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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 44 41
Rank change year-on-year -35 -3 -5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 809 714 771
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.97% 4.70% 4.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.98% 33.29% 27.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 407 481
10th Percentile £346 £316 £300
25th Percentile £413 £407 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -5.37% +8.46%
75th Percentile £592 £588 £613
90th Percentile £650 £641 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 25 25
10th Percentile £28.90 £14.20 £20.06
25th Percentile £43.98 £15.13 £23.92
Median hourly rate £65.23 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +117.42% -50.00% -9.06%
75th Percentile £75.32 £43.25 £85.65
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +116.67% +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 2,891 2,145 2,803
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.63% 14.12% 15.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,626 1,297 1,639
10th Percentile £213 £200 £205
25th Percentile £371 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +9.89%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 136 282
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £19.45 £18.27
Median hourly rate £26.66 £45.00 £53.69
Median % change year-on-year -40.76% -16.18% -6.49%
75th Percentile £65.22 £68.17 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £87.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.66 £50.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -46.68% +5.26% -5.79%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -14 284 £500 +5.26% 91
South East -31 226 £520 +4.00% 152
North West -3 185 £525 +10.53% 52
Yorkshire -41 83 £450 -7.22% 28
Midlands -75 77 £468 -1.47% 63
South West -44 75 £550 +11.39% 59
East of England 0 73 £525 -2.78% 33
Scotland +8 65 £413 -13.16% 19
West Midlands -70 60 £450 -5.26% 34
North East -19 22 £625 +4.17% 14
Wales -16 16 £425 +17.24% 12
East Midlands -17 14 £500 +1.63% 29
Northern Ireland -4 1 - - 8
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 17 (2.10%) Confluence
3 10 (1.24%) Apache
4 9 (1.11%) nginx
4 9 (1.11%) SharePoint
5 6 (0.74%) CICS
6 4 (0.49%) FactoryTalk
7 3 (0.37%) IIS
7 3 (0.37%) SAS
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 13 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.25%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.25%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 274 (33.87%) Azure
2 169 (20.89%) AWS
3 75 (9.27%) Entra ID
4 60 (7.42%) GCP
5 59 (7.29%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
7 32 (3.96%) GitHub
8 31 (3.83%) OCI
9 29 (3.58%) SaaS
10 27 (3.34%) IaaS
10 27 (3.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 26 (3.21%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 25 (3.09%) Azure Monitor
12 25 (3.09%) Azure Sentinel
13 21 (2.60%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 16 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
15 15 (1.85%) Serverless
16 14 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
17 12 (1.48%) AWS Lambda
17 12 (1.48%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 244 (30.16%) WAN
2 216 (26.70%) VPN
3 213 (26.33%) DNS
3 213 (26.33%) Network Security
4 205 (25.34%) LAN
5 153 (18.91%) BGP
6 138 (17.06%) DHCP
7 135 (16.69%) OSPF
8 123 (15.20%) TCP/IP
9 119 (14.71%) Wireless
10 114 (14.09%) VLAN
11 94 (11.62%) SD-WAN
12 89 (11.00%) Wi-Fi
13 79 (9.77%) BIG-IP
14 64 (7.91%) IPsec
14 64 (7.91%) VXLAN
15 57 (7.05%) Ethernet VPN
15 57 (7.05%) MPLS
16 55 (6.80%) SSL
17 52 (6.43%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.61%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.11%) Relational Database
4 7 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (0.74%) DataStage
5 6 (0.74%) Power BI
6 5 (0.62%) Data Lake
6 5 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.49%) Delta Lake
7 4 (0.49%) MySQL
7 4 (0.49%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.12%) EDRMS
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.12%) Redis
8 1 (0.12%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 70 (8.65%) JIRA
2 33 (4.08%) GitLab
3 31 (3.83%) Jenkins
4 17 (2.10%) Git
5 10 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.99%) Bitbucket
7 6 (0.74%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.62%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.49%) 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%) Metasploit
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
General
1 172 (21.26%) Social Skills
2 81 (10.01%) Finance
3 76 (9.39%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 32 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
6 26 (3.21%) Banking
7 24 (2.97%) Telecoms
8 19 (2.35%) Manufacturing
9 18 (2.22%) Military
10 15 (1.85%) Legal
11 11 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (0.87%) Police
14 7 (0.87%) Retail
15 6 (0.74%) Law
16 5 (0.62%) Aerospace
17 4 (0.49%) Financial Institution
17 4 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
18 2 (0.25%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 262 (32.39%) Network Engineer
2 115 (14.22%) Senior
3 105 (12.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 97 (11.99%) Architect
5 59 (7.29%) Security Engineer
6 54 (6.67%) Senior Network Engineer
7 41 (5.07%) Cloud Engineer
8 37 (4.57%) Network Architect
8 37 (4.57%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 33 (4.08%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 31 (3.83%) Lead
11 24 (2.97%) Consultant
12 22 (2.72%) Network Security Engineer
13 21 (2.60%) Technical Architect
14 20 (2.47%) Platform Engineer
15 18 (2.22%) Firewall Specialist
15 18 (2.22%) Network Specialist
16 17 (2.10%) Analyst
16 17 (2.10%) Cisco Engineer
16 17 (2.10%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (6.67%) 802.1X
2 16 (1.98%) ARM Templates
2 16 (1.98%) SAML
3 12 (1.48%) LDAP
4 9 (1.11%) Kafka
4 9 (1.11%) LangChain
4 9 (1.11%) Middleware
4 9 (1.11%) PyTorch
4 9 (1.11%) React
4 9 (1.11%) scikit-learn
5 7 (0.87%) YAML
6 6 (0.74%) OAuth
6 6 (0.74%) SailPoint
7 5 (0.62%) OAuth2
7 5 (0.62%) OpenID
8 4 (0.49%) CSS
8 4 (0.49%) HTML
8 4 (0.49%) ModSecurity
8 4 (0.49%) OpenTelemetry
8 4 (0.49%) Redfish
Miscellaneous
1 197 (24.35%) Data Centre
2 68 (8.41%) Cloud Native
3 66 (8.16%) PKI
4 60 (7.42%) Hybrid Cloud
5 46 (5.69%) Security Posture
6 37 (4.57%) Operational Technology
7 29 (3.58%) Clustering
8 23 (2.84%) SCADA
9 22 (2.72%) Management Information System
10 21 (2.60%) Onboarding
11 19 (2.35%) Enterprise Storage
12 17 (2.10%) Public Cloud
13 16 (1.98%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.98%) IoT
14 15 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
14 15 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.36%) BYOD
15 11 (1.36%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 11 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (1.36%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 228 (28.18%) Windows
2 147 (18.17%) Linux
3 84 (10.38%) Windows Server
4 33 (4.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (2.72%) Unix
6 10 (1.24%) CentOS
6 10 (1.24%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 9 (1.11%) VMS
8 7 (0.87%) Rocky
8 7 (0.87%) Solaris
9 6 (0.74%) AIX
9 6 (0.74%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.37%) Android
12 3 (0.37%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.25%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (18.05%) CI/CD
2 141 (17.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 141 (17.43%) Load Balancing
3 136 (16.81%) DevOps
4 127 (15.70%) Infrastructure as Code
5 124 (15.33%) Problem-Solving
6 122 (15.08%) Cybersecurity
7 118 (14.59%) High Availability
8 115 (14.22%) ITIL
9 97 (11.99%) Agile
10 86 (10.63%) SIEM
11 82 (10.14%) Migration
11 82 (10.14%) Zero Trust
12 79 (9.77%) Observability
13 76 (9.39%) Change Management
14 70 (8.65%) Technical Leadership
15 69 (8.53%) Roadmaps
16 67 (8.28%) Project Delivery
16 67 (8.28%) Validation
17 63 (7.79%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 148 (18.29%) Python
2 110 (13.60%) PowerShell
3 73 (9.02%) Bash
4 34 (4.20%) Bicep
5 28 (3.46%) SQL
6 25 (3.09%) Java
7 9 (1.11%) ActionScript
8 6 (0.74%) COBOL
9 5 (0.62%) Go
9 5 (0.62%) JavaScript
9 5 (0.62%) Perl
10 3 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.37%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.37%) Search Processing Language
10 3 (0.37%) TypeScript
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
1 319 (39.43%) Security Cleared
2 201 (24.85%) SC Cleared
3 173 (21.38%) Cisco Certification
4 115 (14.22%) CCNP
5 97 (11.99%) DV Cleared
6 91 (11.25%) CCNA
7 69 (8.53%) Degree
8 45 (5.56%) CISSP
9 35 (4.33%) AWS Certification
10 30 (3.71%) Azure Certification
11 22 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
12 20 (2.47%) Network+ Certification
13 16 (1.98%) CCIE
14 15 (1.85%) JNCIS
14 15 (1.85%) Server+ Certification
15 14 (1.73%) CISM
15 14 (1.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 13 (1.61%) JNCIA
17 11 (1.36%) MCSE
17 11 (1.36%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (5.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (4.08%) NIST
3 25 (3.09%) GDPR
4 24 (2.97%) NCSC
5 14 (1.73%) QA
6 13 (1.61%) PCI DSS
7 12 (1.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (0.99%) Data Quality
8 8 (0.99%) Disclosure Scotland
8 8 (0.99%) JSP 440
9 7 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.74%) GxP
11 5 (0.62%) SLA
12 4 (0.49%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 4 (0.49%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.49%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.37%) ISA99
13 3 (0.37%) NIST 800
System Software
1 152 (18.79%) Active Directory
2 125 (15.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 52 (6.43%) VMware NSX
4 43 (5.32%) Hyper-V
5 41 (5.07%) Docker
6 32 (3.96%) vSphere
7 22 (2.72%) VMware ESXi
8 19 (2.35%) Firmware
9 18 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.37%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.37%) Postfix
12 2 (0.25%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.25%) FreeRADIUS
12 2 (0.25%) Squid
12 2 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.25%) VirtualBox
13 1 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.12%) iptables
13 1 (0.12%) KVM
Systems Management
1 156 (19.28%) Terraform
2 113 (13.97%) Ansible
3 66 (8.16%) Kubernetes
4 54 (6.67%) FortiGate
5 27 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (2.22%) CASB
6 18 (2.22%) Progress Chef
7 17 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (1.85%) Grafana
9 14 (1.73%) Prometheus
10 12 (1.48%) VxRail
11 11 (1.36%) SCCM
11 11 (1.36%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.99%) Argo
12 8 (0.99%) Packer
13 7 (0.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 7 (0.87%) Cisco Prime
13 7 (0.87%) NetBackup
14 6 (0.74%) Nessus
15 5 (0.62%) Nagios
Vendors
1 298 (36.84%) Cisco
2 181 (22.37%) Microsoft
3 160 (19.78%) VMware
4 145 (17.92%) Palo Alto
5 121 (14.96%) F5
6 102 (12.61%) Juniper
7 70 (8.65%) Fortinet
8 63 (7.79%) SolarWinds
9 62 (7.66%) CheckPoint
10 58 (7.17%) Splunk
11 55 (6.80%) Aruba
12 53 (6.55%) ServiceNow
13 44 (5.44%) Google
14 29 (3.58%) Arista
15 28 (3.46%) Red Hat
16 25 (3.09%) Extreme Networks
16 25 (3.09%) Meraki
17 23 (2.84%) Zscaler
18 18 (2.22%) Veeam
19 17 (2.10%) Infoblox