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 3 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 41 49
Rank change year-on-year -39 +8 -9
Contract jobs citing Firewall 76 80 107
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.14% 4.20% 3.80%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 26.12% 32.00% 22.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 44 82
10th Percentile £414 £321 £440
25th Percentile £463 £386 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £494 £508
Median % change year-on-year +11.39% -2.71% +4.10%
75th Percentile £674 £578 £575
90th Percentile £725 £682 £667
England median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 0
10th Percentile £90.27 - -
25th Percentile £97.25 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 £17.79 -
Median % change year-on-year +455.48% - -
75th Percentile £100.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.45 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +118.17% +9.09% -56.35%

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 291 250 478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 8.18% 13.12% 16.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 167 160 319
10th Percentile £209 £225 £275
25th Percentile £353 £352 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £540 £538
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +0.47% +7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £627
90th Percentile £712 £669 £675
England median daily rate £500 £494 £500
% change year-on-year +1.21% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 2 38
10th Percentile £12.76 £22.51 £12.19
25th Percentile £19.33 £29.59 £14.33
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.40 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.02% -36.32% +4.84%
75th Percentile £88.77 £53.20 £72.19
90th Percentile £100.00 £60.28 £75.90
England median hourly rate £27.50 £45.00 £51.50
% change year-on-year -38.89% -12.62% +2.14%

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 3 August 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firewall in the South West over the 6 months to 3 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firewall in the South West

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 3 August 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
Somerset -6 25 £683 +95.21% 12
Bristol -24 20 £588 +53.93% 10
Gloucestershire -12 11 £475 -9.52% 11
Wiltshire -32 11 £525 -1.18% 8
Dorset -10 2 - - 1
Devon -16 2 £490 +3.16% 7
Cornwall - 1 £505 - 1
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 5 (6.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.63%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.63%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (35.53%) Azure
2 24 (31.58%) AWS
3 8 (10.53%) GCP
4 7 (9.21%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (6.58%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (6.58%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (5.26%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (5.26%) Entra ID
6 4 (5.26%) GitHub
6 4 (5.26%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 3 (3.95%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (3.95%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.63%) Google Compute Engine
8 2 (2.63%) OpenShift
9 1 (1.32%) Azure Stack
9 1 (1.32%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (1.32%) Mimecast
9 1 (1.32%) n8n
Communications & Networking
1 31 (40.79%) DNS
2 27 (35.53%) TCP/IP
3 26 (34.21%) DHCP
4 16 (21.05%) VSAN
5 13 (17.11%) WAN
6 12 (15.79%) BGP
7 9 (11.84%) VLAN
7 9 (11.84%) VPN
8 6 (7.89%) LAN
9 5 (6.58%) Network Security
10 4 (5.26%) OSPF
11 3 (3.95%) Cisco IOS
11 3 (3.95%) Cisco Nexus
11 3 (3.95%) MPLS
11 3 (3.95%) NAS
11 3 (3.95%) SAN
11 3 (3.95%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (2.63%) Cisco ISE
12 2 (2.63%) DMVPN
12 2 (2.63%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.32%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.32%) EDRMS
1 1 (1.32%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.32%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 6 (7.89%) JIRA
2 5 (6.58%) Git
2 5 (6.58%) Jenkins
3 4 (5.26%) GitLab
4 1 (1.32%) Burp Suite
4 1 (1.32%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.32%) Gatling
4 1 (1.32%) Gradle
4 1 (1.32%) LoadRunner
4 1 (1.32%) REST Assured
4 1 (1.32%) SonarQube
4 1 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 13 (17.11%) Social Skills
2 11 (14.47%) Public Sector
3 10 (13.16%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (3.95%) Military
5 1 (1.32%) Advertising
5 1 (1.32%) Back Office
5 1 (1.32%) Banking
5 1 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.32%) Finance
5 1 (1.32%) Manufacturing
5 1 (1.32%) Police
Job Titles
1 13 (17.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 13 (17.11%) Network Engineer
2 10 (13.16%) Senior
3 9 (11.84%) Platform Engineer
3 9 (11.84%) Principal Engineer
4 7 (9.21%) Consultant
5 6 (7.89%) Architect
5 6 (7.89%) Azure Consultant
6 4 (5.26%) Administrator
6 4 (5.26%) Cloud Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Data Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Data Migration Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) GCP Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Migration Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Senior Consultant
7 3 (3.95%) Senior Platform Engineer
7 3 (3.95%) Support Engineer
8 2 (2.63%) Cloud Platform Engineer
8 2 (2.63%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.95%) .NET
2 2 (2.63%) LDAP
3 1 (1.32%) 802.1X
3 1 (1.32%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.32%) Jinja
3 1 (1.32%) NETCONF
3 1 (1.32%) Node.js
3 1 (1.32%) OAuth
3 1 (1.32%) OAuth2
3 1 (1.32%) OpenID
3 1 (1.32%) Playwright
3 1 (1.32%) Quarkus
3 1 (1.32%) React
3 1 (1.32%) REST
3 1 (1.32%) SAML
3 1 (1.32%) Spring
3 1 (1.32%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 19 (25.00%) PKI
2 18 (23.68%) Data Centre
3 4 (5.26%) Onboarding
3 4 (5.26%) Public Cloud
4 3 (3.95%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (2.63%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.63%) CMDB
5 2 (2.63%) Cyber Security Posture
5 2 (2.63%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (2.63%) Private Cloud
5 2 (2.63%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.63%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.32%) CAN bus
6 1 (1.32%) Clustering
6 1 (1.32%) IoT
6 1 (1.32%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 39 (51.32%) Windows
2 29 (38.16%) Linux
3 9 (11.84%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.63%) Data ONTAP
4 2 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (2.63%) Unix
4 2 (2.63%) Windows Server 2012
4 2 (2.63%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (2.63%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (1.32%) CentOS
5 1 (1.32%) Rocky
5 1 (1.32%) SUSE
5 1 (1.32%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.32%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (39.47%) Infrastructure as Code
2 25 (32.89%) Cybersecurity
3 22 (28.95%) Technical Leadership
4 21 (27.63%) Problem-Solving
5 19 (25.00%) CI/CD
5 19 (25.00%) Mentoring
5 19 (25.00%) Network Virtualisation
6 18 (23.68%) SIEM
7 17 (22.37%) Platform Engineering
7 17 (22.37%) Systems Engineering
8 16 (21.05%) DevSecOps
8 16 (21.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 13 (17.11%) Customer Requirements
10 12 (15.79%) Converged Infrastructure
11 11 (14.47%) Agile
11 11 (14.47%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (14.47%) Migration
12 10 (13.16%) Containerisation
13 9 (11.84%) Incident Response
13 9 (11.84%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 24 (31.58%) PowerShell
2 21 (27.63%) Bash
3 20 (26.32%) Python
4 3 (3.95%) SQL
5 2 (2.63%) Java
6 1 (1.32%) C
Qualifications
1 48 (63.16%) Security Cleared
2 38 (50.00%) DV Cleared
3 17 (22.37%) SC Cleared
4 10 (13.16%) VCAP
5 5 (6.58%) AWS Certification
5 5 (6.58%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (5.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 2 (2.63%) CCNP
7 2 (2.63%) CISSP
8 1 (1.32%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.32%) CCNA
8 1 (1.32%) CCSK
8 1 (1.32%) CEH
8 1 (1.32%) CISA
8 1 (1.32%) CISM
8 1 (1.32%) CompTIA CySA+
8 1 (1.32%) GIAC
8 1 (1.32%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (1.32%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (1.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.26%) QA
2 3 (3.95%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.63%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.63%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.32%) GDPR
4 1 (1.32%) HIPAA
4 1 (1.32%) NIST
4 1 (1.32%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.32%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.32%) RMADS
4 1 (1.32%) SLA
System Software
1 34 (44.74%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (39.47%) Active Directory
3 24 (31.58%) VMware NSX
4 20 (26.32%) vSphere
5 19 (25.00%) Hyper-V
6 14 (18.42%) Docker
7 4 (5.26%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (3.95%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (2.63%) VirtualBox
10 1 (1.32%) iptables
10 1 (1.32%) KVM
10 1 (1.32%) NFS
Systems Management
1 38 (50.00%) Terraform
2 31 (40.79%) Ansible
3 22 (28.95%) Kubernetes
4 12 (15.79%) VxRail
5 7 (9.21%) FortiGate
6 4 (5.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (3.95%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (2.63%) CASB
8 2 (2.63%) Grafana
8 2 (2.63%) McAfee ePO
8 2 (2.63%) Nagios
8 2 (2.63%) Prometheus
8 2 (2.63%) vCenter Server
9 1 (1.32%) Argo
9 1 (1.32%) Istio
9 1 (1.32%) SCCM
9 1 (1.32%) SCOM
9 1 (1.32%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 38 (50.00%) VMware
2 16 (21.05%) Cisco
2 16 (21.05%) Microsoft
3 8 (10.53%) Juniper
4 6 (7.89%) CyberArk
5 5 (6.58%) Zscaler
6 3 (3.95%) Google
6 3 (3.95%) Infoblox
6 3 (3.95%) InterSystems
6 3 (3.95%) Thales
7 2 (2.63%) F5
7 2 (2.63%) Fortinet
7 2 (2.63%) McAfee
7 2 (2.63%) NetApp
7 2 (2.63%) NetScout
7 2 (2.63%) Palo Alto
7 2 (2.63%) Splunk
8 1 (1.32%) Dynatrace
8 1 (1.32%) FireEye
8 1 (1.32%) Samsung