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 26 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 43 30
Rank change year-on-year -42 -13 +15
Contract jobs citing Firewall 60 91 163
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.13% 5.07% 5.27%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 24.10% 31.82% 34.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 63 114
10th Percentile £350 £376 £365
25th Percentile £500 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £688 £581 £600
90th Percentile £715 £645 £697
England median daily rate £513 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -2.38% +2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 9
10th Percentile £36.55 - £59.28
25th Percentile £37.00 - -
Median hourly rate £40.54 - £65.98
75th Percentile £43.84 - -
90th Percentile - - £76.25
England median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +43.11%

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 249 286 475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 8.82% 15.94% 15.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 197 295
10th Percentile £263 £300 £278
25th Percentile £413 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.70% -2.73% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £669
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 5 46
10th Percentile £12.43 £12.15 £40.00
25th Percentile £25.94 £12.50 £47.27
Median hourly rate £60.00 £75.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +32.77% +476.43%
75th Percentile £64.13 - £70.66
90th Percentile £67.27 - £76.25
England median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -2.86% -22.22% +133.16%

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 26 February 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
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 26 February 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
Wiltshire -6 24 £700 +16.67% 6
Somerset +1 12 £575 - 5
Bristol -31 9 £520 +20.46% 4
Gloucestershire -18 6 £513 -6.48% 8
Devon -2 4 £388 -6.06% 9
Dorset -13 4 £300 -36.00% 5
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 6 (10.00%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.33%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.67%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 14 (23.33%) Azure
2 7 (11.67%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (10.00%) AWS
3 6 (10.00%) Azure Sentinel
4 5 (8.33%) Azure Monitor
4 5 (8.33%) Entra ID
5 3 (5.00%) GCP
5 3 (5.00%) IaaS
5 3 (5.00%) PaaS
6 2 (3.33%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.67%) Mimecast
7 1 (1.67%) OCI
7 1 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 17 (28.33%) DNS
2 16 (26.67%) Network Security
3 9 (15.00%) DHCP
4 8 (13.33%) Wireless
5 6 (10.00%) HTTPS
5 6 (10.00%) VPN
6 3 (5.00%) BGP
6 3 (5.00%) Cisco Nexus
6 3 (5.00%) LAN
6 3 (5.00%) OSPF
6 3 (5.00%) WAN
7 2 (3.33%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (3.33%) Cisco IOS
7 2 (3.33%) VLAN
8 1 (1.67%) NAS
8 1 (1.67%) SDH
8 1 (1.67%) tcpdump
8 1 (1.67%) VoIP
8 1 (1.67%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (1.67%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.00%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.67%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (1.67%) Bitbucket
1 1 (1.67%) GitLab
1 1 (1.67%) Jenkins
1 1 (1.67%) JIRA
1 1 (1.67%) MSI
1 1 (1.67%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 24 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (15.00%) Analytical Skills
2 9 (15.00%) Documentation Skills
3 3 (5.00%) Public Sector
4 2 (3.33%) Finance
5 1 (1.67%) Back Office
5 1 (1.67%) Banking
5 1 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.67%) Legal
Job Titles
1 14 (23.33%) Architect
2 9 (15.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 6 (10.00%) Solutions Architect
3 6 (10.00%) Technical Architect
4 5 (8.33%) Analyst
4 5 (8.33%) Network Engineer
4 5 (8.33%) Security Engineer
5 3 (5.00%) Mobile Engineer
5 3 (5.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 3 (5.00%) Technical Support
6 2 (3.33%) Azure Engineer
6 2 (3.33%) Azure Security Engineer
6 2 (3.33%) SIEM Engineer
6 2 (3.33%) SOC Analyst
6 2 (3.33%) Support Engineer
6 2 (3.33%) Technical Solutions Architect
7 1 (1.67%) Data Centre Engineer
7 1 (1.67%) Desktop Support Engineer
7 1 (1.67%) Technical Business Analyst
7 1 (1.67%) Wintel Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (23.33%) OAuth
1 14 (23.33%) OAuth2
1 14 (23.33%) OpenID
1 14 (23.33%) SAML
2 6 (10.00%) 802.1X
3 3 (5.00%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (1.67%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (1.67%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.67%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (1.67%) LDAP
4 1 (1.67%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 8 (13.33%) Data Centre
2 6 (10.00%) IoT
3 5 (8.33%) Private Cloud
3 5 (8.33%) Replication
4 4 (6.67%) Hybrid Cloud
4 4 (6.67%) Security Posture
5 3 (5.00%) Cyber Threat
5 3 (5.00%) Mobile App
5 3 (5.00%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.67%) CCTV
6 1 (1.67%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.67%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.67%) Device Driver
6 1 (1.67%) Driving Licence
6 1 (1.67%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.67%) PKI
6 1 (1.67%) Product Ownership
6 1 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.67%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 28 (46.67%) Windows
2 24 (40.00%) Windows Server
3 5 (8.33%) Linux
4 3 (5.00%) Android
4 3 (5.00%) Apple iOS
5 1 (1.67%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.67%) Windows 10
5 1 (1.67%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (31.67%) Problem-Solving
2 17 (28.33%) Identity Access Management
3 16 (26.67%) RBAC
3 16 (26.67%) Zero Trust
4 15 (25.00%) Load Balancing
5 14 (23.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 12 (20.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 11 (18.33%) Infrastructure as Code
7 11 (18.33%) Technical Leadership
8 10 (16.67%) Mentoring
8 10 (16.67%) Security Architecture
9 9 (15.00%) Identity Management
10 8 (13.33%) Network Segmentation
10 8 (13.33%) SIEM
11 6 (10.00%) Architectural Patterns
11 6 (10.00%) Change Management
11 6 (10.00%) Performance Optimisation
11 6 (10.00%) Regulatory Compliance
11 6 (10.00%) Risk Assessment
11 6 (10.00%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 24 (40.00%) PowerShell
2 5 (8.33%) Bicep
2 5 (8.33%) Python
3 3 (5.00%) Java
3 3 (5.00%) Perl
4 1 (1.67%) Bash
4 1 (1.67%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.67%) SQL
Qualifications
1 33 (55.00%) Security Cleared
2 21 (35.00%) DV Cleared
3 15 (25.00%) Microsoft Certification
4 13 (21.67%) SC Cleared
5 4 (6.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (5.00%) Azure Certification
7 2 (3.33%) Degree
8 1 (1.67%) CCNP
8 1 (1.67%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (10.00%) NIST
2 3 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (5.00%) NCSC
3 2 (3.33%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.67%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.67%) GDPR
4 1 (1.67%) GRC
System Software
1 31 (51.67%) Active Directory
2 14 (23.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (10.00%) Hyper-V
4 5 (8.33%) VMware NSX
5 1 (1.67%) Docker
5 1 (1.67%) UAG
5 1 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (30.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 14 (23.33%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (13.33%) Terraform
4 5 (8.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.67%) Ansible
5 1 (1.67%) Grafana
5 1 (1.67%) Icinga
5 1 (1.67%) Kibana
5 1 (1.67%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.67%) logstash
5 1 (1.67%) McAfee ePO
5 1 (1.67%) SCCM
5 1 (1.67%) SCOM
Vendors
1 30 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 17 (28.33%) VMware
3 6 (10.00%) Cisco
3 6 (10.00%) ForeScout
4 4 (6.67%) Fortinet
5 2 (3.33%) CheckPoint
5 2 (3.33%) F5
5 2 (3.33%) Palo Alto
5 2 (3.33%) SolarWinds
6 1 (1.67%) Citrix
6 1 (1.67%) EMC
6 1 (1.67%) Google
6 1 (1.67%) Logitech
6 1 (1.67%) McAfee
6 1 (1.67%) Nokia
6 1 (1.67%) Sophos
6 1 (1.67%) Tenable
6 1 (1.67%) Veeam