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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 53 36
Rank change year-on-year -13 -17 +7
Contract jobs citing Firewall 756 559 917
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.22% 4.36% 4.41%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 29.65% 28.06% 26.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 348 591
10th Percentile £318 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £384 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £569 £588 £613
90th Percentile £638 £650 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £515
% change year-on-year -1.96% -0.97% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 16 30
10th Percentile £20.53 - £23.92
25th Percentile £37.25 £14.20 £58.88
Median hourly rate £56.00 £32.07 £83.77
Median % change year-on-year +74.60% -61.71% +35.10%
75th Percentile £74.26 £41.62 £87.46
90th Percentile £84.61 £59.38 £87.53
UK median hourly rate £56.00 £36.65 £63.00
% change year-on-year +52.82% -41.83% +1.61%

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 2,550 1,992 3,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.87% 15.54% 16.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,557 1,221 2,015
10th Percentile £206 £193 £203
25th Percentile £358 £300 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £653 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £490
% change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -5.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 135 358
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.63 £17.30 £17.17
Median hourly rate £52.50 £27.94 £46.95
Median % change year-on-year +87.90% -40.48% +153.76%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.38 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.61 £70.84
UK median hourly rate £42.38 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +13.00% -6.25% +110.53%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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
South East +6 243 £500 - 122
North of England -22 216 £500 +5.26% 107
North West -12 141 £528 +11.16% 49
Midlands -36 89 £423 -23.18% 49
West Midlands -25 77 £416 -20.37% 24
Yorkshire -20 73 £434 -15.37% 26
East of England -3 63 £500 -4.76% 50
South West -49 58 £545 - 38
Scotland +15 53 £425 - 19
Wales -10 32 £425 +11.11% 18
East Midlands -51 8 £475 -17.39% 24
North East -17 5 £548 -0.45% 33
Northern Ireland +4 3 £443 - 14
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 13 (1.72%) Confluence
2 9 (1.19%) Apache
2 9 (1.19%) CICS
3 8 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.66%) IIS
5 3 (0.40%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.40%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.26%) Apache Pulsar
6 2 (0.26%) CMS
6 2 (0.26%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle HTTP Server
6 2 (0.26%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.26%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Application Server
6 2 (0.26%) WebSphere Portal
7 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 30 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.98%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 210 (27.78%) Azure
2 137 (18.12%) AWS
3 54 (7.14%) Entra ID
4 49 (6.48%) GCP
5 41 (5.42%) Microsoft 365
6 28 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (3.44%) GitHub
8 25 (3.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 22 (2.91%) Azure Sentinel
9 22 (2.91%) IaaS
10 20 (2.65%) PaaS
11 18 (2.38%) Serverless
12 16 (2.12%) AWS CloudFormation
12 16 (2.12%) Azure Monitor
13 15 (1.98%) Nutanix
14 14 (1.85%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
15 13 (1.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 13 (1.72%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 12 (1.59%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 208 (27.51%) WAN
2 206 (27.25%) Network Security
3 180 (23.81%) LAN
4 168 (22.22%) VPN
5 155 (20.50%) DNS
6 130 (17.20%) BGP
7 119 (15.74%) OSPF
8 104 (13.76%) VLAN
9 98 (12.96%) DHCP
10 97 (12.83%) Wireless
11 80 (10.58%) TCP/IP
12 67 (8.86%) SD-WAN
13 63 (8.33%) IPsec
14 57 (7.54%) Cisco ISE
15 56 (7.41%) Wi-Fi
16 47 (6.22%) Ethernet VPN
16 47 (6.22%) VXLAN
17 44 (5.82%) MPLS
18 40 (5.29%) Cisco Nexus
19 39 (5.16%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.72%) SQL Server
2 12 (1.59%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.19%) DataStage
4 8 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (0.79%) Power BI
6 4 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.53%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.53%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.53%) NoSQL
6 4 (0.53%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.40%) Delta Lake
7 3 (0.40%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.40%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.26%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.13%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.13%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.13%) MySQL
9 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 55 (7.28%) JIRA
2 28 (3.70%) Jenkins
3 27 (3.57%) GitLab
4 22 (2.91%) Git
5 16 (2.12%) Burp Suite
5 16 (2.12%) Metasploit
6 14 (1.85%) Sonatype Nexus
7 9 (1.19%) Jaeger
8 6 (0.79%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.53%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.53%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.40%) Chocolatey
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%) MSI
12 1 (0.13%) Postman
12 1 (0.13%) Subversion
12 1 (0.13%) Travis CI
General
1 200 (26.46%) Social Skills
2 79 (10.45%) Finance
3 73 (9.66%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.94%) Public Sector
5 51 (6.75%) Documentation Skills
6 22 (2.91%) Banking
7 19 (2.51%) Manufacturing
8 17 (2.25%) Telecoms
9 15 (1.98%) Legal
10 14 (1.85%) Military
11 13 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
12 10 (1.32%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.06%) Law
14 7 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 7 (0.93%) Retail
15 6 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 6 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.40%) Back Office
16 3 (0.40%) Electronics
17 2 (0.26%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 252 (33.33%) Network Engineer
2 106 (14.02%) Architect
3 76 (10.05%) Senior
4 61 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 53 (7.01%) Security Engineer
6 47 (6.22%) Network Architect
7 41 (5.42%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 34 (4.50%) Senior Network Engineer
9 26 (3.44%) Cisco Engineer
10 25 (3.31%) Cloud Engineer
11 24 (3.17%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 24 (3.17%) IT Support
12 22 (2.91%) Lead
12 22 (2.91%) Network Specialist
13 21 (2.78%) Designer
14 19 (2.51%) Analyst
14 19 (2.51%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
14 19 (2.51%) Platform Engineer
14 19 (2.51%) Security Architect
15 18 (2.38%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (7.54%) 802.1X
2 24 (3.17%) LDAP
3 20 (2.65%) Middleware
4 18 (2.38%) Kafka
4 18 (2.38%) SAML
5 11 (1.46%) OpenTelemetry
6 10 (1.32%) OAuth
6 10 (1.32%) OAuth2
7 9 (1.19%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.06%) OpenID
9 6 (0.79%) LangChain
9 6 (0.79%) PyTorch
9 6 (0.79%) scikit-learn
10 5 (0.66%) JSON
10 5 (0.66%) Node.js
10 5 (0.66%) REST
11 4 (0.53%) ARM Templates
11 4 (0.53%) YAML
12 3 (0.40%) .NET
12 3 (0.40%) Lambda Expressions
Miscellaneous
1 182 (24.07%) Data Centre
2 47 (6.22%) Security Posture
3 43 (5.69%) PKI
4 38 (5.03%) Cloud Native
5 30 (3.97%) Operational Technology
6 27 (3.57%) Clustering
7 25 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 24 (3.17%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.65%) IoT
10 16 (2.12%) Management Information System
10 16 (2.12%) NHS
10 16 (2.12%) Public Cloud
10 16 (2.12%) SCADA
11 14 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.72%) BYOD
12 13 (1.72%) Product Ownership
13 12 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.46%) Distributed Systems
14 11 (1.46%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 215 (28.44%) Windows
2 138 (18.25%) Linux
3 84 (11.11%) Windows Server
4 29 (3.84%) Unix
5 21 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.46%) Solaris
7 9 (1.19%) AIX
8 7 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.66%) VMS
10 5 (0.66%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 3 (0.40%) CatOS
12 3 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.26%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
2 111 (14.68%) Problem-Solving
3 107 (14.15%) DevOps
4 98 (12.96%) High Availability
5 94 (12.43%) ITIL
6 93 (12.30%) CI/CD
6 93 (12.30%) Load Balancing
7 86 (11.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 80 (10.58%) Infrastructure as Code
9 67 (8.86%) Observability
10 66 (8.73%) Change Management
11 65 (8.60%) Agile
11 65 (8.60%) Zero Trust
12 62 (8.20%) Migration
13 60 (7.94%) Network Segmentation
13 60 (7.94%) Technical Leadership
14 58 (7.67%) Cloud Security
14 58 (7.67%) SIEM
15 57 (7.54%) Identity Access Management
16 53 (7.01%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 90 (11.90%) Python
2 86 (11.38%) PowerShell
3 44 (5.82%) Bash
4 33 (4.37%) SQL
5 24 (3.17%) Bicep
6 23 (3.04%) Java
7 14 (1.85%) Perl
8 9 (1.19%) COBOL
9 8 (1.06%) Rust
10 5 (0.66%) Ruby
11 4 (0.53%) C#
11 4 (0.53%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.40%) Go
12 3 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.40%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.40%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.26%) C++
13 2 (0.26%) Jython
14 1 (0.13%) C
14 1 (0.13%) Korn
Qualifications
1 308 (40.74%) Security Cleared
2 209 (27.65%) SC Cleared
3 170 (22.49%) Cisco Certification
4 131 (17.33%) CCNP
5 87 (11.51%) CCNA
6 84 (11.11%) DV Cleared
7 72 (9.52%) Degree
8 37 (4.89%) CISSP
9 23 (3.04%) AWS Certification
10 21 (2.78%) Azure Certification
11 20 (2.65%) CISM
12 17 (2.25%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (2.25%) Network+ Certification
13 16 (2.12%) CHECK Team Member
13 16 (2.12%) JNCIS
14 15 (1.98%) CCIE
15 14 (1.85%) CREST Certified
15 14 (1.85%) Cyber Scheme
16 13 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.72%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (7.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (5.03%) GDPR
2 38 (5.03%) NIST
3 29 (3.84%) PCI DSS
4 20 (2.65%) NCSC
5 19 (2.51%) Cyber Essentials
6 18 (2.38%) QA
7 15 (1.98%) SLA
8 12 (1.59%) PMO
9 6 (0.79%) Data Quality
10 5 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
10 5 (0.66%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 4 (0.53%) SOC 2
12 3 (0.40%) GRC
12 3 (0.40%) ISA99
12 3 (0.40%) RMADS
13 2 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.26%) GxP
13 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 141 (18.65%) Active Directory
2 106 (14.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 49 (6.48%) Docker
4 38 (5.03%) VMware NSX
5 27 (3.57%) vSphere
6 22 (2.91%) Hyper-V
7 16 (2.12%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (1.98%) Firmware
9 11 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.40%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.13%) KVM
12 1 (0.13%) RHEV
12 1 (0.13%) Squid
12 1 (0.13%) UAG
12 1 (0.13%) Xen
12 1 (0.13%) XenApp
12 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 93 (12.30%) Terraform
2 67 (8.86%) Ansible
3 58 (7.67%) Kubernetes
4 48 (6.35%) FortiGate
5 23 (3.04%) Grafana
6 22 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (2.65%) vCenter Server
9 18 (2.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 18 (2.38%) Nmap
10 17 (2.25%) Prometheus
11 11 (1.46%) Nagios
12 10 (1.32%) CASB
12 10 (1.32%) SCCM
13 9 (1.19%) Cisco Prime
13 9 (1.19%) Kiali
14 8 (1.06%) Nessus
15 7 (0.93%) VxRail
16 6 (0.79%) Progress Chef
17 5 (0.66%) Endace
Vendors
1 294 (38.89%) Cisco
2 149 (19.71%) Microsoft
3 144 (19.05%) Palo Alto
4 136 (17.99%) VMware
5 90 (11.90%) Juniper
6 84 (11.11%) F5
7 72 (9.52%) CheckPoint
8 71 (9.39%) Fortinet
9 65 (8.60%) Splunk
10 61 (8.07%) SolarWinds
11 55 (7.28%) Aruba
12 39 (5.16%) ServiceNow
13 33 (4.37%) Google
14 28 (3.70%) Meraki
15 25 (3.31%) Extreme Networks
16 24 (3.17%) Red Hat
17 20 (2.65%) Citrix
17 20 (2.65%) Oracle
18 17 (2.25%) Veeam
19 15 (1.98%) IBM