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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 46 39
Rank change year-on-year -20 -7 0
Contract jobs citing Firewall 764 569 848
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.08% 4.48% 4.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.02% 28.97% 25.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 512 336 543
10th Percentile £330 £301 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £491 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.83% -1.80% +2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £608
90th Percentile £638 £644 £724
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £509
% change year-on-year - -1.72% -3.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 18 32
10th Percentile £16.48 - £23.92
25th Percentile £37.25 £14.20 £41.36
Median hourly rate £48.72 £22.00 £83.63
Median % change year-on-year +121.45% -73.69% +34.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £41.25 £87.46
90th Percentile £77.66 £53.63 £87.53
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £22.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +121.45% -63.33% -3.23%

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 2,727 1,964 3,280
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.01% 15.47% 16.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,606 1,221 1,866
10th Percentile £231 £200 £203
25th Percentile £375 £305 £346
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £653 £625 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £490
% change year-on-year +3.09% -1.02% -4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 119 354
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £16.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.52 £28.00 £46.14
Median % change year-on-year +26.86% -39.31% +156.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £38.41 £40.00
% change year-on-year -24.81% -3.98% +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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -16 241 £515 +8.42% 117
South East -3 235 £500 - 164
North West -2 158 £540 +13.68% 72
Midlands -54 80 £420 -23.64% 59
Yorkshire -32 69 £424 -12.63% 32
West Midlands -46 68 £413 -21.43% 38
East of England -12 65 £503 -4.19% 30
Scotland +16 60 £450 +2.86% 24
South West -42 60 £523 +4.50% 49
Wales -15 27 £425 +21.43% 16
North East -6 18 £625 +25.00% 15
East Midlands -48 8 £488 -12.16% 21
Northern Ireland -2 2 £385 - 3
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 (1.70%) Confluence
2 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.18%) CICS
4 8 (1.05%) Apache
5 6 (0.79%) IIS
6 5 (0.65%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.52%) 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 20 (2.62%) MS Visio
2 19 (2.49%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.52%) 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
1 228 (29.84%) Azure
2 133 (17.41%) AWS
3 53 (6.94%) Entra ID
4 46 (6.02%) GCP
5 42 (5.50%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (3.53%) GitHub
8 25 (3.27%) OCI
9 23 (3.01%) IaaS
10 21 (2.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 20 (2.62%) Azure Sentinel
12 16 (2.09%) SaaS
13 15 (1.96%) Azure Monitor
13 15 (1.96%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 15 (1.96%) PaaS
14 14 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
14 14 (1.83%) Nutanix
15 12 (1.57%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (1.44%) Microsoft Purview
16 11 (1.44%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 239 (31.28%) WAN
2 198 (25.92%) LAN
3 195 (25.52%) Network Security
4 171 (22.38%) VPN
5 159 (20.81%) DNS
6 138 (18.06%) BGP
7 134 (17.54%) OSPF
8 108 (14.14%) VLAN
9 104 (13.61%) Wireless
10 101 (13.22%) DHCP
11 89 (11.65%) SD-WAN
12 76 (9.95%) Wi-Fi
13 74 (9.69%) TCP/IP
14 69 (9.03%) IPsec
15 68 (8.90%) VXLAN
16 66 (8.64%) BIG-IP
16 66 (8.64%) Ethernet VPN
17 54 (7.07%) Cisco ISE
18 47 (6.15%) MPLS
19 44 (5.76%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (1.96%) SQL Server
2 11 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (1.18%) DataStage
4 6 (0.79%) Power BI
5 5 (0.65%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (0.52%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.52%) MongoDB
6 4 (0.52%) MySQL
6 4 (0.52%) 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 57 (7.46%) JIRA
2 36 (4.71%) GitLab
3 28 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 22 (2.88%) Git
5 13 (1.70%) Burp Suite
6 12 (1.57%) Metasploit
7 11 (1.44%) Sonatype Nexus
8 9 (1.18%) Jaeger
9 4 (0.52%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.52%) 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
1 179 (23.43%) Social Skills
2 77 (10.08%) Finance
3 67 (8.77%) Public Sector
4 60 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
5 51 (6.68%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (3.14%) Banking
7 21 (2.75%) Manufacturing
8 19 (2.49%) Telecoms
9 16 (2.09%) Military
10 13 (1.70%) Legal
11 12 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.05%) Law
13 8 (1.05%) Retail
14 7 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 6 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.52%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.39%) Back Office
17 3 (0.39%) Police
18 2 (0.26%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 268 (35.08%) Network Engineer
2 96 (12.57%) Architect
3 93 (12.17%) Senior
4 83 (10.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 54 (7.07%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 49 (6.41%) Security Engineer
7 47 (6.15%) Network Architect
8 37 (4.84%) Senior Network Engineer
9 30 (3.93%) Cisco Engineer
10 27 (3.53%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 27 (3.53%) Cloud Engineer
11 26 (3.40%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 23 (3.01%) Lead
13 22 (2.88%) Designer
14 19 (2.49%) Technical Architect
15 18 (2.36%) Network Specialist
16 17 (2.23%) Analyst
17 16 (2.09%) Azure Engineer
17 16 (2.09%) Firewall Specialist
17 16 (2.09%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (7.72%) 802.1X
2 25 (3.27%) LDAP
3 21 (2.75%) Middleware
4 18 (2.36%) Kafka
5 16 (2.09%) SAML
6 11 (1.44%) OpenTelemetry
7 10 (1.31%) Spring Boot
8 7 (0.92%) YAML
9 6 (0.79%) LangChain
9 6 (0.79%) OAuth
9 6 (0.79%) OAuth2
9 6 (0.79%) PyTorch
9 6 (0.79%) scikit-learn
10 5 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
11 4 (0.52%) JSON
11 4 (0.52%) OpenID
11 4 (0.52%) REST
12 3 (0.39%) .NET
12 3 (0.39%) LAMP
12 3 (0.39%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 220 (28.80%) Data Centre
2 47 (6.15%) Security Posture
3 42 (5.50%) Cloud Native
4 40 (5.24%) Hybrid Cloud
5 37 (4.84%) PKI
6 28 (3.66%) Clustering
7 27 (3.53%) Operational Technology
8 24 (3.14%) Onboarding
9 19 (2.49%) Public Cloud
10 17 (2.23%) IoT
11 15 (1.96%) Management Information System
12 14 (1.83%) BYOD
12 14 (1.83%) SCADA
13 13 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
13 13 (1.70%) NHS
13 13 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.57%) Cyber Threat
15 11 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
15 11 (1.44%) Driving Licence
15 11 (1.44%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 195 (25.52%) Windows
2 119 (15.58%) Linux
3 75 (9.82%) Windows Server
4 25 (3.27%) Unix
5 15 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.31%) Solaris
7 9 (1.18%) AIX
8 8 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.79%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.79%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.52%) CatOS
10 4 (0.52%) CentOS
10 4 (0.52%) VMS
11 3 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.39%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.26%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (15.45%) DevOps
1 118 (15.45%) Load Balancing
2 111 (14.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 110 (14.40%) High Availability
4 109 (14.27%) CI/CD
5 108 (14.14%) Cybersecurity
6 94 (12.30%) ITIL
7 92 (12.04%) Infrastructure as Code
8 90 (11.78%) Problem-Solving
9 84 (10.99%) Zero Trust
10 71 (9.29%) Agile
10 71 (9.29%) Network Segmentation
11 67 (8.77%) Migration
12 66 (8.64%) Observability
13 59 (7.72%) Change Management
14 56 (7.33%) Network Design
14 56 (7.33%) Roadmaps
14 56 (7.33%) Technical Leadership
15 55 (7.20%) Identity Access Management
16 54 (7.07%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 96 (12.57%) Python
2 66 (8.64%) PowerShell
3 37 (4.84%) Bash
4 36 (4.71%) SQL
5 28 (3.66%) Bicep
6 24 (3.14%) Java
7 9 (1.18%) COBOL
8 8 (1.05%) Rust
9 4 (0.52%) Go
9 4 (0.52%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.52%) Perl
10 3 (0.39%) ActionScript
10 3 (0.39%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.39%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.26%) C++
11 2 (0.26%) Groovy
11 2 (0.26%) Jython
12 1 (0.13%) C
12 1 (0.13%) Korn
12 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 315 (41.23%) Security Cleared
2 222 (29.06%) SC Cleared
3 187 (24.48%) Cisco Certification
4 139 (18.19%) CCNP
5 99 (12.96%) CCNA
6 73 (9.55%) DV Cleared
7 67 (8.77%) Degree
8 28 (3.66%) CISSP
9 22 (2.88%) Network+ Certification
10 21 (2.75%) Azure Certification
11 19 (2.49%) AWS Certification
11 19 (2.49%) JNCIS
12 16 (2.09%) JNCIA
13 15 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (1.96%) Server+ Certification
14 14 (1.83%) CCIE
14 14 (1.83%) CISM
15 12 (1.57%) CHECK Team Member
16 11 (1.44%) CREST Certified
16 11 (1.44%) Cyber Scheme
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (5.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (3.53%) NIST
3 26 (3.40%) GDPR
4 21 (2.75%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.62%) QA
6 18 (2.36%) NCSC
7 17 (2.23%) SLA
8 16 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (1.31%) PMO
10 7 (0.92%) Disclosure Scotland
11 6 (0.79%) Data Quality
12 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.52%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.52%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.39%) ISA99
13 3 (0.39%) RMADS
14 2 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
14 2 (0.26%) GRC
14 2 (0.26%) GxP
15 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 131 (17.15%) Active Directory
2 94 (12.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (4.45%) Docker
4 32 (4.19%) VMware NSX
5 30 (3.93%) vSphere
6 20 (2.62%) Hyper-V
7 16 (2.09%) Firmware
8 15 (1.96%) Virtual Machines
9 14 (1.83%) VMware ESXi
10 9 (1.18%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.39%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.39%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.39%) Postfix
12 2 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.26%) KVM
12 2 (0.26%) Squid
13 1 (0.13%) FreeRADIUS
13 1 (0.13%) iptables
13 1 (0.13%) RHEV
13 1 (0.13%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 105 (13.74%) Terraform
2 81 (10.60%) Ansible
3 50 (6.54%) FortiGate
4 46 (6.02%) Kubernetes
5 27 (3.53%) Grafana
6 21 (2.75%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (2.62%) Prometheus
8 18 (2.36%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (2.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (1.83%) Nmap
11 13 (1.70%) vCenter Server
12 12 (1.57%) CASB
12 12 (1.57%) Nagios
13 11 (1.44%) SCCM
14 9 (1.18%) Kiali
15 8 (1.05%) Cisco Prime
16 7 (0.92%) Nessus
16 7 (0.92%) VxRail
17 6 (0.79%) Progress Chef
18 5 (0.65%) Endace
Vendors
1 309 (40.45%) Cisco
2 161 (21.07%) Palo Alto
3 133 (17.41%) Microsoft
4 128 (16.75%) VMware
5 115 (15.05%) F5
6 97 (12.70%) Juniper
7 76 (9.95%) Fortinet
8 71 (9.29%) Aruba
8 71 (9.29%) CheckPoint
9 62 (8.12%) Splunk
10 61 (7.98%) SolarWinds
11 49 (6.41%) ServiceNow
12 27 (3.53%) Arista
13 26 (3.40%) Extreme Networks
14 25 (3.27%) Google
14 25 (3.27%) Meraki
15 22 (2.88%) Veeam
16 19 (2.49%) Red Hat
17 17 (2.23%) Oracle
18 15 (1.96%) IBM