Firewall Contract Job Trends

Firewall
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Firewall skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 62 58
Rank change year-on-year -34 -4 -12
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,396 1,303 1,347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.56% 3.95% 3.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.26% 33.87% 29.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 864 782 842
10th Percentile £350 £321 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £667 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £513
% change year-on-year +2.56% -4.88% +7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 29 29
10th Percentile £29.90 £14.20 £20.00
25th Percentile £49.61 £25.00 £22.40
Median hourly rate £67.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +123.33% +9.09% -58.32%
75th Percentile £79.38 £35.00 £76.99
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.45 £30.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +118.17% -36.84% -28.01%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,121 3,847 4,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.38% 11.65% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,996 2,371 2,670
10th Percentile £233 £235 £228
25th Percentile £390 £363 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £609
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +2.58% -7.00% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 400 201 268
10th Percentile £14.28 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £26.66 £42.50 £51.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.27% -16.67% -9.72%
75th Percentile £66.28 £63.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.11 £73.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.82% -25.89% +1.52%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Firewall relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Firewall job vacancy trend in the UK

Firewall
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Firewall.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Firewall

Firewall
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firewall over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Firewall in the UK

Firewall
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Firewall.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Firewall

Firewall
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firewall over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firewall in the UK

Firewall
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 11 September 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
England -39 1,227 £504 +0.80% 559
UK excluding London -34 774 £500 +2.56% 416
London -60 488 £500 -3.21% 210
Work from Home -34 393 £520 +4.00% 286
North of England -6 281 £500 +3.09% 89
South East -41 180 £523 +4.50% 147
North West +10 172 £501 +5.53% 56
Yorkshire -32 88 £475 -2.96% 19
South West -19 87 £556 +14.64% 46
Midlands -76 81 £465 -2.05% 68
East of England -7 76 £530 - 38
Scotland -5 63 £400 -11.11% 24
West Midlands -84 59 £450 -5.26% 47
North East -22 27 £500 -13.04% 14
East Midlands -10 20 £500 +1.63% 21
Wales -15 10 £425 +112.50% 8
Channel Islands -5 2 £600 -17.24% 1
Northern Ireland -10 1 - - 4

Firewall
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 51 (3.65%) Microsoft Exchange
2 38 (2.72%) SharePoint
3 31 (2.22%) Confluence
4 13 (0.93%) Apache
5 12 (0.86%) nginx
6 11 (0.79%) SAS
7 4 (0.29%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.29%) IIS
7 4 (0.29%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.21%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
9 2 (0.14%) CMS
9 2 (0.14%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.072%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.072%) MTS
10 1 (0.072%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 1 (0.072%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.072%) WebSphere Application Server
10 1 (0.072%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 22 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.072%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.14%) Bloomberg TOMS
3 2 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
3 2 (0.14%) Eikon
3 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.072%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 532 (38.11%) Azure
2 321 (22.99%) AWS
3 176 (12.61%) Entra ID
4 131 (9.38%) Microsoft 365
5 105 (7.52%) GCP
6 76 (5.44%) GitHub
7 68 (4.87%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (4.80%) IaaS
9 64 (4.58%) SaaS
10 54 (3.87%) Azure Monitor
11 48 (3.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 44 (3.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 40 (2.87%) Azure Sentinel
14 39 (2.79%) PaaS
15 36 (2.58%) OCI
15 36 (2.58%) Serverless
16 34 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
18 27 (1.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 27 (1.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 423 (30.30%) VPN
2 402 (28.80%) Network Security
3 366 (26.22%) DNS
4 363 (26.00%) WAN
5 257 (18.41%) LAN
6 243 (17.41%) BGP
7 210 (15.04%) DHCP
8 208 (14.90%) TCP/IP
9 200 (14.33%) VLAN
10 180 (12.89%) OSPF
11 177 (12.68%) Wireless
12 134 (9.60%) SD-WAN
13 129 (9.24%) Wi-Fi
14 84 (6.02%) IPsec
15 83 (5.95%) Cisco ASA
16 81 (5.80%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 78 (5.59%) MPLS
18 77 (5.52%) BIG-IP
19 74 (5.30%) SSL
20 68 (4.87%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.51%) SQL Server
2 20 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
4 14 (1.00%) Power BI
5 12 (0.86%) Data Lake
5 12 (0.86%) Relational Database
6 8 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
6 8 (0.57%) NoSQL
7 7 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
7 7 (0.50%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.36%) MySQL
9 4 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.29%) Db2
10 3 (0.21%) Big Data
10 3 (0.21%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.21%) EDRMS
10 3 (0.21%) Metadata
11 2 (0.14%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.14%) Amazon QuickSight
Development Applications
1 92 (6.59%) JIRA
2 61 (4.37%) Jenkins
3 48 (3.44%) Git
4 47 (3.37%) GitLab
5 15 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.64%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.50%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.36%) Chocolatey
10 4 (0.29%) Maven
10 4 (0.29%) MSI
11 3 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (0.21%) Burp Suite
12 2 (0.14%) Gatling
12 2 (0.14%) Gradle
12 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.14%) Vagrant
General
1 307 (21.99%) Social Skills
2 171 (12.25%) Finance
3 142 (10.17%) Analytical Skills
4 112 (8.02%) Public Sector
5 89 (6.38%) Banking
6 59 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 57 (4.08%) Telecoms
8 34 (2.44%) Manufacturing
9 27 (1.93%) Legal
10 20 (1.43%) Retail
11 17 (1.22%) Local Government
11 17 (1.22%) Military
12 14 (1.00%) Financial Institution
12 14 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (0.93%) Police
14 12 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.79%) Investment Banking
16 10 (0.72%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 446 (31.95%) Network Engineer
2 222 (15.90%) Senior
3 176 (12.61%) Architect
4 163 (11.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 108 (7.74%) Security Engineer
6 100 (7.16%) Senior Network Engineer
7 85 (6.09%) Cloud Engineer
8 68 (4.87%) Consultant
9 66 (4.73%) Azure Engineer
10 60 (4.30%) Network Security Engineer
11 59 (4.23%) Network Architect
12 54 (3.87%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 52 (3.72%) DevOps Engineer
14 49 (3.51%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 48 (3.44%) Security Architect
16 47 (3.37%) Lead
17 42 (3.01%) Platform Engineer
18 41 (2.94%) Cisco Engineer
19 39 (2.79%) Cisco Network Engineer
20 37 (2.65%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (21.35%) Terraform
2 43 (3.08%) 802.1X
3 32 (2.29%) Middleware
4 27 (1.93%) ARM Templates
4 27 (1.93%) SAML
5 19 (1.36%) OpenID
5 19 (1.36%) REST
6 15 (1.07%) OAuth
7 13 (0.93%) LDAP
8 12 (0.86%) OAuth2
9 10 (0.72%) React
9 10 (0.72%) YAML
10 8 (0.57%) JSON
10 8 (0.57%) Kafka
11 7 (0.50%) .NET
11 7 (0.50%) OpenTelemetry
11 7 (0.50%) SailPoint
12 6 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
13 5 (0.36%) Web Services
13 5 (0.36%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 296 (21.20%) Data Centre
2 103 (7.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 78 (5.59%) PKI
4 77 (5.52%) Cloud Native
5 61 (4.37%) Onboarding
6 53 (3.80%) Management Information System
7 50 (3.58%) Security Posture
8 48 (3.44%) Operational Technology
9 33 (2.36%) Public Cloud
10 31 (2.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 28 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
12 26 (1.86%) IoT
13 24 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
13 24 (1.72%) Replication
14 23 (1.65%) Driving Licence
14 23 (1.65%) Linux Command Line
14 23 (1.65%) SCADA
14 23 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (1.36%) Enterprise Storage
16 18 (1.29%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 343 (24.57%) Windows
2 222 (15.90%) Linux
3 149 (10.67%) Windows Server
4 45 (3.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (2.08%) Unix
6 25 (1.79%) Ubuntu
7 21 (1.50%) VMS
8 16 (1.15%) Mac OS
9 14 (1.00%) CentOS
10 13 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.57%) Amazon Linux
12 8 (0.57%) Windows 10
13 7 (0.50%) Android
13 7 (0.50%) Rocky
13 7 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.43%) Apple iOS
14 6 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.29%) SUSE
16 3 (0.21%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (18.19%) Infrastructure as Code
2 248 (17.77%) DevOps
3 232 (16.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 231 (16.55%) CI/CD
5 207 (14.83%) Migration
6 201 (14.40%) Cybersecurity
7 197 (14.11%) Problem-Solving
8 192 (13.75%) Load Balancing
9 180 (12.89%) ITIL
10 163 (11.68%) Zero Trust
11 162 (11.60%) High Availability
12 160 (11.46%) Agile
13 140 (10.03%) Stakeholder Management
14 137 (9.81%) Change Management
15 136 (9.74%) Project Delivery
16 129 (9.24%) SIEM
17 117 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
18 115 (8.24%) Cloud Security
18 115 (8.24%) Validation
19 111 (7.95%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 281 (20.13%) Python
2 226 (16.19%) PowerShell
3 135 (9.67%) Bash
4 54 (3.87%) Bicep
5 47 (3.37%) SQL
6 40 (2.87%) Java
7 14 (1.00%) Groovy
8 13 (0.93%) ActionScript
9 10 (0.72%) Perl
10 9 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.57%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.43%) Go
12 6 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
13 4 (0.29%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.21%) C++
14 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.14%) C
15 2 (0.14%) COBOL
15 2 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 470 (33.67%) Security Cleared
2 334 (23.93%) SC Cleared
3 241 (17.26%) Cisco Certification
4 183 (13.11%) CCNP
5 119 (8.52%) DV Cleared
6 111 (7.95%) Degree
7 93 (6.66%) CCNA
8 75 (5.37%) CISSP
9 71 (5.09%) Azure Certification
10 52 (3.72%) AWS Certification
11 37 (2.65%) CCIE
12 36 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
13 34 (2.44%) CISM
14 28 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
15 17 (1.22%) CEH
15 17 (1.22%) PMP
15 17 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 16 (1.15%) PMI Certification
17 15 (1.07%) JNCIS
17 15 (1.07%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (4.58%) NIST
3 37 (2.65%) GDPR
4 28 (2.01%) NCSC
5 25 (1.79%) QA
6 23 (1.65%) PCI DSS
7 22 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 20 (1.43%) SLA
9 11 (0.79%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 9 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 7 (0.50%) Data Quality
13 7 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
14 6 (0.43%) GxP
14 6 (0.43%) HIPAA
15 5 (0.36%) COBIT
16 4 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
17 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
17 3 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 236 (16.91%) Active Directory
2 182 (13.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 78 (5.59%) Docker
4 72 (5.16%) Hyper-V
5 56 (4.01%) VMware NSX
6 51 (3.65%) vSphere
7 47 (3.37%) Virtual Machines
7 47 (3.37%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (1.86%) Firmware
9 15 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
10 10 (0.72%) Squid
11 9 (0.64%) BitLocker
12 6 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.43%) NFS
13 5 (0.36%) Dovecot
13 5 (0.36%) Postfix
13 5 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
14 4 (0.29%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.21%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.21%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 216 (15.47%) Ansible
2 133 (9.53%) Kubernetes
3 88 (6.30%) FortiGate
4 69 (4.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 57 (4.08%) Grafana
6 53 (3.80%) Prometheus
7 42 (3.01%) SCCM
8 33 (2.36%) Single Sign-On
9 27 (1.93%) Progress Chef
10 26 (1.86%) vCenter Server
11 17 (1.22%) VxRail
12 15 (1.07%) Cisco Prime
12 15 (1.07%) Puppet
13 13 (0.93%) CASB
14 10 (0.72%) Argo
14 10 (0.72%) Packer
15 9 (0.64%) vMotion
15 9 (0.64%) WSUS
16 8 (0.57%) NetBackup
16 8 (0.57%) QRadar
Vendors
1 517 (37.03%) Cisco
2 344 (24.64%) Microsoft
3 322 (23.07%) Palo Alto
4 226 (16.19%) VMware
5 202 (14.47%) Fortinet
6 177 (12.68%) F5
7 124 (8.88%) CheckPoint
7 124 (8.88%) Juniper
8 65 (4.66%) Zscaler
9 64 (4.58%) Splunk
10 62 (4.44%) ServiceNow
11 61 (4.37%) Google
12 60 (4.30%) Aruba
13 58 (4.15%) Arista
14 53 (3.80%) Meraki
15 50 (3.58%) SolarWinds
16 39 (2.79%) Citrix
17 36 (2.58%) Red Hat
18 29 (2.08%) Infoblox
19 27 (1.93%) CyberArk