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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 52 55
Rank change year-on-year -22 +3 -13
Contract jobs citing Firewall 86 67 96
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.35% 3.44% 3.54%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.39% 26.48% 22.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 35 77
10th Percentile £421 £321 £425
25th Percentile £466 £406 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £553 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.60% - +2.04%
75th Percentile £688 £575 £575
90th Percentile £727 £656 £663
England median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 0
10th Percentile £89.50 - -
25th Percentile £90.63 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 £17.79 -
Median % change year-on-year +455.48% - -
75th Percentile £99.71 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
England median hourly rate £67.00 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +123.33% +9.09% -58.32%

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 314 253 434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 8.58% 13.01% 16.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 160 270
10th Percentile £210 £213 £330
25th Percentile £382 £320 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -5.71% -
75th Percentile £638 £613 £617
90th Percentile £722 £669 £675
England median daily rate £500 £492 £505
% change year-on-year +1.63% -2.57% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 4 38
10th Percentile £12.71 £26.70 £12.19
25th Percentile £19.33 £40.07 £13.03
Median hourly rate £59.25 £57.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.04% -11.54% +15.06%
75th Percentile £90.00 £65.00 £71.25
90th Percentile £100.00 - £75.00
England median hourly rate £27.11 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -36.21% -25.89% +1.52%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -1 31 £683 +95.21% 14
Bristol -17 23 £623 +66.00% 9
Gloucestershire 0 12 £513 -5.96% 5
Wiltshire -25 12 £525 +1.20% 7
Dorset -11 2 - - 1
Devon -18 1 £490 +3.16% 5
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 4 (4.65%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.16%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 32 (37.21%) Azure
2 31 (36.05%) AWS
3 13 (15.12%) GCP
4 7 (8.14%) Azure Sentinel
4 7 (8.14%) GitHub
5 6 (6.98%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (6.98%) Entra ID
5 6 (6.98%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (6.98%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 5 (5.81%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (5.81%) Azure Monitor
6 5 (5.81%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
7 2 (2.33%) Google Compute Engine
7 2 (2.33%) OpenShift
8 1 (1.16%) Azure Stack
8 1 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (1.16%) Mimecast
8 1 (1.16%) n8n
Communications & Networking
1 41 (47.67%) DNS
2 37 (43.02%) TCP/IP
3 33 (38.37%) DHCP
4 18 (20.93%) VSAN
5 13 (15.12%) BGP
5 13 (15.12%) WAN
6 12 (13.95%) VLAN
6 12 (13.95%) VPN
7 6 (6.98%) LAN
8 5 (5.81%) OSPF
9 4 (4.65%) Network Security
10 3 (3.49%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (3.49%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (3.49%) MPLS
10 3 (3.49%) NAS
10 3 (3.49%) SAN
10 3 (3.49%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (2.33%) DMVPN
11 2 (2.33%) SSL
11 2 (2.33%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.49%) EDRMS
2 2 (2.33%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (1.16%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.16%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 8 (9.30%) Jenkins
2 7 (8.14%) GitLab
3 6 (6.98%) JIRA
4 5 (5.81%) Git
5 1 (1.16%) Burp Suite
5 1 (1.16%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.16%) Gatling
5 1 (1.16%) Gradle
5 1 (1.16%) LoadRunner
5 1 (1.16%) REST Assured
5 1 (1.16%) SonarQube
5 1 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 15 (17.44%) Social Skills
2 11 (12.79%) Public Sector
3 9 (10.47%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (3.49%) Banking
4 3 (3.49%) Finance
4 3 (3.49%) Military
5 2 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.16%) Advertising
6 1 (1.16%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.16%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.16%) Police
Job Titles
1 15 (17.44%) Network Engineer
2 14 (16.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 13 (15.12%) Platform Engineer
4 11 (12.79%) Principal Engineer
4 11 (12.79%) Senior
5 8 (9.30%) Architect
6 7 (8.14%) Consultant
7 6 (6.98%) Azure Consultant
8 5 (5.81%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) QA Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) QA Test Engineer
8 5 (5.81%) Test Engineer
9 4 (4.65%) Administrator
9 4 (4.65%) Solutions Architect
10 3 (3.49%) Data Migration Engineer
10 3 (3.49%) GCP Engineer
10 3 (3.49%) Migration Engineer
10 3 (3.49%) Senior Consultant
10 3 (3.49%) Senior Network Engineer
10 3 (3.49%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (53.49%) Terraform
2 3 (3.49%) .NET
3 2 (2.33%) LDAP
4 1 (1.16%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (1.16%) Jinja
4 1 (1.16%) NETCONF
4 1 (1.16%) Node.js
4 1 (1.16%) OAuth
4 1 (1.16%) OAuth2
4 1 (1.16%) OpenID
4 1 (1.16%) OpenTofu
4 1 (1.16%) Playwright
4 1 (1.16%) Quarkus
4 1 (1.16%) React
4 1 (1.16%) REST
4 1 (1.16%) SAML
4 1 (1.16%) Spring
4 1 (1.16%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 20 (23.26%) PKI
2 19 (22.09%) Data Centre
3 6 (6.98%) Public Cloud
4 4 (4.65%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (4.65%) Linux Command Line
4 4 (4.65%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.33%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.33%) CMDB
5 2 (2.33%) Cyber Security Posture
5 2 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.33%) Private Cloud
5 2 (2.33%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.16%) CAN bus
6 1 (1.16%) Clustering
6 1 (1.16%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 41 (47.67%) Windows
2 36 (41.86%) Linux
3 7 (8.14%) Windows Server
4 5 (5.81%) Unix
5 2 (2.33%) Data ONTAP
5 2 (2.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (2.33%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (1.16%) CentOS
6 1 (1.16%) Rocky
6 1 (1.16%) SUSE
6 1 (1.16%) Ubuntu
6 1 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 1 (1.16%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (41.86%) Infrastructure as Code
2 30 (34.88%) Cybersecurity
3 26 (30.23%) CI/CD
3 26 (30.23%) Technical Leadership
4 22 (25.58%) Platform Engineering
5 21 (24.42%) Mentoring
5 21 (24.42%) Network Virtualisation
6 20 (23.26%) DevSecOps
6 20 (23.26%) Problem-Solving
6 20 (23.26%) SIEM
7 19 (22.09%) Systems Engineering
8 18 (20.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 15 (17.44%) Customer Requirements
10 14 (16.28%) Converged Infrastructure
11 12 (13.95%) DevOps
11 12 (13.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 11 (12.79%) Agile
12 11 (12.79%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (12.79%) IT Strategy
12 11 (12.79%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 27 (31.40%) PowerShell
2 26 (30.23%) Python
3 25 (29.07%) Bash
4 3 (3.49%) SQL
5 2 (2.33%) Java
5 2 (2.33%) Shell Script
6 1 (1.16%) C
Qualifications
1 56 (65.12%) Security Cleared
2 43 (50.00%) DV Cleared
3 20 (23.26%) SC Cleared
4 12 (13.95%) VCAP
5 9 (10.47%) AWS Certification
6 5 (5.81%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (4.65%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (2.33%) CCNP
8 2 (2.33%) CISSP
9 1 (1.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.16%) CCNA
9 1 (1.16%) CEH
9 1 (1.16%) CISA
9 1 (1.16%) CISM
9 1 (1.16%) GIAC
9 1 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (1.16%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (1.16%) SANS
9 1 (1.16%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.14%) QA
2 3 (3.49%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.49%) SLA
3 2 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (2.33%) NIST
4 1 (1.16%) GDPR
4 1 (1.16%) HIPAA
4 1 (1.16%) NCSC
4 1 (1.16%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.16%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.16%) RMADS
System Software
1 39 (45.35%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (34.88%) Active Directory
3 25 (29.07%) VMware NSX
4 22 (25.58%) vSphere
5 20 (23.26%) Hyper-V
6 14 (16.28%) Docker
7 4 (4.65%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (3.49%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (3.49%) VirtualBox
9 1 (1.16%) iptables
9 1 (1.16%) KVM
9 1 (1.16%) NFS
Systems Management
1 38 (44.19%) Ansible
2 29 (33.72%) Kubernetes
3 14 (16.28%) VxRail
4 8 (9.30%) FortiGate
5 4 (4.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (3.49%) Istio
6 3 (3.49%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (3.49%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (2.33%) CASB
7 2 (2.33%) Grafana
7 2 (2.33%) Nagios
7 2 (2.33%) Prometheus
7 2 (2.33%) vCenter Server
8 1 (1.16%) Argo
8 1 (1.16%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (1.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 43 (50.00%) VMware
2 17 (19.77%) Cisco
3 16 (18.60%) Microsoft
4 8 (9.30%) CyberArk
4 8 (9.30%) Juniper
5 5 (5.81%) Zscaler
6 3 (3.49%) Databricks
6 3 (3.49%) Dynatrace
6 3 (3.49%) F5
6 3 (3.49%) Fortinet
6 3 (3.49%) Google
6 3 (3.49%) Infoblox
6 3 (3.49%) InterSystems
6 3 (3.49%) MuleSoft
6 3 (3.49%) Thales
7 2 (2.33%) NetApp
7 2 (2.33%) NetScout
7 2 (2.33%) Palo Alto
7 2 (2.33%) Splunk
8 1 (1.16%) Samsung