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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 41 41
Rank change year-on-year -29 0 -5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 819 713 817
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.04% 4.78% 4.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.14% 32.86% 27.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 406 514
10th Percentile £350 £304 £280
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.35% -5.15% +8.42%
75th Percentile £594 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £685
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 26 31
10th Percentile £28.20 £14.20 £22.40
25th Percentile £41.35 £15.18 £25.08
Median hourly rate £65.00 £30.00 £76.99
Median % change year-on-year +116.67% -61.03% +19.38%
75th Percentile £78.50 £42.93 £87.46
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.53
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £30.00 £53.75
% change year-on-year +108.33% -44.19% -18.56%

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 2,910 2,170 3,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.78% 14.53% 15.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,674 1,313 1,727
10th Percentile £225 £200 £205
25th Percentile £375 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.63% -5.00% +8.81%
75th Percentile £582 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £489 £500
% change year-on-year +2.25% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 138 317
10th Percentile £15.85 £14.99 £13.95
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.42 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.66 £43.25 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -38.36% -10.93% -14.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £87.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.22 £47.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -44.80% +5.56% -10.00%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 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
North of England -13 292 £500 +5.26% 106
South East -27 230 £506 +1.25% 151
North West -1 190 £537 +13.05% 54
Yorkshire -36 86 £450 -7.64% 40
Midlands -64 78 £472 -4.17% 48
East of England -5 74 £525 -4.55% 40
South West -44 71 £550 +10.00% 62
Scotland +8 63 £425 -2.86% 23
West Midlands -69 62 £450 -10.89% 29
North East -14 22 £625 - 14
Wales -19 18 £425 +17.24% 15
East Midlands -22 13 £500 +6.16% 19
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 6
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 15 (1.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (1.59%) Confluence
3 9 (1.10%) CICS
3 9 (1.10%) SharePoint
4 8 (0.98%) Apache
5 7 (0.85%) nginx
6 3 (0.37%) FactoryTalk
6 3 (0.37%) IIS
6 3 (0.37%) SAS
6 3 (0.37%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.37%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.24%) Apache Pulsar
7 2 (0.24%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.24%) CMS
7 2 (0.24%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.24%) Umbraco
7 2 (0.24%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.24%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 19 (2.32%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.24%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.12%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 274 (33.46%) Azure
2 161 (19.66%) AWS
3 77 (9.40%) Entra ID
4 66 (8.06%) GCP
5 56 (6.84%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (3.91%) GitHub
8 30 (3.66%) OCI
9 28 (3.42%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 28 (3.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 26 (3.17%) Azure Monitor
10 26 (3.17%) IaaS
11 25 (3.05%) SaaS
12 23 (2.81%) Azure Sentinel
13 19 (2.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 16 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
15 15 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
16 13 (1.59%) Azure AKS
16 13 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
16 13 (1.59%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 245 (29.91%) WAN
2 223 (27.23%) Network Security
3 214 (26.13%) VPN
4 210 (25.64%) LAN
5 202 (24.66%) DNS
6 153 (18.68%) BGP
7 137 (16.73%) OSPF
8 131 (16.00%) DHCP
9 124 (15.14%) Wireless
10 119 (14.53%) TCP/IP
11 115 (14.04%) VLAN
12 94 (11.48%) SD-WAN
13 88 (10.74%) Wi-Fi
14 79 (9.65%) BIG-IP
15 65 (7.94%) IPsec
16 62 (7.57%) VXLAN
17 59 (7.20%) MPLS
18 56 (6.84%) Cisco ISE
18 56 (6.84%) Ethernet VPN
19 54 (6.59%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.47%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.10%) DataStage
3 9 (1.10%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
4 7 (0.85%) Power BI
5 5 (0.61%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (0.49%) Delta Lake
6 4 (0.49%) MySQL
6 4 (0.49%) NoSQL
6 4 (0.49%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.12%) EDRMS
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.12%) Redis
7 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.12%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 66 (8.06%) JIRA
2 31 (3.79%) GitLab
3 29 (3.54%) Jenkins
4 17 (2.08%) Git
5 8 (0.98%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.61%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.49%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.49%) Burp Suite
8 3 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.24%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.24%) Gatling
9 2 (0.24%) Gradle
9 2 (0.24%) Introscope
9 2 (0.24%) Jaeger
9 2 (0.24%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.24%) Metasploit
9 2 (0.24%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.24%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.12%) Postman
General
1 168 (20.51%) Social Skills
2 85 (10.38%) Finance
3 71 (8.67%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.40%) Documentation Skills
6 27 (3.30%) Banking
6 27 (3.30%) Telecoms
7 20 (2.44%) Manufacturing
8 17 (2.08%) Military
9 14 (1.71%) Legal
10 12 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.85%) Police
13 7 (0.85%) Retail
14 4 (0.49%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.37%) Advertising
15 3 (0.37%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.37%) Law
15 3 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 270 (32.97%) Network Engineer
2 112 (13.68%) Senior
3 107 (13.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 102 (12.45%) Architect
5 69 (8.42%) Security Engineer
6 53 (6.47%) Senior Network Engineer
7 40 (4.88%) Network Architect
7 40 (4.88%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 38 (4.64%) Cloud Engineer
9 32 (3.91%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 26 (3.17%) Lead
11 24 (2.93%) Consultant
11 24 (2.93%) Network Security Engineer
12 20 (2.44%) Designer
12 20 (2.44%) Technical Architect
13 19 (2.32%) Network Specialist
14 18 (2.20%) Firewall Specialist
14 18 (2.20%) Security Architect
15 17 (2.08%) Cisco Engineer
15 17 (2.08%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.84%) 802.1X
2 18 (2.20%) LDAP
3 13 (1.59%) ARM Templates
3 13 (1.59%) Middleware
3 13 (1.59%) SAML
4 10 (1.22%) Kafka
5 9 (1.10%) LangChain
5 9 (1.10%) PyTorch
5 9 (1.10%) scikit-learn
6 7 (0.85%) YAML
7 6 (0.73%) React
7 6 (0.73%) SailPoint
8 5 (0.61%) OAuth
8 5 (0.61%) OpenTelemetry
9 4 (0.49%) ModSecurity
9 4 (0.49%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.49%) Redfish
9 4 (0.49%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
10 3 (0.37%) LEMP Stack
Miscellaneous
1 200 (24.42%) Data Centre
2 69 (8.42%) Cloud Native
3 62 (7.57%) PKI
4 55 (6.72%) Hybrid Cloud
5 50 (6.11%) Security Posture
6 33 (4.03%) Operational Technology
7 29 (3.54%) Clustering
8 25 (3.05%) Onboarding
9 22 (2.69%) Management Information System
9 22 (2.69%) SCADA
10 18 (2.20%) Enterprise Storage
10 18 (2.20%) IoT
10 18 (2.20%) Public Cloud
11 15 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.83%) Driving Licence
11 15 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
12 14 (1.71%) BYOD
13 13 (1.59%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 11 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
15 10 (1.22%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 215 (26.25%) Windows
2 138 (16.85%) Linux
3 74 (9.04%) Windows Server
4 33 (4.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 25 (3.05%) Unix
6 10 (1.22%) CentOS
6 10 (1.22%) Solaris
7 9 (1.10%) AIX
7 9 (1.10%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.10%) Ubuntu
7 9 (1.10%) VMS
8 7 (0.85%) Rocky
9 6 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.61%) Windows 10
11 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.37%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.24%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.24%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (17.34%) CI/CD
2 140 (17.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 138 (16.85%) Load Balancing
4 135 (16.48%) DevOps
5 122 (14.90%) Infrastructure as Code
5 122 (14.90%) Problem-Solving
6 120 (14.65%) High Availability
7 119 (14.53%) Cybersecurity
8 114 (13.92%) ITIL
9 95 (11.60%) Agile
10 85 (10.38%) Migration
11 82 (10.01%) Change Management
11 82 (10.01%) SIEM
11 82 (10.01%) Zero Trust
12 78 (9.52%) Observability
13 71 (8.67%) Roadmaps
14 69 (8.42%) Validation
15 68 (8.30%) Network Segmentation
16 64 (7.81%) Project Delivery
17 60 (7.33%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 141 (17.22%) Python
2 104 (12.70%) PowerShell
3 67 (8.18%) Bash
4 34 (4.15%) Bicep
5 25 (3.05%) Java
5 25 (3.05%) SQL
6 9 (1.10%) ActionScript
6 9 (1.10%) COBOL
7 5 (0.61%) Perl
8 4 (0.49%) Go
8 4 (0.49%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.37%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.24%) C++
10 2 (0.24%) Groovy
10 2 (0.24%) Jython
11 1 (0.12%) C
11 1 (0.12%) Korn
11 1 (0.12%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.12%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.12%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 318 (38.83%) Security Cleared
2 203 (24.79%) SC Cleared
3 176 (21.49%) Cisco Certification
4 119 (14.53%) CCNP
5 92 (11.23%) DV Cleared
6 89 (10.87%) CCNA
7 64 (7.81%) Degree
8 43 (5.25%) CISSP
9 33 (4.03%) AWS Certification
10 28 (3.42%) Azure Certification
11 20 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (2.20%) CCIE
12 18 (2.20%) Network+ Certification
13 15 (1.83%) CISM
13 15 (1.83%) Server+ Certification
14 14 (1.71%) JNCIS
15 13 (1.59%) PMP
16 12 (1.47%) JNCIA
17 11 (1.34%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 10 (1.22%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (5.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (4.03%) NIST
3 24 (2.93%) NCSC
4 23 (2.81%) GDPR
5 15 (1.83%) QA
6 13 (1.59%) Cyber Essentials
6 13 (1.59%) PCI DSS
7 8 (0.98%) Data Quality
7 8 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
8 7 (0.85%) JSP 440
9 5 (0.61%) GxP
9 5 (0.61%) SLA
10 4 (0.49%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 4 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.49%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.37%) ISA99
11 3 (0.37%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.37%) RMADS
System Software
1 146 (17.83%) Active Directory
2 116 (14.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (5.74%) VMware NSX
4 37 (4.52%) Docker
5 31 (3.79%) Hyper-V
5 31 (3.79%) vSphere
6 22 (2.69%) VMware ESXi
7 19 (2.32%) Firmware
8 17 (2.08%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.37%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.37%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.37%) Postfix
11 2 (0.24%) FreeRADIUS
11 2 (0.24%) Squid
11 2 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.24%) VirtualBox
12 1 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.12%) iptables
12 1 (0.12%) KVM
Systems Management
1 153 (18.68%) Terraform
2 104 (12.70%) Ansible
3 60 (7.33%) Kubernetes
4 55 (6.72%) FortiGate
5 29 (3.54%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (2.08%) Grafana
7 16 (1.95%) Prometheus
7 16 (1.95%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (1.83%) CASB
8 15 (1.83%) Progress Chef
9 13 (1.59%) SCCM
10 11 (1.34%) vCenter Server
11 10 (1.22%) VxRail
12 9 (1.10%) Cisco Prime
13 7 (0.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.73%) Argo
14 6 (0.73%) Nessus
14 6 (0.73%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.73%) Packer
15 5 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 300 (36.63%) Cisco
2 173 (21.12%) Microsoft
3 151 (18.44%) VMware
4 147 (17.95%) Palo Alto
5 126 (15.38%) F5
6 100 (12.21%) Juniper
7 74 (9.04%) Fortinet
8 69 (8.42%) CheckPoint
9 63 (7.69%) SolarWinds
10 58 (7.08%) Aruba
11 53 (6.47%) Splunk
12 50 (6.11%) ServiceNow
13 47 (5.74%) Google
14 28 (3.42%) Arista
15 26 (3.17%) Extreme Networks
15 26 (3.17%) Red Hat
16 24 (2.93%) Meraki
16 24 (2.93%) Zscaler
17 20 (2.44%) Veeam
18 18 (2.20%) IBM