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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 44 41
Rank change year-on-year -34 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 809 714 761
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.95% 4.67% 4.16%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.66% 33.55% 27.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 414 479
10th Percentile £350 £319 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £491 £515
Median % change year-on-year +1.83% -4.66% +8.42%
75th Percentile £597 £588 £613
90th Percentile £650 £649 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 26 25
10th Percentile £29.47 £14.20 £20.06
25th Percentile £44.86 £15.18 £23.92
Median hourly rate £65.57 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +118.57% -50.00% -11.76%
75th Percentile £80.41 £61.25 £85.65
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK median hourly rate £65.45 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +118.17% +9.09% -59.56%

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 2,925 2,128 2,795
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.67% 13.92% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,640 1,285 1,640
10th Percentile £225 £204 £206
25th Percentile £375 £331 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +9.36%
75th Percentile £576 £575 £603
90th Percentile £650 £640 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 314 139 276
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £20.38 £20.56
Median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -3.58%
75th Percentile £65.17 £66.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.78 £87.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.14 £46.88 £49.00
% change year-on-year -44.23% -4.34% -9.26%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -11 282 £500 +3.09% 96
South East -37 222 £523 +4.50% 151
North West +6 182 £525 +10.53% 49
South West -34 82 £550 +12.82% 39
Yorkshire -40 82 £450 -8.07% 34
East of England -5 77 £525 -4.55% 32
Midlands -74 73 £459 -3.37% 67
Scotland +8 63 £400 -15.79% 17
West Midlands -76 57 £440 -7.37% 40
North East -21 24 £625 +4.17% 16
Wales -15 17 £425 +61.90% 6
East Midlands -27 14 £500 +6.16% 27
Northern Ireland -4 1 - - 5
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 18 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (1.98%) Confluence
3 10 (1.24%) Apache
3 10 (1.24%) SharePoint
4 9 (1.11%) nginx
5 6 (0.74%) SAS
6 4 (0.49%) FactoryTalk
6 4 (0.49%) IIS
7 3 (0.37%) CICS
7 3 (0.37%) Skype for Business
7 3 (0.37%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.25%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.25%) CMS
8 2 (0.25%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.25%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.25%) Umbraco
8 2 (0.25%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.25%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 20 (2.47%) MS Visio
2 11 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.25%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.25%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 280 (34.61%) Azure
2 180 (22.25%) AWS
3 76 (9.39%) Entra ID
4 64 (7.91%) GCP
5 59 (7.29%) Microsoft 365
6 38 (4.70%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (4.08%) GitHub
8 31 (3.83%) OCI
9 28 (3.46%) IaaS
9 28 (3.46%) SaaS
10 27 (3.34%) Azure Monitor
10 27 (3.34%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 27 (3.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 24 (2.97%) Azure Sentinel
12 22 (2.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 18 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
14 17 (2.10%) Serverless
15 14 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
15 14 (1.73%) AWS Direct Connect
15 14 (1.73%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 241 (29.79%) WAN
2 225 (27.81%) DNS
3 218 (26.95%) VPN
4 210 (25.96%) Network Security
5 204 (25.22%) LAN
6 151 (18.67%) BGP
7 147 (18.17%) DHCP
8 134 (16.56%) OSPF
9 131 (16.19%) TCP/IP
10 115 (14.22%) VLAN
10 115 (14.22%) Wireless
11 93 (11.50%) SD-WAN
12 90 (11.12%) Wi-Fi
13 77 (9.52%) BIG-IP
14 62 (7.66%) IPsec
14 62 (7.66%) VXLAN
15 55 (6.80%) MPLS
16 52 (6.43%) Ethernet VPN
17 51 (6.30%) Cisco ASA
17 51 (6.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.61%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (1.24%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (0.74%) Power BI
6 5 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.49%) Data Lake
7 4 (0.49%) Delta Lake
7 4 (0.49%) MySQL
7 4 (0.49%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.37%) DataStage
9 2 (0.25%) EDRMS
10 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.12%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 68 (8.41%) JIRA
2 37 (4.57%) GitLab
3 33 (4.08%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.22%) Git
5 9 (1.11%) Bitbucket
6 8 (0.99%) Sonatype Nexus
7 6 (0.74%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.37%) Burp Suite
10 2 (0.25%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.25%) Gatling
10 2 (0.25%) Gradle
10 2 (0.25%) Introscope
10 2 (0.25%) LoadRunner
10 2 (0.25%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.25%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.12%) Ant
11 1 (0.12%) MSI
General
1 174 (21.51%) Social Skills
2 80 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
3 79 (9.77%) Finance
4 69 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 31 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
6 30 (3.71%) Banking
7 24 (2.97%) Telecoms
8 19 (2.35%) Manufacturing
9 16 (1.98%) Military
10 14 (1.73%) Legal
11 10 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (0.99%) Police
13 7 (0.87%) Retail
14 6 (0.74%) Aerospace
14 6 (0.74%) Law
15 5 (0.62%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 2 (0.25%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 259 (32.01%) Network Engineer
2 118 (14.59%) Senior
3 107 (13.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 96 (11.87%) Architect
5 56 (6.92%) Security Engineer
6 55 (6.80%) Senior Network Engineer
7 42 (5.19%) Cloud Engineer
8 36 (4.45%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 34 (4.20%) Network Architect
10 33 (4.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 32 (3.96%) Lead
12 24 (2.97%) Platform Engineer
13 22 (2.72%) Consultant
14 21 (2.60%) Technical Architect
15 19 (2.35%) Network Security Engineer
16 18 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
17 17 (2.10%) Firewall Specialist
17 17 (2.10%) Network Specialist
18 16 (1.98%) Cisco Engineer
19 15 (1.85%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (6.18%) 802.1X
2 17 (2.10%) SAML
3 16 (1.98%) ARM Templates
4 10 (1.24%) Kafka
4 10 (1.24%) React
5 9 (1.11%) LangChain
5 9 (1.11%) LDAP
5 9 (1.11%) PyTorch
5 9 (1.11%) scikit-learn
6 8 (0.99%) Middleware
6 8 (0.99%) YAML
7 7 (0.87%) OAuth
7 7 (0.87%) OpenID
8 6 (0.74%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.74%) SailPoint
9 5 (0.62%) ModSecurity
9 5 (0.62%) OpenTelemetry
10 4 (0.49%) gRPC
10 4 (0.49%) Redfish
10 4 (0.49%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 188 (23.24%) Data Centre
2 69 (8.53%) PKI
3 68 (8.41%) Cloud Native
4 59 (7.29%) Hybrid Cloud
5 42 (5.19%) Security Posture
6 33 (4.08%) Operational Technology
7 27 (3.34%) Clustering
8 24 (2.97%) SCADA
9 21 (2.60%) Management Information System
9 21 (2.60%) Onboarding
10 19 (2.35%) Public Cloud
11 18 (2.22%) Enterprise Storage
11 18 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
12 17 (2.10%) Driving Licence
13 15 (1.85%) IoT
14 13 (1.61%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 12 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
16 11 (1.36%) Private Cloud
16 11 (1.36%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 228 (28.18%) Windows
2 146 (18.05%) Linux
3 88 (10.88%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (2.22%) Unix
6 11 (1.36%) Mac OS
7 10 (1.24%) CentOS
8 9 (1.11%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.99%) VMS
10 7 (0.87%) Rocky
11 6 (0.74%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.49%) Solaris
13 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.37%) AIX
14 3 (0.37%) Android
14 3 (0.37%) Check Point GAiA
14 3 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
15 2 (0.25%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (19.04%) CI/CD
2 145 (17.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 144 (17.80%) Load Balancing
4 141 (17.43%) DevOps
5 138 (17.06%) Infrastructure as Code
6 124 (15.33%) Problem-Solving
7 123 (15.20%) Cybersecurity
8 120 (14.83%) ITIL
9 118 (14.59%) High Availability
10 98 (12.11%) Agile
11 87 (10.75%) SIEM
12 83 (10.26%) Zero Trust
13 82 (10.14%) Migration
14 78 (9.64%) Observability
15 77 (9.52%) Technical Leadership
16 76 (9.39%) Change Management
17 71 (8.78%) Roadmaps
18 68 (8.41%) Validation
19 67 (8.28%) Project Delivery
20 66 (8.16%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 158 (19.53%) Python
2 122 (15.08%) PowerShell
3 81 (10.01%) Bash
4 33 (4.08%) Bicep
5 29 (3.58%) SQL
6 26 (3.21%) Java
7 9 (1.11%) ActionScript
8 5 (0.62%) Go
9 4 (0.49%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.49%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.49%) Perl
9 4 (0.49%) Search Processing Language
9 4 (0.49%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.37%) COBOL
10 3 (0.37%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.25%) C++
11 2 (0.25%) Groovy
11 2 (0.25%) Jython
11 2 (0.25%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.12%) Korn
Qualifications
1 320 (39.56%) Security Cleared
2 200 (24.72%) SC Cleared
3 165 (20.40%) Cisco Certification
4 107 (13.23%) CCNP
5 99 (12.24%) DV Cleared
6 83 (10.26%) CCNA
7 65 (8.03%) Degree
8 42 (5.19%) CISSP
9 40 (4.94%) AWS Certification
10 33 (4.08%) Azure Certification
11 19 (2.35%) Network+ Certification
12 17 (2.10%) CCIE
12 17 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (1.85%) JNCIS
13 15 (1.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 14 (1.73%) Server+ Certification
15 13 (1.61%) JNCIA
16 12 (1.48%) CISM
16 12 (1.48%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.48%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 34 (4.20%) NIST
3 25 (3.09%) GDPR
4 24 (2.97%) NCSC
5 15 (1.85%) QA
6 13 (1.61%) PCI DSS
7 11 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.36%) JSP 440
8 8 (0.99%) Data Quality
8 8 (0.99%) Disclosure Scotland
8 8 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 6 (0.74%) SLA
10 5 (0.62%) GxP
11 4 (0.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 4 (0.49%) HIPAA
11 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.49%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.37%) ISA99
12 3 (0.37%) NIST 800
System Software
1 148 (18.29%) Active Directory
2 133 (16.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 53 (6.55%) VMware NSX
4 50 (6.18%) Hyper-V
5 44 (5.44%) Docker
6 36 (4.45%) vSphere
7 23 (2.84%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (2.35%) Firmware
9 18 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.37%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.37%) FreeRADIUS
12 3 (0.37%) Postfix
12 3 (0.37%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.25%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.25%) Squid
14 1 (0.12%) iptables
14 1 (0.12%) NFS
Systems Management
1 168 (20.77%) Terraform
2 124 (15.33%) Ansible
3 77 (9.52%) Kubernetes
4 53 (6.55%) FortiGate
5 28 (3.46%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (2.72%) Progress Chef
7 19 (2.35%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (2.22%) Grafana
9 17 (2.10%) Prometheus
10 15 (1.85%) CASB
11 14 (1.73%) VxRail
12 12 (1.48%) vCenter Server
13 11 (1.36%) SCCM
14 9 (1.11%) Argo
15 7 (0.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.87%) Cisco Prime
15 7 (0.87%) NetBackup
15 7 (0.87%) Packer
16 6 (0.74%) Istio
17 5 (0.62%) Nagios
Vendors
1 295 (36.46%) Cisco
2 185 (22.87%) Microsoft
3 166 (20.52%) VMware
4 150 (18.54%) Palo Alto
5 121 (14.96%) F5
6 95 (11.74%) Juniper
7 69 (8.53%) Fortinet
8 63 (7.79%) CheckPoint
9 60 (7.42%) SolarWinds
10 55 (6.80%) Splunk
11 50 (6.18%) Aruba
12 49 (6.06%) ServiceNow
13 45 (5.56%) Google
14 28 (3.46%) Arista
15 26 (3.21%) Red Hat
16 24 (2.97%) Meraki
17 23 (2.84%) Extreme Networks
18 22 (2.72%) Zscaler
19 18 (2.22%) Veeam
20 17 (2.10%) Infoblox