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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 38 53
Rank change year-on-year -41 +15 -13
Contract jobs citing Firewall 73 81 111
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.07% 4.25% 3.77%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.26% 31.52% 22.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 46 86
10th Percentile £411 £322 £425
25th Percentile £463 £392 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.86% -1.25% +2.56%
75th Percentile £633 £584 £575
90th Percentile £706 £678 £665
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 0
10th Percentile £89.52 - -
25th Percentile £95.68 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 £17.79 -
Median % change year-on-year +455.48% - -
75th Percentile £100.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +116.67% +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 289 257 489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 8.18% 13.48% 16.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 168 323
10th Percentile £209 £225 £282
25th Percentile £350 £352 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.71% -2.33% +7.50%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £627
90th Percentile £691 £655 £675
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 2 38
10th Percentile £12.71 £22.51 £12.46
25th Percentile £18.25 £29.59 £15.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.40 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.02% -36.32% +4.84%
75th Percentile £77.50 £53.20 £71.25
90th Percentile £100.00 £60.28 £75.90
England median hourly rate £26.72 £45.00 £49.50
% change year-on-year -40.62% -9.09% -

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 -20 22 £556 +45.55% 9
Somerset -8 21 £638 +82.14% 13
Gloucestershire -11 11 £475 -9.52% 9
Wiltshire -33 10 £513 -3.53% 4
Dorset -12 2 - - 1
Devon -15 2 £490 +3.16% 6
Cornwall - 1 £505 - 2
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 (6.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.74%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.74%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.37%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 26 (35.62%) Azure
2 20 (27.40%) AWS
3 8 (10.96%) GCP
4 7 (9.59%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (6.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (6.85%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (5.48%) Entra ID
6 4 (5.48%) GitHub
6 4 (5.48%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 3 (4.11%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.74%) Google Compute Engine
8 2 (2.74%) OpenShift
9 1 (1.37%) Azure Stack
9 1 (1.37%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (1.37%) Mimecast
9 1 (1.37%) n8n
Communications & Networking
1 26 (35.62%) DNS
2 24 (32.88%) DHCP
3 23 (31.51%) TCP/IP
4 13 (17.81%) WAN
5 12 (16.44%) BGP
5 12 (16.44%) VSAN
6 9 (12.33%) VLAN
6 9 (12.33%) VPN
7 8 (10.96%) Network Security
8 6 (8.22%) LAN
9 4 (5.48%) OSPF
9 4 (5.48%) Wireless
10 3 (4.11%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (4.11%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (4.11%) HTTPS
10 3 (4.11%) MPLS
10 3 (4.11%) NAS
10 3 (4.11%) SAN
10 3 (4.11%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (2.74%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.37%) EDRMS
1 1 (1.37%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.37%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 6 (8.22%) JIRA
2 5 (6.85%) Git
2 5 (6.85%) Jenkins
3 4 (5.48%) GitLab
4 1 (1.37%) Burp Suite
4 1 (1.37%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.37%) Gatling
4 1 (1.37%) Gradle
4 1 (1.37%) LoadRunner
4 1 (1.37%) REST Assured
4 1 (1.37%) SonarQube
4 1 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 13 (17.81%) Social Skills
2 10 (13.70%) Analytical Skills
2 10 (13.70%) Public Sector
3 3 (4.11%) Military
4 1 (1.37%) Advertising
4 1 (1.37%) Back Office
4 1 (1.37%) Banking
4 1 (1.37%) Finance
4 1 (1.37%) Manufacturing
4 1 (1.37%) Police
Job Titles
1 14 (19.18%) Network Engineer
2 12 (16.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 9 (12.33%) Senior
4 7 (9.59%) Consultant
4 7 (9.59%) Principal Engineer
5 6 (8.22%) Azure Consultant
5 6 (8.22%) Platform Engineer
6 4 (5.48%) Administrator
6 4 (5.48%) Architect
7 3 (4.11%) Cloud Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Data Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Data Migration Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) GCP Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Migration Engineer
7 3 (4.11%) Senior Consultant
7 3 (4.11%) Support Engineer
8 2 (2.74%) Cloud Network Engineer
8 2 (2.74%) IT Engineer
8 2 (2.74%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (4.11%) .NET
1 3 (4.11%) 802.1X
2 2 (2.74%) LDAP
3 1 (1.37%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.37%) Jinja
3 1 (1.37%) NETCONF
3 1 (1.37%) Node.js
3 1 (1.37%) Playwright
3 1 (1.37%) Quarkus
3 1 (1.37%) React
3 1 (1.37%) REST
3 1 (1.37%) Spring
3 1 (1.37%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 15 (20.55%) Data Centre
1 15 (20.55%) PKI
2 4 (5.48%) Onboarding
3 3 (4.11%) IoT
3 3 (4.11%) Linux Command Line
3 3 (4.11%) Public Cloud
3 3 (4.11%) Security Posture
4 2 (2.74%) Cloud Native
4 2 (2.74%) CMDB
4 2 (2.74%) Cyber Security Posture
4 2 (2.74%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (2.74%) Private Cloud
4 2 (2.74%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.37%) CAN bus
5 1 (1.37%) Clustering
5 1 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.37%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 33 (45.21%) Windows
2 24 (32.88%) Linux
3 8 (10.96%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.74%) Data ONTAP
4 2 (2.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (2.74%) Unix
4 2 (2.74%) Windows Server 2012
4 2 (2.74%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (1.37%) CentOS
5 1 (1.37%) Rocky
5 1 (1.37%) SUSE
5 1 (1.37%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.37%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (34.25%) Infrastructure as Code
2 22 (30.14%) Cybersecurity
3 19 (26.03%) Problem-Solving
4 16 (21.92%) CI/CD
4 16 (21.92%) Network Virtualisation
4 16 (21.92%) Technical Leadership
5 15 (20.55%) Mentoring
6 14 (19.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 14 (19.18%) SIEM
7 13 (17.81%) Platform Engineering
7 13 (17.81%) Systems Engineering
8 12 (16.44%) DevSecOps
9 11 (15.07%) Migration
10 10 (13.70%) Agile
10 10 (13.70%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (13.70%) Customer Requirements
11 9 (12.33%) Analytics
11 9 (12.33%) Containerisation
11 9 (12.33%) DevOps
11 9 (12.33%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 19 (26.03%) PowerShell
2 17 (23.29%) Bash
3 16 (21.92%) Python
4 3 (4.11%) SQL
5 2 (2.74%) Java
6 1 (1.37%) C
Qualifications
1 43 (58.90%) Security Cleared
2 32 (43.84%) DV Cleared
3 17 (23.29%) SC Cleared
4 7 (9.59%) VCAP
5 5 (6.85%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (4.11%) AWS Certification
6 3 (4.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 2 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (2.74%) CCNP
7 2 (2.74%) CISSP
8 1 (1.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 1 (1.37%) CCNA
8 1 (1.37%) CEH
8 1 (1.37%) CISA
8 1 (1.37%) CISM
8 1 (1.37%) GIAC
8 1 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (1.37%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (1.37%) SANS
8 1 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (5.48%) QA
2 3 (4.11%) Data Quality
3 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (2.74%) GDPR
3 2 (2.74%) NIST
3 2 (2.74%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.37%) GRC
4 1 (1.37%) HIPAA
4 1 (1.37%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.37%) RMADS
4 1 (1.37%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (41.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 24 (32.88%) Active Directory
3 19 (26.03%) VMware NSX
4 16 (21.92%) Hyper-V
4 16 (21.92%) vSphere
5 11 (15.07%) Docker
6 4 (5.48%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (4.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (2.74%) VirtualBox
9 1 (1.37%) iptables
9 1 (1.37%) KVM
9 1 (1.37%) NFS
Systems Management
1 34 (46.58%) Terraform
2 27 (36.99%) Ansible
3 18 (24.66%) Kubernetes
4 8 (10.96%) VxRail
5 7 (9.59%) FortiGate
6 3 (4.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (2.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (2.74%) CASB
7 2 (2.74%) Grafana
7 2 (2.74%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (2.74%) Nagios
7 2 (2.74%) Prometheus
7 2 (2.74%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (2.74%) vCenter Server
8 1 (1.37%) Argo
8 1 (1.37%) Istio
8 1 (1.37%) SCCM
8 1 (1.37%) SCOM
8 1 (1.37%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 33 (45.21%) VMware
2 16 (21.92%) Cisco
3 15 (20.55%) Microsoft
4 8 (10.96%) Juniper
5 5 (6.85%) CyberArk
5 5 (6.85%) Zscaler
6 3 (4.11%) ForeScout
6 3 (4.11%) Fortinet
6 3 (4.11%) Google
6 3 (4.11%) Infoblox
6 3 (4.11%) InterSystems
6 3 (4.11%) Palo Alto
7 2 (2.74%) F5
7 2 (2.74%) McAfee
7 2 (2.74%) NetApp
7 2 (2.74%) NetScout
7 2 (2.74%) Splunk
7 2 (2.74%) Thales
8 1 (1.37%) Remedy
8 1 (1.37%) Siemens