Firewall Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Firewall
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Firewall skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 49 41
Rank change year-on-year -37 -8 -10
Contract jobs citing Firewall 761 683 755
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.70% 4.42% 4.21%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.88% 32.84% 29.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 487 412 451
10th Percentile £350 £293 £300
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £510
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -4.90% +6.58%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £650 £659
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 24 27
10th Percentile £28.80 £14.48 £20.00
25th Percentile £44.86 £23.20 £20.72
Median hourly rate £65.45 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.17% -36.84% -28.01%
75th Percentile £71.43 £49.25 £81.12
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK median hourly rate £66.35 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +121.15% -14.29% -46.96%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,941 2,080 2,595
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.43% 13.47% 14.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,614 1,307 1,433
10th Percentile £210 £200 £205
25th Percentile £353 £323 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +9.89%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £595
90th Percentile £650 £640 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 135 216
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £21.37
Median hourly rate £29.50 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -30.59% -25.89% -0.26%
75th Percentile £67.47 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.64 £80.81 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £42.50 £50.50
% change year-on-year -23.53% -15.84% -10.60%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Firewall relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Firewall job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Firewall
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Firewall.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Firewall

Firewall
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firewall in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 20 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Firewall in the UK excluding London

Firewall
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Firewall.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Firewall

Firewall
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firewall in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 20 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firewall in the UK excluding London

Firewall
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Firewall within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 20 September 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
North of England -6 279 £500 +3.09% 127
South East -47 169 £525 +5.00% 212
North West +7 163 £501 +5.53% 79
Yorkshire -29 94 £483 -1.43% 36
South West -9 89 £560 +15.46% 75
Midlands -79 84 £465 -2.05% 111
East of England -4 75 £530 +5.74% 53
West Midlands -80 62 £430 -9.47% 72
Scotland -21 60 £400 -11.11% 43
North East -17 29 £500 -13.04% 14
East Midlands -13 21 £500 +1.63% 39
Wales -14 9 £425 +112.50% 11
Channel Islands -7 2 £600 -17.24% 1
Northern Ireland -9 1 - - 12
Firewall
UK

Firewall
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 25 (3.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 20 (2.63%) Confluence
3 14 (1.84%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.31%) Apache
5 9 (1.18%) nginx
6 8 (1.05%) SAS
7 4 (0.53%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.53%) IIS
8 3 (0.39%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.26%) CloudStack
9 2 (0.26%) CMS
9 2 (0.26%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.13%) CICS
10 1 (0.13%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
10 1 (0.13%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 20 (2.63%) MS Visio
2 11 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.26%) Dynamics GP
3 2 (0.26%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 270 (35.48%) Azure
2 163 (21.42%) AWS
3 86 (11.30%) Entra ID
4 70 (9.20%) Microsoft 365
5 62 (8.15%) GCP
6 43 (5.65%) IaaS
7 39 (5.12%) SaaS
8 36 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
9 33 (4.34%) Azure Monitor
10 32 (4.20%) GitHub
10 32 (4.20%) OCI
11 23 (3.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 22 (2.89%) Azure Sentinel
13 19 (2.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 19 (2.50%) PaaS
14 17 (2.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 16 (2.10%) Serverless
16 15 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
17 14 (1.84%) Amazon EKS
17 14 (1.84%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 228 (29.96%) DNS
2 216 (28.38%) VPN
3 211 (27.73%) Network Security
4 201 (26.41%) WAN
5 169 (22.21%) LAN
6 146 (19.19%) DHCP
7 130 (17.08%) TCP/IP
8 127 (16.69%) BGP
9 116 (15.24%) Wireless
10 111 (14.59%) VLAN
11 109 (14.32%) OSPF
12 84 (11.04%) Wi-Fi
13 80 (10.51%) SD-WAN
14 60 (7.88%) BIG-IP
15 55 (7.23%) Cisco ASA
16 53 (6.96%) IPsec
17 52 (6.83%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 49 (6.44%) SSL
19 45 (5.91%) Cisco Nexus
20 44 (5.78%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.23%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.58%) Relational Database
3 10 (1.31%) Data Lake
4 9 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (1.05%) NoSQL
6 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.39%) EDRMS
7 3 (0.39%) MySQL
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.13%) DataStage
9 1 (0.13%) Delta Lake
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.13%) Power BI
9 1 (0.13%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 67 (8.80%) JIRA
2 36 (4.73%) GitLab
3 35 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 16 (2.10%) Git
5 9 (1.18%) Bitbucket
5 9 (1.18%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.79%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.39%) Maven
9 2 (0.26%) Burp Suite
9 2 (0.26%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.26%) Gatling
9 2 (0.26%) Gradle
9 2 (0.26%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.26%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.13%) Postman
10 1 (0.13%) Snyk
General
1 175 (23.00%) Social Skills
2 86 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
3 78 (10.25%) Finance
4 54 (7.10%) Public Sector
5 35 (4.60%) Banking
6 30 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.42%) Manufacturing
7 26 (3.42%) Telecoms
8 16 (2.10%) Legal
9 15 (1.97%) Military
10 11 (1.45%) Aerospace
11 10 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (1.05%) Retail
13 7 (0.92%) Police
14 4 (0.53%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.53%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (0.53%) Law
14 4 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 235 (30.88%) Network Engineer
2 122 (16.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 120 (15.77%) Senior
4 76 (9.99%) Architect
5 56 (7.36%) Security Engineer
6 51 (6.70%) Senior Network Engineer
7 41 (5.39%) Cloud Engineer
8 37 (4.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 36 (4.73%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 30 (3.94%) Lead
11 26 (3.42%) Network Security Engineer
11 26 (3.42%) Platform Engineer
12 25 (3.29%) Network Architect
13 21 (2.76%) Azure Engineer
13 21 (2.76%) Consultant
13 21 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
14 18 (2.37%) Technical Architect
15 16 (2.10%) Developer
15 16 (2.10%) Support Engineer
16 15 (1.97%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 165 (21.68%) Terraform
2 24 (3.15%) 802.1X
3 21 (2.76%) ARM Templates
4 15 (1.97%) SAML
5 10 (1.31%) React
6 9 (1.18%) YAML
7 8 (1.05%) REST
8 7 (0.92%) OAuth
8 7 (0.92%) OpenID
9 6 (0.79%) Kafka
9 6 (0.79%) LDAP
9 6 (0.79%) ModSecurity
9 6 (0.79%) OAuth2
9 6 (0.79%) SailPoint
10 5 (0.66%) Azure Blueprints
10 5 (0.66%) gRPC
10 5 (0.66%) Middleware
10 5 (0.66%) OpenTelemetry
11 4 (0.53%) CSS
11 4 (0.53%) Redfish
Miscellaneous
1 169 (22.21%) Data Centre
2 65 (8.54%) Hybrid Cloud
3 56 (7.36%) PKI
4 49 (6.44%) Cloud Native
5 38 (4.99%) Security Posture
6 33 (4.34%) Operational Technology
7 25 (3.29%) Management Information System
7 25 (3.29%) Public Cloud
8 23 (3.02%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.63%) Driving Licence
10 19 (2.50%) SCADA
10 19 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
11 17 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (2.10%) Enterprise Storage
13 15 (1.97%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 13 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
15 12 (1.58%) Replication
16 11 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
16 11 (1.45%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 216 (28.38%) Windows
2 152 (19.97%) Linux
3 103 (13.53%) Windows Server
4 32 (4.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (2.23%) Unix
6 13 (1.71%) CentOS
7 12 (1.58%) Mac OS
7 12 (1.58%) Ubuntu
8 10 (1.31%) VMS
9 9 (1.18%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.92%) Rocky
11 5 (0.66%) Android
11 5 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.53%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
14 2 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.26%) Solaris
14 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (22.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 160 (21.02%) CI/CD
3 155 (20.37%) Infrastructure as Code
4 139 (18.27%) DevOps
5 130 (17.08%) Cybersecurity
6 127 (16.69%) Load Balancing
6 127 (16.69%) Problem-Solving
7 104 (13.67%) ITIL
8 100 (13.14%) Agile
9 94 (12.35%) Migration
10 83 (10.91%) High Availability
11 80 (10.51%) Zero Trust
12 79 (10.38%) SIEM
13 76 (9.99%) Technical Leadership
14 71 (9.33%) Project Delivery
15 70 (9.20%) Change Management
16 68 (8.94%) Validation
17 67 (8.80%) Stakeholder Management
18 65 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
19 61 (8.02%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 159 (20.89%) Python
2 137 (18.00%) PowerShell
3 81 (10.64%) Bash
4 31 (4.07%) Bicep
5 29 (3.81%) Java
6 26 (3.42%) SQL
7 15 (1.97%) ActionScript
8 5 (0.66%) Go
8 5 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (0.66%) Search Processing Language
8 5 (0.66%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.53%) Groovy
9 4 (0.53%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.53%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.39%) Perl
11 2 (0.26%) C
11 2 (0.26%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.13%) C++
12 1 (0.13%) COBOL
12 1 (0.13%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 301 (39.55%) Security Cleared
2 193 (25.36%) SC Cleared
3 147 (19.32%) Cisco Certification
4 102 (13.40%) CCNP
5 94 (12.35%) DV Cleared
6 66 (8.67%) CCNA
7 60 (7.88%) Degree
8 44 (5.78%) CISSP
9 36 (4.73%) AWS Certification
10 33 (4.34%) Azure Certification
11 20 (2.63%) CCIE
12 19 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
13 16 (2.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 14 (1.84%) Network+ Certification
15 12 (1.58%) VCAP
16 11 (1.45%) CISM
16 11 (1.45%) Server+ Certification
17 10 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
18 9 (1.18%) CEH
19 7 (0.92%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (4.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (4.34%) NIST
3 20 (2.63%) NCSC
4 19 (2.50%) GDPR
5 15 (1.97%) QA
6 13 (1.71%) PCI DSS
7 10 (1.31%) JSP 440
8 9 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (1.18%) SLA
9 8 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.92%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.66%) Data Quality
11 5 (0.66%) NIST 800
12 4 (0.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 4 (0.53%) GxP
12 4 (0.53%) HIPAA
13 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 2 (0.26%) GRC
14 2 (0.26%) SOC 2
15 1 (0.13%) ISA99
System Software
1 147 (19.32%) Active Directory
2 137 (18.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 59 (7.75%) Hyper-V
4 50 (6.57%) VMware NSX
5 45 (5.91%) Docker
6 44 (5.78%) vSphere
7 34 (4.47%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (2.50%) Firmware
8 19 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (1.05%) Virtual Servers
10 7 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.53%) FreeRADIUS
12 3 (0.39%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.39%) Postfix
12 3 (0.39%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.26%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.26%) Squid
14 1 (0.13%) iptables
14 1 (0.13%) KVM
Systems Management
1 134 (17.61%) Ansible
2 84 (11.04%) Kubernetes
3 36 (4.73%) FortiGate
4 30 (3.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (3.42%) Progress Chef
6 20 (2.63%) Grafana
6 20 (2.63%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (2.37%) Prometheus
8 17 (2.23%) VxRail
9 15 (1.97%) vCenter Server
10 14 (1.84%) SCCM
11 12 (1.58%) CASB
12 9 (1.18%) Argo
13 8 (1.05%) Istio
14 7 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.92%) NetBackup
14 7 (0.92%) Packer
15 6 (0.79%) Cisco Prime
16 5 (0.66%) Nagios
16 5 (0.66%) QRadar
Vendors
1 277 (36.40%) Cisco
2 196 (25.76%) Microsoft
3 168 (22.08%) VMware
4 156 (20.50%) Palo Alto
5 107 (14.06%) F5
6 73 (9.59%) Juniper
7 70 (9.20%) Fortinet
8 65 (8.54%) CheckPoint
9 42 (5.52%) Aruba
9 42 (5.52%) SolarWinds
10 38 (4.99%) ServiceNow
11 37 (4.86%) Splunk
12 35 (4.60%) Google
13 29 (3.81%) Arista
13 29 (3.81%) Meraki
14 24 (3.15%) Red Hat
15 23 (3.02%) Zscaler
16 21 (2.76%) Veeam
17 16 (2.10%) CyberArk
17 16 (2.10%) NetApp