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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 50 42
Rank change year-on-year -28 -8 -8
Contract jobs citing Firewall 780 684 742
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.81% 4.44% 4.12%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 26.54% 32.46% 28.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 502 403 462
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -4.88% +7.89%
75th Percentile £597 £588 £608
90th Percentile £669 £644 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 25 23
10th Percentile £29.47 £14.20 £20.04
25th Percentile £47.24 £15.13 £23.92
Median hourly rate £65.57 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.57% -36.84% -28.01%
75th Percentile £80.41 £43.25 £85.45
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK median hourly rate £65.69 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +118.97% +9.09% -58.32%

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 2,939 2,107 2,637
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.61% 13.66% 14.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,642 1,289 1,503
10th Percentile £213 £204 £206
25th Percentile £358 £325 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -6.00% +9.78%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £640 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 320 138 256
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.88 £20.98
Median hourly rate £25.81 £42.50 £54.94
Median % change year-on-year -39.28% -22.64% -2.75%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -9.62%

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 29 August 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 29 August 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 29 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
North of England -9 276 £500 +5.26% 111
South East -43 200 £520 +4.00% 181
North West +1 171 £500 +5.26% 64
South West -20 86 £553 +10.60% 61
Yorkshire -36 85 £450 -8.07% 32
East of England -3 77 £525 -4.55% 56
Midlands -76 73 £472 -0.74% 90
Scotland -6 63 £400 -11.11% 26
West Midlands -73 56 £450 -5.26% 57
North East -14 26 £500 -13.04% 17
East Midlands -15 15 £500 +1.63% 33
Wales -16 13 £425 +61.90% 8
Northern Ireland -8 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 22 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
2 15 (1.92%) Confluence
3 12 (1.54%) SharePoint
4 10 (1.28%) Apache
5 9 (1.15%) nginx
6 8 (1.03%) SAS
7 4 (0.51%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.51%) IIS
8 3 (0.38%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.26%) CloudStack
9 2 (0.26%) CMS
9 2 (0.26%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.26%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.26%) Umbraco
9 2 (0.26%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.13%) CICS
Applications
1 21 (2.69%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.26%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.26%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 278 (35.64%) Azure
2 170 (21.79%) AWS
3 79 (10.13%) Entra ID
4 65 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
5 58 (7.44%) GCP
6 41 (5.26%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (4.10%) Azure Monitor
7 32 (4.10%) OCI
7 32 (4.10%) SaaS
8 31 (3.97%) GitHub
9 29 (3.72%) IaaS
10 26 (3.33%) Azure Sentinel
11 21 (2.69%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 21 (2.69%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 20 (2.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 19 (2.44%) Serverless
14 18 (2.31%) GitHub Actions
15 15 (1.92%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (1.92%) AWS CloudFormation
16 14 (1.79%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 223 (28.59%) VPN
2 220 (28.21%) WAN
3 219 (28.08%) DNS
3 219 (28.08%) Network Security
4 181 (23.21%) LAN
5 144 (18.46%) DHCP
6 139 (17.82%) BGP
7 133 (17.05%) TCP/IP
8 123 (15.77%) OSPF
9 113 (14.49%) Wireless
10 107 (13.72%) VLAN
11 91 (11.67%) SD-WAN
12 88 (11.28%) Wi-Fi
13 63 (8.08%) BIG-IP
14 59 (7.56%) Cisco ASA
14 59 (7.56%) IPsec
15 50 (6.41%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 49 (6.28%) MPLS
17 48 (6.15%) Cisco Firepower
17 48 (6.15%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.92%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.54%) Relational Database
3 11 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (0.77%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.64%) Data Lake
6 5 (0.64%) Oracle Database
6 5 (0.64%) Power BI
7 4 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.51%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.38%) EDRMS
8 3 (0.38%) MySQL
9 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.13%) DataStage
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.13%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 66 (8.46%) JIRA
2 39 (5.00%) GitLab
3 31 (3.97%) Jenkins
4 16 (2.05%) Git
5 9 (1.15%) Bitbucket
6 8 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.77%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.64%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.38%) Burp Suite
10 2 (0.26%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.26%) Gatling
10 2 (0.26%) Gradle
10 2 (0.26%) Introscope
10 2 (0.26%) LoadRunner
10 2 (0.26%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.26%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.13%) Ant
11 1 (0.13%) MSI
General
1 174 (22.31%) Social Skills
2 86 (11.03%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (10.26%) Finance
4 66 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 35 (4.49%) Banking
6 28 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
7 26 (3.33%) Telecoms
8 22 (2.82%) Manufacturing
9 14 (1.79%) Legal
9 14 (1.79%) Military
10 10 (1.28%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.15%) Retail
12 8 (1.03%) Police
13 5 (0.64%) Law
14 4 (0.51%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.51%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.38%) Advertising
15 3 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 242 (31.03%) Network Engineer
2 118 (15.13%) Senior
3 114 (14.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 90 (11.54%) Architect
5 52 (6.67%) Senior Network Engineer
6 51 (6.54%) Security Engineer
7 40 (5.13%) Cloud Engineer
8 36 (4.62%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 36 (4.62%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 32 (4.10%) Lead
10 28 (3.59%) Network Architect
11 26 (3.33%) Platform Engineer
12 23 (2.95%) Consultant
12 23 (2.95%) Network Security Engineer
13 21 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
14 18 (2.31%) Technical Architect
15 17 (2.18%) Azure Engineer
16 15 (1.92%) Data Centre Engineer
16 15 (1.92%) Developer
17 14 (1.79%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (21.79%) Terraform
2 28 (3.59%) 802.1X
3 19 (2.44%) ARM Templates
4 17 (2.18%) SAML
5 10 (1.28%) Kafka
5 10 (1.28%) React
6 8 (1.03%) YAML
7 7 (0.90%) LDAP
7 7 (0.90%) OAuth
7 7 (0.90%) OpenID
8 6 (0.77%) Middleware
8 6 (0.77%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.77%) SailPoint
9 5 (0.64%) ModSecurity
9 5 (0.64%) OpenTelemetry
9 5 (0.64%) REST
10 4 (0.51%) CSS
10 4 (0.51%) HTML
10 4 (0.51%) Redfish
10 4 (0.51%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 176 (22.56%) Data Centre
2 64 (8.21%) Hybrid Cloud
3 59 (7.56%) PKI
4 55 (7.05%) Cloud Native
5 32 (4.10%) Operational Technology
6 31 (3.97%) Security Posture
7 23 (2.95%) Management Information System
8 22 (2.82%) SCADA
9 21 (2.69%) Onboarding
10 20 (2.56%) Driving Licence
11 18 (2.31%) Enterprise Storage
11 18 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (2.05%) Public Cloud
13 14 (1.79%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 14 (1.79%) IoT
14 13 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (1.41%) Linux Command Line
15 11 (1.41%) Private Cloud
15 11 (1.41%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 218 (27.95%) Windows
2 145 (18.59%) Linux
3 98 (12.56%) Windows Server
4 28 (3.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.92%) Unix
6 12 (1.54%) CentOS
7 11 (1.41%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.41%) Ubuntu
8 8 (1.03%) VMS
9 7 (0.90%) Rocky
10 6 (0.77%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.51%) Android
13 3 (0.38%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.38%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (19.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 148 (18.97%) CI/CD
3 144 (18.46%) Infrastructure as Code
4 140 (17.95%) DevOps
5 135 (17.31%) Load Balancing
6 123 (15.77%) Problem-Solving
7 121 (15.51%) Cybersecurity
8 114 (14.62%) ITIL
9 100 (12.82%) High Availability
10 97 (12.44%) Agile
11 92 (11.79%) Migration
12 89 (11.41%) Zero Trust
13 81 (10.38%) Change Management
14 78 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
15 71 (9.10%) Project Delivery
15 71 (9.10%) SIEM
16 70 (8.97%) Validation
17 68 (8.72%) Network Segmentation
17 68 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
18 64 (8.21%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 153 (19.62%) Python
2 129 (16.54%) PowerShell
3 80 (10.26%) Bash
4 38 (4.87%) Bicep
5 31 (3.97%) SQL
6 26 (3.33%) Java
7 9 (1.15%) ActionScript
8 5 (0.64%) Go
8 5 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (0.64%) Search Processing Language
9 4 (0.51%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.51%) Perl
9 4 (0.51%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.38%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.26%) Groovy
11 2 (0.26%) Jython
11 2 (0.26%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.26%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.13%) C
12 1 (0.13%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 312 (40.00%) Security Cleared
2 203 (26.03%) SC Cleared
3 150 (19.23%) Cisco Certification
4 103 (13.21%) CCNP
5 95 (12.18%) DV Cleared
6 70 (8.97%) CCNA
7 62 (7.95%) Degree
8 44 (5.64%) CISSP
9 38 (4.87%) AWS Certification
10 32 (4.10%) Azure Certification
11 18 (2.31%) CCIE
11 18 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
12 16 (2.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 14 (1.79%) Network+ Certification
14 12 (1.54%) CISM
14 12 (1.54%) VCAP
15 11 (1.41%) Server+ Certification
16 10 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (1.28%) PMP
17 9 (1.15%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (5.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 34 (4.36%) NIST
3 26 (3.33%) GDPR
4 22 (2.82%) NCSC
5 15 (1.92%) QA
6 13 (1.67%) PCI DSS
7 9 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials
7 9 (1.15%) JSP 440
8 8 (1.03%) Data Quality
8 8 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 8 (1.03%) SLA
9 7 (0.90%) Disclosure Scotland
10 5 (0.64%) GxP
11 4 (0.51%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 4 (0.51%) HIPAA
11 4 (0.51%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.38%) ISA99
12 3 (0.38%) RMADS
13 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 148 (18.97%) Active Directory
2 141 (18.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 57 (7.31%) Hyper-V
4 52 (6.67%) VMware NSX
5 41 (5.26%) Docker
6 38 (4.87%) vSphere
7 25 (3.21%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (2.44%) Firmware
9 18 (2.31%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.38%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.38%) FreeRADIUS
12 3 (0.38%) Postfix
12 3 (0.38%) 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%) NFS
Systems Management
1 129 (16.54%) Ansible
2 79 (10.13%) Kubernetes
3 39 (5.00%) FortiGate
4 33 (4.23%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (2.95%) Progress Chef
6 21 (2.69%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (2.56%) Grafana
8 19 (2.44%) Prometheus
9 14 (1.79%) VxRail
10 12 (1.54%) CASB
10 12 (1.54%) SCCM
10 12 (1.54%) vCenter Server
11 9 (1.15%) Argo
12 8 (1.03%) Istio
13 7 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.90%) NetBackup
13 7 (0.90%) Packer
14 6 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
15 4 (0.51%) Cisco CUCM
15 4 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 279 (35.77%) Cisco
2 188 (24.10%) Microsoft
3 172 (22.05%) VMware
4 157 (20.13%) Palo Alto
5 108 (13.85%) F5
6 78 (10.00%) Juniper
7 70 (8.97%) Fortinet
8 67 (8.59%) CheckPoint
9 46 (5.90%) SolarWinds
10 43 (5.51%) ServiceNow
11 42 (5.38%) Aruba
12 40 (5.13%) Splunk
13 32 (4.10%) Google
14 29 (3.72%) Meraki
15 28 (3.59%) Arista
16 23 (2.95%) Red Hat
17 22 (2.82%) Zscaler
18 18 (2.31%) Veeam
19 17 (2.18%) Citrix
20 16 (2.05%) CyberArk