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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 50 47
Rank change year-on-year -30 -3 +11
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,293 1,257 1,768
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.16% 4.09% 3.96%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 30.84% 30.97% 29.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 850 749 1,109
10th Percentile £313 £313 £310
25th Percentile £413 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -0.95%
75th Percentile £590 £615 £625
90th Percentile £675 £715 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 24 61
10th Percentile £29.33 £20.00 £20.25
25th Percentile £35.94 £20.98 £60.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £35.82 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +17.08% -45.71% +34.33%
75th Percentile £74.26 £41.62 £76.53
90th Percentile £85.30 £56.25 £85.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.71 £35.00 £67.27
% change year-on-year +30.61% -47.97% +29.03%

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 4,192 4,059 5,973
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.24% 13.21% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,730 2,430 3,567
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £356 £361 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -6.25%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -2.13% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 169 130 401
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.36
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £20.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% -31.58% +143.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.16 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.13 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £27.50 £50.91
% change year-on-year +47.42% -45.98% +156.06%

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 21 February 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 21 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Firewall in the UK

Firewall
Top 17 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 21 February 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 -30 1,086 £513 -2.38% 546
UK excluding London -22 718 £500 - 498
London -39 404 £525 -4.20% 158
Work from Home -15 399 £500 -1.96% 213
North of England -25 217 £500 +5.26% 118
South East +16 203 £500 - 189
North West -21 127 £525 +10.53% 82
Midlands -29 111 £438 -20.45% 48
West Midlands -12 99 £425 -7.10% 33
Yorkshire -19 88 £465 +24.00% 26
South West -39 60 £550 +10.00% 53
Scotland -13 56 £425 -2.86% 36
East of England -23 45 £473 -12.09% 52
Wales -17 20 £425 +16.44% 11
East Midlands -48 10 £488 -25.06% 15
Northern Ireland - 7 £500 - 2
North East -24 5 £548 -0.45% 12

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 43 (3.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 40 (3.09%) Confluence
3 23 (1.78%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.24%) nginx
5 13 (1.01%) Apache
6 8 (0.62%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.54%) IIS
8 6 (0.46%) CICS
8 6 (0.46%) SAS
9 3 (0.23%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
10 2 (0.15%) JBoss
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.077%) CMS
11 1 (0.077%) Traefik
11 1 (0.077%) WebSphere
Applications
1 37 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (1.62%) MS Visio
3 19 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.31%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 1 (0.077%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.077%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.077%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.077%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 442 (34.18%) Azure
2 330 (25.52%) AWS
3 142 (10.98%) GCP
4 117 (9.05%) Microsoft 365
5 102 (7.89%) Entra ID
6 71 (5.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 58 (4.49%) GitHub
8 49 (3.79%) Amazon EC2
9 48 (3.71%) IaaS
10 43 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (3.33%) PaaS
11 42 (3.25%) Azure Sentinel
12 39 (3.02%) Amazon S3
13 37 (2.86%) Azure Monitor
14 36 (2.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 36 (2.78%) Serverless
15 34 (2.63%) AWS CloudFormation
16 33 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
17 32 (2.47%) SaaS
18 29 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 334 (25.83%) Network Security
2 315 (24.36%) VPN
3 277 (21.42%) WAN
4 264 (20.42%) DNS
5 204 (15.78%) LAN
6 184 (14.23%) BGP
7 160 (12.37%) OSPF
8 148 (11.45%) TCP/IP
9 137 (10.60%) VLAN
10 120 (9.28%) Wireless
11 116 (8.97%) DHCP
12 113 (8.74%) SD-WAN
13 95 (7.35%) MPLS
14 86 (6.65%) Wi-Fi
15 70 (5.41%) IPsec
15 70 (5.41%) SSL
16 62 (4.80%) Cisco ASA
17 59 (4.56%) Cisco ISE
18 55 (4.25%) Cisco Nexus
19 48 (3.71%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (2.47%) SQL Server
2 25 (1.93%) Amazon RDS
3 24 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
5 10 (0.77%) Data Lake
6 8 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 7 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (0.54%) MongoDB
8 6 (0.46%) DataStage
9 5 (0.39%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.31%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (0.31%) Power BI
10 4 (0.31%) Redis
10 4 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.23%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.23%) Oracle Exadata
12 2 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.15%) DB2
12 2 (0.15%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 74 (5.72%) Jenkins
1 74 (5.72%) JIRA
2 62 (4.80%) Git
3 61 (4.72%) GitLab
4 23 (1.78%) Sonatype Nexus
5 20 (1.55%) Bitbucket
6 15 (1.16%) Burp Suite
6 15 (1.16%) Metasploit
7 8 (0.62%) Jaeger
7 8 (0.62%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.46%) Chocolatey
8 6 (0.46%) Vagrant
9 4 (0.31%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.23%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.15%) MSI
12 1 (0.077%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.077%) Maven
12 1 (0.077%) Postman
12 1 (0.077%) Subversion
12 1 (0.077%) Travis CI
General
1 359 (27.76%) Social Skills
2 145 (11.21%) Finance
3 138 (10.67%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (8.28%) Public Sector
5 94 (7.27%) Documentation Skills
6 52 (4.02%) Banking
7 48 (3.71%) Telecoms
8 36 (2.78%) Legal
9 29 (2.24%) Manufacturing
10 27 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
11 20 (1.55%) Financial Institution
12 16 (1.24%) Military
13 15 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
14 13 (1.01%) Local Government
15 11 (0.85%) Law
16 10 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 10 (0.77%) Retail
17 8 (0.62%) Aerospace
18 7 (0.54%) Electronics
18 7 (0.54%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 340 (26.30%) Network Engineer
2 220 (17.01%) Architect
3 125 (9.67%) Senior
4 121 (9.36%) Security Engineer
5 81 (6.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 78 (6.03%) Network Architect
7 57 (4.41%) Security Architect
8 51 (3.94%) DevOps Engineer
9 50 (3.87%) Analyst
9 50 (3.87%) Azure Engineer
10 49 (3.79%) Consultant
11 46 (3.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 42 (3.25%) Network Security Engineer
12 42 (3.25%) Platform Engineer
13 41 (3.17%) Solutions Architect
14 37 (2.86%) Lead
14 37 (2.86%) Senior Network Engineer
15 34 (2.63%) Cloud Engineer
16 31 (2.40%) IT Engineer
17 29 (2.24%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (4.33%) 802.1X
2 43 (3.33%) LDAP
3 33 (2.55%) SAML
4 31 (2.40%) Middleware
5 28 (2.17%) OpenID
6 20 (1.55%) OAuth
7 19 (1.47%) OAuth2
8 16 (1.24%) Kafka
9 14 (1.08%) JSON
9 14 (1.08%) Node.js
9 14 (1.08%) REST
10 10 (0.77%) OpenTelemetry
10 10 (0.77%) XML
11 9 (0.70%) ARM Templates
11 9 (0.70%) Spring Boot
12 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Graph
13 7 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
14 6 (0.46%) LangChain
14 6 (0.46%) YAML
15 5 (0.39%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 249 (19.26%) Data Centre
2 93 (7.19%) Security Posture
3 69 (5.34%) PKI
4 55 (4.25%) Cloud Native
5 50 (3.87%) Operational Technology
6 48 (3.71%) Onboarding
7 45 (3.48%) Hybrid Cloud
8 33 (2.55%) Public Cloud
9 29 (2.24%) Management Information System
10 28 (2.17%) Replication
11 24 (1.86%) Security Operations Centre
12 23 (1.78%) Cyber Threat
13 22 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
14 21 (1.62%) SCADA
15 19 (1.47%) Clustering
16 17 (1.31%) NHS
16 17 (1.31%) Private Cloud
17 16 (1.24%) IoT
18 15 (1.16%) Product Ownership
19 12 (0.93%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 321 (24.83%) Windows
2 211 (16.32%) Linux
3 125 (9.67%) Windows Server
4 34 (2.63%) Unix
5 31 (2.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 30 (2.32%) VMS
7 11 (0.85%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.77%) Windows 7
9 9 (0.70%) Amazon Linux
9 9 (0.70%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.54%) Solaris
11 6 (0.46%) AIX
11 6 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.39%) Android
12 5 (0.39%) Mac OS
13 4 (0.31%) CatOS
13 4 (0.31%) CentOS
13 4 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 4 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (19.18%) Cybersecurity
2 216 (16.71%) Problem-Solving
3 207 (16.01%) DevOps
4 187 (14.46%) CI/CD
5 181 (14.00%) Infrastructure as Code
6 153 (11.83%) Migration
7 142 (10.98%) SIEM
8 141 (10.90%) Cloud Security
9 133 (10.29%) Incident Response
10 132 (10.21%) ITIL
11 129 (9.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 129 (9.98%) Load Balancing
12 128 (9.90%) High Availability
13 124 (9.59%) Agile
14 110 (8.51%) Zero Trust
15 106 (8.20%) Change Management
16 102 (7.89%) Stakeholder Management
17 97 (7.50%) Mentoring
18 86 (6.65%) Security Architecture
19 82 (6.34%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 221 (17.09%) Python
2 192 (14.85%) PowerShell
3 99 (7.66%) Bash
4 60 (4.64%) SQL
5 41 (3.17%) Java
6 31 (2.40%) Perl
7 26 (2.01%) Bicep
8 12 (0.93%) Ruby
9 10 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
10 8 (0.62%) JavaScript
10 8 (0.62%) Rust
11 6 (0.46%) COBOL
11 6 (0.46%) Groovy
11 6 (0.46%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.31%) C#
12 4 (0.31%) Go
13 3 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.077%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.077%) C++
14 1 (0.077%) Korn
Qualifications
1 441 (34.11%) Security Cleared
2 292 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 243 (18.79%) Cisco Certification
4 197 (15.24%) CCNP
5 116 (8.97%) Degree
5 116 (8.97%) DV Cleared
6 97 (7.50%) CCNA
7 94 (7.27%) CISSP
8 57 (4.41%) CISM
9 53 (4.10%) Azure Certification
10 50 (3.87%) CCIE
11 47 (3.63%) AWS Certification
12 43 (3.33%) Microsoft Certification
13 30 (2.32%) CompTIA Security+
14 25 (1.93%) JNCIP
14 25 (1.93%) JNCIS
15 19 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
16 18 (1.39%) CEH
17 17 (1.31%) CREST Certified
17 17 (1.31%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (8.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 96 (7.42%) NIST
3 64 (4.95%) GDPR
4 46 (3.56%) PCI DSS
5 32 (2.47%) NCSC
6 28 (2.17%) Cyber Essentials
6 28 (2.17%) SLA
7 19 (1.47%) QA
8 15 (1.16%) PMO
9 12 (0.93%) GRC
9 12 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.54%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.46%) HIPAA
12 6 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 5 (0.39%) COBIT
13 5 (0.39%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.31%) NIST 800
15 3 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 3 (0.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 235 (18.17%) Active Directory
2 163 (12.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 112 (8.66%) Docker
4 62 (4.80%) VMware NSX
5 37 (2.86%) Hyper-V
6 35 (2.71%) vSphere
7 29 (2.24%) Virtual Machines
8 21 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (1.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 15 (1.16%) Squid
11 12 (0.93%) Firmware
12 9 (0.70%) DFS Replication
12 9 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.39%) BitLocker
13 5 (0.39%) KVM
13 5 (0.39%) Microsoft App-V
13 5 (0.39%) NDS
13 5 (0.39%) NetIQ eDirectory
14 4 (0.31%) Postfix
14 4 (0.31%) Snort
Systems Management
1 206 (15.93%) Terraform
2 160 (12.37%) Ansible
3 120 (9.28%) Kubernetes
4 91 (7.04%) FortiGate
5 63 (4.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 45 (3.48%) Single Sign-On
7 42 (3.25%) Grafana
8 37 (2.86%) Prometheus
9 36 (2.78%) SCCM
10 26 (2.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 26 (2.01%) vCenter Server
11 19 (1.47%) Nmap
12 16 (1.24%) Nessus
13 15 (1.16%) Nagios
13 15 (1.16%) QRadar
14 14 (1.08%) CASB
15 13 (1.01%) Fluentd
16 11 (0.85%) WMI
17 10 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
18 9 (0.70%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 431 (33.33%) Cisco
2 285 (22.04%) Microsoft
3 281 (21.73%) Palo Alto
4 207 (16.01%) VMware
5 153 (11.83%) F5
6 147 (11.37%) CheckPoint
7 138 (10.67%) Fortinet
8 128 (9.90%) Juniper
9 101 (7.81%) Splunk
10 82 (6.34%) Aruba
11 70 (5.41%) SolarWinds
12 63 (4.87%) Meraki
13 55 (4.25%) Google
14 52 (4.02%) Zscaler
15 48 (3.71%) ServiceNow
16 47 (3.63%) Oracle
17 39 (3.02%) Citrix
18 33 (2.55%) Red Hat
19 26 (2.01%) Dell
20 25 (1.93%) Tenable