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 30 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 44 39
Rank change year-on-year -23 -5 -1
Contract jobs citing Firewall 778 600 859
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.11% 4.66% 4.15%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.01% 30.08% 25.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 520 353 547
10th Percentile £331 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% +2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £584 £608
90th Percentile £638 £638 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 20 33
10th Percentile £17.33 - £23.92
25th Percentile £37.25 £14.20 £26.25
Median hourly rate £48.72 £28.75 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year +69.46% -65.57% +34.68%
75th Percentile £70.11 £41.25 £87.46
90th Percentile £75.96 £47.88 £87.53
UK median hourly rate £56.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +94.78% -52.08% -4.08%

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 2,778 1,995 3,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.09% 15.50% 15.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,633 1,242 1,883
10th Percentile £231 £200 £205
25th Percentile £375 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £483
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -3.63% +1.58%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £637 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 119 355
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £16.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.86 £30.32 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +11.68% -33.91% +151.88%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £39.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year -27.18% -0.85% +116.22%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 -20 252 £500 +3.09% 115
South East -10 236 £500 - 159
North West -8 161 £540 +13.68% 69
Midlands -58 80 £420 -20.00% 57
Yorkshire -43 75 £425 -13.62% 33
West Midlands -53 68 £413 -20.75% 37
East of England -15 66 £503 +0.60% 29
Scotland +17 63 £450 +2.86% 18
South West -45 59 £525 +5.00% 52
Wales -17 26 £425 +21.43% 12
North East -6 20 £625 +25.00% 15
East Midlands -44 8 £488 -12.16% 20
Northern Ireland 0 2 £385 - 1
South Coast - 2 £600 -
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 12 (1.54%) Confluence
2 10 (1.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.16%) CICS
4 8 (1.03%) Apache
5 6 (0.77%) IIS
6 5 (0.64%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.51%) nginx
8 3 (0.39%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.39%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.26%) Apache Pulsar
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
Applications
1 23 (2.96%) MS Visio
2 21 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 238 (30.59%) Azure
2 143 (18.38%) AWS
3 54 (6.94%) Entra ID
4 52 (6.68%) GCP
5 44 (5.66%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (3.86%) GitHub
8 27 (3.47%) OCI
9 26 (3.34%) IaaS
9 26 (3.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 21 (2.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 20 (2.57%) Azure Sentinel
12 16 (2.06%) SaaS
13 15 (1.93%) PaaS
14 14 (1.80%) Azure Monitor
14 14 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
14 14 (1.80%) Nutanix
15 12 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (1.41%) Microsoft Purview
16 11 (1.41%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 243 (31.23%) WAN
2 205 (26.35%) Network Security
3 203 (26.09%) LAN
4 178 (22.88%) VPN
5 167 (21.47%) DNS
6 135 (17.35%) BGP
7 131 (16.84%) OSPF
8 108 (13.88%) VLAN
8 108 (13.88%) Wireless
9 104 (13.37%) DHCP
10 92 (11.83%) SD-WAN
11 75 (9.64%) TCP/IP
11 75 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
12 70 (9.00%) IPsec
13 69 (8.87%) BIG-IP
14 68 (8.74%) VXLAN
15 65 (8.35%) Ethernet VPN
16 53 (6.81%) Cisco ISE
17 51 (6.56%) MPLS
18 45 (5.78%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (1.80%) SQL Server
2 11 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.16%) DataStage
4 6 (0.77%) Power BI
5 5 (0.64%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.51%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.51%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.51%) MySQL
6 4 (0.51%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.39%) Delta Lake
7 3 (0.39%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.13%) EDRMS
9 1 (0.13%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.13%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.13%) Redis
9 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 60 (7.71%) JIRA
2 36 (4.63%) GitLab
3 31 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 22 (2.83%) Git
5 13 (1.67%) Burp Suite
6 12 (1.54%) Metasploit
7 11 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
8 9 (1.16%) Jaeger
9 4 (0.51%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.51%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.39%) Chocolatey
11 2 (0.26%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.26%) Introscope
11 2 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.13%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.13%) Gradle
12 1 (0.13%) LoadRunner
12 1 (0.13%) MSI
General
1 180 (23.14%) Social Skills
2 85 (10.93%) Finance
3 66 (8.48%) Public Sector
4 60 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
5 48 (6.17%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (3.08%) Banking
7 20 (2.57%) Telecoms
8 18 (2.31%) Manufacturing
9 16 (2.06%) Military
10 15 (1.93%) Legal
11 12 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.03%) Law
13 8 (1.03%) Retail
14 6 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.39%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.39%) Back Office
15 3 (0.39%) Police
16 2 (0.26%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 272 (34.96%) Network Engineer
2 97 (12.47%) Architect
2 97 (12.47%) Senior
3 87 (11.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 56 (7.20%) Security Engineer
5 52 (6.68%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 48 (6.17%) Network Architect
7 41 (5.27%) Senior Network Engineer
8 30 (3.86%) Cloud Engineer
9 29 (3.73%) Cisco Engineer
10 27 (3.47%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 26 (3.34%) Cisco Network Engineer
12 23 (2.96%) Lead
13 22 (2.83%) Designer
14 20 (2.57%) Network Specialist
15 19 (2.44%) Technical Architect
16 18 (2.31%) Analyst
16 18 (2.31%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
17 16 (2.06%) Azure Engineer
17 16 (2.06%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (7.58%) 802.1X
2 25 (3.21%) LDAP
3 21 (2.70%) Middleware
4 18 (2.31%) Kafka
5 16 (2.06%) SAML
6 11 (1.41%) OpenTelemetry
7 10 (1.29%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.90%) YAML
9 6 (0.77%) LangChain
9 6 (0.77%) OAuth
9 6 (0.77%) OAuth2
9 6 (0.77%) PyTorch
9 6 (0.77%) scikit-learn
10 5 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
11 4 (0.51%) JSON
11 4 (0.51%) OpenID
11 4 (0.51%) REST
12 3 (0.39%) .NET
12 3 (0.39%) LAMP
12 3 (0.39%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 220 (28.28%) Data Centre
2 52 (6.68%) Security Posture
3 50 (6.43%) Cloud Native
4 41 (5.27%) Hybrid Cloud
5 40 (5.14%) PKI
6 28 (3.60%) Clustering
7 27 (3.47%) Operational Technology
8 26 (3.34%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.57%) Management Information System
10 19 (2.44%) Public Cloud
11 17 (2.19%) IoT
12 14 (1.80%) BYOD
12 14 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.80%) SCADA
12 14 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
13 13 (1.67%) Cyber Threat
13 13 (1.67%) NHS
14 12 (1.54%) Enterprise Storage
15 11 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
15 11 (1.41%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 202 (25.96%) Windows
2 128 (16.45%) Linux
3 74 (9.51%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.21%) Unix
5 20 (2.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.29%) Solaris
7 9 (1.16%) AIX
8 8 (1.03%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.77%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.77%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.51%) CatOS
10 4 (0.51%) CentOS
10 4 (0.51%) VMS
11 3 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.39%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.26%) Android
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (16.32%) DevOps
2 121 (15.55%) Load Balancing
3 117 (15.04%) CI/CD
4 114 (14.65%) High Availability
4 114 (14.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 110 (14.14%) Cybersecurity
6 97 (12.47%) ITIL
7 94 (12.08%) Infrastructure as Code
8 91 (11.70%) Problem-Solving
9 86 (11.05%) Zero Trust
10 81 (10.41%) Agile
11 72 (9.25%) Network Segmentation
12 71 (9.13%) Observability
13 68 (8.74%) Change Management
13 68 (8.74%) Migration
14 64 (8.23%) Roadmaps
15 60 (7.71%) Technical Leadership
16 59 (7.58%) SIEM
17 58 (7.46%) Network Design
17 58 (7.46%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 108 (13.88%) Python
2 72 (9.25%) PowerShell
3 42 (5.40%) Bash
4 36 (4.63%) SQL
5 30 (3.86%) Java
6 28 (3.60%) Bicep
7 9 (1.16%) COBOL
8 8 (1.03%) Rust
9 6 (0.77%) ActionScript
10 5 (0.64%) Perl
11 4 (0.51%) Go
11 4 (0.51%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.39%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.26%) C++
13 2 (0.26%) Groovy
13 2 (0.26%) Jython
14 1 (0.13%) C
14 1 (0.13%) Korn
14 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 316 (40.62%) Security Cleared
2 221 (28.41%) SC Cleared
3 189 (24.29%) Cisco Certification
4 138 (17.74%) CCNP
5 99 (12.72%) CCNA
6 75 (9.64%) DV Cleared
7 72 (9.25%) Degree
8 36 (4.63%) CISSP
9 27 (3.47%) Azure Certification
10 25 (3.21%) AWS Certification
11 22 (2.83%) Network+ Certification
12 19 (2.44%) JNCIS
13 16 (2.06%) JNCIA
14 15 (1.93%) CCIE
14 15 (1.93%) CISM
14 15 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
14 15 (1.93%) Server+ Certification
15 12 (1.54%) CHECK Team Member
16 11 (1.41%) CREST Certified
16 11 (1.41%) Cyber Scheme
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (5.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (3.98%) NIST
3 26 (3.34%) GDPR
4 23 (2.96%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.57%) QA
6 18 (2.31%) NCSC
7 17 (2.19%) SLA
8 16 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (1.29%) PMO
10 8 (1.03%) Disclosure Scotland
11 6 (0.77%) Data Quality
12 4 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.51%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.51%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.39%) ISA99
13 3 (0.39%) RMADS
14 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
14 2 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
14 2 (0.26%) GRC
14 2 (0.26%) GxP
System Software
1 133 (17.10%) Active Directory
2 98 (12.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (5.14%) Docker
4 35 (4.50%) VMware NSX
5 30 (3.86%) vSphere
6 20 (2.57%) Hyper-V
7 16 (2.06%) Firmware
8 15 (1.93%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (1.93%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.39%) DFS Replication
10 3 (0.39%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.39%) Postfix
11 2 (0.26%) BitLocker
11 2 (0.26%) KVM
11 2 (0.26%) Squid
12 1 (0.13%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.13%) iptables
12 1 (0.13%) RHEV
12 1 (0.13%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 110 (14.14%) Terraform
2 83 (10.67%) Ansible
3 51 (6.56%) FortiGate
3 51 (6.56%) Kubernetes
4 27 (3.47%) Grafana
5 21 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (2.57%) Prometheus
7 18 (2.31%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (2.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 14 (1.80%) Nmap
10 13 (1.67%) vCenter Server
11 12 (1.54%) CASB
11 12 (1.54%) Nagios
11 12 (1.54%) Progress Chef
12 11 (1.41%) SCCM
13 9 (1.16%) Kiali
14 8 (1.03%) Cisco Prime
15 7 (0.90%) Nessus
15 7 (0.90%) VxRail
16 5 (0.64%) Endace
Vendors
1 312 (40.10%) Cisco
2 162 (20.82%) Palo Alto
3 139 (17.87%) Microsoft
4 132 (16.97%) VMware
5 119 (15.30%) F5
6 100 (12.85%) Juniper
7 78 (10.03%) Fortinet
8 69 (8.87%) CheckPoint
9 68 (8.74%) Aruba
10 65 (8.35%) SolarWinds
11 63 (8.10%) Splunk
12 53 (6.81%) ServiceNow
13 32 (4.11%) Google
14 27 (3.47%) Arista
14 27 (3.47%) Extreme Networks
15 24 (3.08%) Meraki
16 23 (2.96%) Red Hat
17 22 (2.83%) Veeam
18 17 (2.19%) Oracle
19 15 (1.93%) IBM