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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 39 46
Rank change year-on-year -39 +7 -5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 72 85 131
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.00% 4.50% 4.08%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.17% 31.60% 23.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 51 105
10th Percentile £413 £325 £413
25th Percentile £463 £416 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +2.04%
75th Percentile £623 £613 £575
90th Percentile £705 £675 £663
England median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 0
10th Percentile £94.77 - -
25th Percentile £98.13 - -
Median hourly rate £100.00 £17.79 -
Median % change year-on-year +462.11% - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £61.25 £30.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +104.17% -50.00% -4.08%

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 286 269 554
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 7.95% 14.23% 17.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 179 356
10th Percentile £210 £233 £313
25th Percentile £363 £363 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £535 £536
Median % change year-on-year -7.48% -0.23% +4.63%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £688 £670 £681
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 3 46
10th Percentile £12.93 £13.09 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £14.85 £15.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £17.79 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +265.37% -68.51% -10.33%
75th Percentile £75.00 £41.40 £71.10
90th Percentile £100.00 £55.56 £75.00
England median hourly rate £26.66 £42.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -37.27% -1.16% +56.36%

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 13 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
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 13 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 -19 25 £554 +39.46% 6
Somerset -11 15 £538 +13.16% 17
Wiltshire -27 12 £600 +4.35% 5
Gloucestershire -16 11 £475 -11.21% 9
Dorset -10 2 - - 4
Devon -18 2 £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 3 (4.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.78%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.78%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.39%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 26 (36.11%) Azure
2 16 (22.22%) AWS
3 8 (11.11%) GCP
4 7 (9.72%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (6.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (6.94%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (5.56%) Entra ID
6 4 (5.56%) GitHub
6 4 (5.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 3 (4.17%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.78%) Google Compute Engine
9 1 (1.39%) Azure Stack
9 1 (1.39%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (1.39%) Mimecast
9 1 (1.39%) n8n
9 1 (1.39%) OCI
9 1 (1.39%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 21 (29.17%) DHCP
2 20 (27.78%) DNS
3 17 (23.61%) TCP/IP
4 14 (19.44%) Network Security
4 14 (19.44%) WAN
5 9 (12.50%) BGP
5 9 (12.50%) VLAN
5 9 (12.50%) VPN
6 7 (9.72%) LAN
6 7 (9.72%) VSAN
6 7 (9.72%) Wireless
7 6 (8.33%) HTTPS
8 4 (5.56%) NAS
8 4 (5.56%) OSPF
8 4 (5.56%) SAN
9 3 (4.17%) Cisco IOS
9 3 (4.17%) Cisco Nexus
9 3 (4.17%) Software-Defined Networking
10 2 (2.78%) Cisco ISE
10 2 (2.78%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.39%) EDRMS
1 1 (1.39%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.39%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.39%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 6 (8.33%) Jenkins
1 6 (8.33%) JIRA
2 5 (6.94%) Git
2 5 (6.94%) GitLab
3 1 (1.39%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.39%) Burp Suite
3 1 (1.39%) Cucumber
3 1 (1.39%) Gatling
3 1 (1.39%) Gradle
3 1 (1.39%) LoadRunner
3 1 (1.39%) REST Assured
3 1 (1.39%) SonarQube
3 1 (1.39%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 9 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (9.72%) Public Sector
4 1 (1.39%) Advertising
4 1 (1.39%) Back Office
4 1 (1.39%) Banking
4 1 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (1.39%) Finance
4 1 (1.39%) Manufacturing
4 1 (1.39%) Police
Job Titles
1 13 (18.06%) Network Engineer
2 11 (15.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 8 (11.11%) Architect
3 8 (11.11%) Senior
4 7 (9.72%) Consultant
5 6 (8.33%) Azure Consultant
6 5 (6.94%) Technical Architect
7 4 (5.56%) Principal Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Cloud Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Data Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Data Migration Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) GCP Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Migration Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Senior Consultant
8 3 (4.17%) Support Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) IT Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) QA Test Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) Senior Platform Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (8.33%) 802.1X
2 3 (4.17%) .NET
3 2 (2.78%) LDAP
3 2 (2.78%) OAuth
3 2 (2.78%) OAuth2
3 2 (2.78%) OpenID
3 2 (2.78%) SAML
4 1 (1.39%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (1.39%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (1.39%) Jinja
4 1 (1.39%) NETCONF
4 1 (1.39%) Node.js
4 1 (1.39%) Playwright
4 1 (1.39%) Quarkus
4 1 (1.39%) React
4 1 (1.39%) REST
4 1 (1.39%) Spring
4 1 (1.39%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 13 (18.06%) Data Centre
2 7 (9.72%) PKI
3 6 (8.33%) IoT
4 4 (5.56%) Onboarding
5 3 (4.17%) Cloud Native
5 3 (4.17%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (4.17%) Private Cloud
5 3 (4.17%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.78%) CMDB
6 2 (2.78%) Cyber Security Posture
6 2 (2.78%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (1.39%) CAN bus
7 1 (1.39%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.39%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.39%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 31 (43.06%) Windows
2 21 (29.17%) Linux
3 11 (15.28%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.78%) Data ONTAP
4 2 (2.78%) Unix
4 2 (2.78%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (1.39%) CentOS
5 1 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.39%) Rocky
5 1 (1.39%) SUSE
5 1 (1.39%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.39%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (30.56%) Infrastructure as Code
2 18 (25.00%) Cybersecurity
2 18 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
3 14 (19.44%) CI/CD
3 14 (19.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 14 (19.44%) Technical Leadership
4 12 (16.67%) Zero Trust
5 11 (15.28%) Migration
5 11 (15.28%) Network Virtualisation
5 11 (15.28%) Security Architecture
6 10 (13.89%) Identity Access Management
6 10 (13.89%) Mentoring
7 9 (12.50%) Analytics
7 9 (12.50%) DevOps
7 9 (12.50%) Incident Response
7 9 (12.50%) Knowledge Transfer
7 9 (12.50%) SIEM
7 9 (12.50%) Validation
8 8 (11.11%) Agile
8 8 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 15 (20.83%) PowerShell
2 11 (15.28%) Python
3 10 (13.89%) Bash
4 4 (5.56%) SQL
5 2 (2.78%) Java
6 1 (1.39%) C
Qualifications
1 39 (54.17%) Security Cleared
2 28 (38.89%) DV Cleared
3 14 (19.44%) SC Cleared
4 5 (6.94%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (6.94%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (4.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 2 (2.78%) CCNP
6 2 (2.78%) CISSP
6 2 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (2.78%) VCAP
7 1 (1.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.39%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.39%) CCNA
7 1 (1.39%) CEH
7 1 (1.39%) CISA
7 1 (1.39%) CISM
7 1 (1.39%) GIAC
7 1 (1.39%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (1.39%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (1.39%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (5.56%) QA
2 3 (4.17%) Data Quality
3 2 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (2.78%) GDPR
3 2 (2.78%) NIST
3 2 (2.78%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.39%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (1.39%) GRC
4 1 (1.39%) HIPAA
4 1 (1.39%) NIST 800
4 1 (1.39%) RMADS
4 1 (1.39%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (40.28%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (30.56%) Active Directory
3 17 (23.61%) VMware NSX
4 12 (16.67%) Hyper-V
5 11 (15.28%) vSphere
6 8 (11.11%) Docker
7 5 (6.94%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (4.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (2.78%) VirtualBox
10 1 (1.39%) iptables
10 1 (1.39%) KVM
10 1 (1.39%) NFS
Systems Management
1 28 (38.89%) Terraform
2 20 (27.78%) Ansible
3 12 (16.67%) Kubernetes
4 7 (9.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 7 (9.72%) FortiGate
5 4 (5.56%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (4.17%) Grafana
6 3 (4.17%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (4.17%) VxRail
7 2 (2.78%) CASB
7 2 (2.78%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (2.78%) Nagios
7 2 (2.78%) Prometheus
7 2 (2.78%) vCenter Server
8 1 (1.39%) Argo
8 1 (1.39%) Istio
8 1 (1.39%) logstash
8 1 (1.39%) SCCM
8 1 (1.39%) SCOM
8 1 (1.39%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 30 (41.67%) VMware
2 17 (23.61%) Microsoft
3 14 (19.44%) Cisco
4 6 (8.33%) ForeScout
5 5 (6.94%) Juniper
5 5 (6.94%) Zscaler
6 4 (5.56%) CyberArk
7 3 (4.17%) Fortinet
7 3 (4.17%) Google
7 3 (4.17%) Infoblox
7 3 (4.17%) InterSystems
7 3 (4.17%) Palo Alto
8 2 (2.78%) F5
8 2 (2.78%) McAfee
8 2 (2.78%) NetApp
8 2 (2.78%) NetScout
8 2 (2.78%) Splunk
9 1 (1.39%) MuleSoft
9 1 (1.39%) ServiceNow
9 1 (1.39%) SolarWinds