
5 2 (3.39%) CCNP
5 2 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.69%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (1.69%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.69%) CCIE
6 1 (1.69%) CCNA
6 1 (1.69%) CEH
6 1 (1.69%) CISM
6 1 (1.69%) CISSP
6 1 (1.69%) CompTIA Security+
6 1 (1.69%) JNCIE
6 1 (1.69%) JNCIP
6 1 (1.69%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (10.17%) NCSC
2 3 (5.08%) NIST
2 3 (5.08%) SLA
3 2 (3.39%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (1.69%) PMO
4 1 (1.69%) QA
System Software
1 8 (13.56%) Active Directory
2 6 (10.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (8.47%) Docker
3 5 (8.47%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (1.69%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.69%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.69%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (13.56%) Ansible
2 5 (8.47%) Kubernetes
2 5 (8.47%) Terraform
3 3 (5.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (5.08%) Check_MK
3 3 (5.08%) OPNET
3 3 (5.08%) Prometheus
3 3 (5.08%) vCenter Server
4 2 (3.39%) Cisco Prime
4 2 (3.39%) FortiGate
4 2 (3.39%) Grafana
4 2 (3.39%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (3.39%) Puppet
5 1 (1.69%) Nessus
5 1 (1.69%) SCCM
5 1 (1.69%) VxRail
5 1 (1.69%) WSUS
Vendors
1 18 (30.51%) Cisco
2 16 (27.12%) Juniper
3 13 (22.03%) Microsoft
4 11 (18.64%) VMware
5 7 (11.86%) Fortinet
6 5 (8.47%) Palo Alto
6 5 (8.47%) Splunk
7 4 (6.78%) ServiceNow
7 4 (6.78%) SolarWinds
8 3 (5.08%) F5
9 2 (3.39%) CheckPoint
9 2 (3.39%) Citrix
9 2 (3.39%) Meraki
9 2 (3.39%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.69%) Dell
10 1 (1.69%) Google
10 1 (1.69%) NetScout
10 1 (1.69%) Oracle
10 1 (1.69%) Remedy
10 1 (1.69%) SAP