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 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 70 54 47
Rank change year-on-year -16 -7 +20
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,297 1,320 1,849
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.53% 3.86% 4.18%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 32.62% 30.44% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 834 796 1,202
10th Percentile £325 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.49% -0.29% -
75th Percentile £600 £608 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.10% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 20 57
10th Percentile £21.58 £19.85 £38.38
25th Percentile £29.75 £20.00 £60.00
Median hourly rate £45.33 £31.25 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +45.06% -52.64% +77.27%
75th Percentile £83.50 £38.88 £76.25
90th Percentile £89.63 £48.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £22.45 £65.98
% change year-on-year +196.21% -65.97% +60.81%

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 3,976 4,337 6,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.83% 12.67% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,596 2,536 3,760
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £582 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 151 342
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.13 £21.93 £22.06
Median hourly rate £36.75 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -31.82% +32.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £76.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £41.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +6.71% -27.42% +25.53%

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025. 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 -18 1,101 £500 -4.76% 781
UK excluding London -18 693 £490 -2.10% 768
London -16 463 £525 -4.55% 154
Work from Home -6 388 £500 -4.76% 277
North of England -23 200 £506 +4.33% 168
South East -2 181 £488 -2.50% 255
Midlands -13 135 £475 -5.00% 107
West Midlands 0 125 £475 -5.00% 73
North West -28 102 £525 +6.06% 101
Yorkshire -14 93 £450 +5.88% 55
Scotland -15 58 £425 -16.05% 29
South West -31 55 £540 +13.68% 86
East of England -29 41 £483 -12.27% 94
Wales -10 12 £293 -22.00% 39
East Midlands -41 9 £450 -12.20% 32
Northern Ireland - 9 £500 - 11
North East -9 8 £550 - 15
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -

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 48 (3.70%) Confluence
1 48 (3.70%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (2.54%) SharePoint
3 14 (1.08%) Apache
4 12 (0.93%) nginx
5 11 (0.85%) OpenStack
6 6 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 5 (0.39%) JBoss
8 4 (0.31%) IIS
8 4 (0.31%) SAS
9 3 (0.23%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.15%) CICS
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.15%) Traefik
10 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.077%) CMS
11 1 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.077%) Mattermost
11 1 (0.077%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 34 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.16%) MS Visio
3 14 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
5 10 (0.77%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.15%) ION MarketView
1 2 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.077%) Finacle
2 1 (0.077%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 425 (32.77%) Azure
2 362 (27.91%) AWS
3 161 (12.41%) GCP
4 132 (10.18%) Microsoft 365
5 87 (6.71%) Entra ID
6 82 (6.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 65 (5.01%) Amazon EC2
8 58 (4.47%) Azure Sentinel
9 56 (4.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 53 (4.09%) Amazon S3
11 43 (3.32%) Amazon ELB
11 43 (3.32%) GitHub
12 40 (3.08%) IaaS
13 37 (2.85%) Azure DevOps
13 37 (2.85%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (2.54%) PaaS
15 32 (2.47%) Akamai
16 31 (2.39%) Serverless
17 30 (2.31%) Azure ExpressRoute
18 29 (2.24%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 303 (23.36%) VPN
2 296 (22.82%) Network Security
3 274 (21.13%) DNS
4 257 (19.81%) WAN
5 183 (14.11%) LAN
6 157 (12.10%) BGP
7 155 (11.95%) TCP/IP
8 136 (10.49%) SD-WAN
9 130 (10.02%) OSPF
10 125 (9.64%) Wireless
11 108 (8.33%) Wi-Fi
12 105 (8.10%) VLAN
13 104 (8.02%) DHCP
14 86 (6.63%) SSL
15 78 (6.01%) Cisco Nexus
16 74 (5.71%) MPLS
17 67 (5.17%) Cisco ISE
18 53 (4.09%) HTTP
19 50 (3.86%) Cisco ASA
19 50 (3.86%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (3.01%) SQL Server
2 38 (2.93%) Amazon RDS
3 27 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (0.77%) Amazon Aurora
5 9 (0.69%) Relational Database
6 8 (0.62%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.46%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (0.46%) MongoDB
7 6 (0.46%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.39%) MySQL
9 4 (0.31%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.31%) Redis
10 3 (0.23%) Apache Cassandra
10 3 (0.23%) DB2
10 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.23%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.15%) Amazon QuickSight
11 2 (0.15%) MariaDB
11 2 (0.15%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 97 (7.48%) Jenkins
2 87 (6.71%) Git
3 81 (6.25%) JIRA
4 69 (5.32%) GitLab
5 26 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
6 19 (1.46%) Vagrant
7 13 (1.00%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.62%) Burp Suite
8 8 (0.62%) Metasploit
9 7 (0.54%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.23%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.23%) Postman
11 2 (0.15%) Jaeger
11 2 (0.15%) MSI
12 1 (0.077%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.077%) Eclipse
12 1 (0.077%) Maven
12 1 (0.077%) Subversion
12 1 (0.077%) Travis CI
General
1 353 (27.22%) Social Skills
2 150 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
3 129 (9.95%) Public Sector
4 128 (9.87%) Finance
5 67 (5.17%) Documentation Skills
6 62 (4.78%) Banking
7 58 (4.47%) Telecoms
8 31 (2.39%) Manufacturing
9 30 (2.31%) Presentation Skills
10 27 (2.08%) Legal
11 17 (1.31%) Local Government
12 16 (1.23%) Military
13 15 (1.16%) Retail
14 10 (0.77%) Games
14 10 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 10 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
15 9 (0.69%) Financial Institution
15 9 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.69%) Law
16 7 (0.54%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 312 (24.06%) Network Engineer
2 215 (16.58%) Architect
3 131 (10.10%) Security Engineer
4 111 (8.56%) Senior
5 85 (6.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 79 (6.09%) Network Architect
7 69 (5.32%) Analyst
8 65 (5.01%) Consultant
9 63 (4.86%) DevOps Engineer
10 62 (4.78%) Platform Engineer
11 60 (4.63%) Security Architect
12 51 (3.93%) Network Security Engineer
13 44 (3.39%) Azure Engineer
13 44 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
14 41 (3.16%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 38 (2.93%) Support Engineer
16 33 (2.54%) Cloud Engineer
16 33 (2.54%) Lead
17 30 (2.31%) AWS Engineer
17 30 (2.31%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (2.62%) LDAP
2 32 (2.47%) 802.1X
3 25 (1.93%) SAML
4 22 (1.70%) Middleware
5 20 (1.54%) JSON
6 18 (1.39%) OpenID
7 16 (1.23%) Node.js
7 16 (1.23%) OAuth
8 15 (1.16%) REST
9 14 (1.08%) OAuth2
10 13 (1.00%) RFC 2544
10 13 (1.00%) XML
11 12 (0.93%) Elastic Stack
12 10 (0.77%) Kafka
13 9 (0.69%) YAML
14 8 (0.62%) ARM Templates
15 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
16 4 (0.31%) CSS
16 4 (0.31%) Regular Expression
16 4 (0.31%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 226 (17.42%) Data Centre
2 80 (6.17%) Security Posture
3 60 (4.63%) Hybrid Cloud
4 58 (4.47%) PKI
5 54 (4.16%) Operational Technology
6 48 (3.70%) Replication
7 46 (3.55%) Cloud Native
8 39 (3.01%) Onboarding
9 27 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
10 26 (2.00%) Management Information System
11 25 (1.93%) Security Operations Centre
12 24 (1.85%) Public Cloud
13 22 (1.70%) SCADA
14 21 (1.62%) Cyber Threat
15 18 (1.39%) Cyber Defence
16 16 (1.23%) Private Cloud
17 15 (1.16%) Product Ownership
18 14 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
19 13 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
19 13 (1.00%) Fat Client
Operating Systems
1 323 (24.90%) Windows
2 225 (17.35%) Linux
3 120 (9.25%) Windows Server
4 40 (3.08%) VMS
5 36 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 36 (2.78%) Unix
6 22 (1.70%) Amazon Linux
7 21 (1.62%) Ubuntu
8 18 (1.39%) Mac OS
9 14 (1.08%) Windows 10
9 14 (1.08%) Windows Server 2019
10 13 (1.00%) Android
11 12 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.77%) Windows 7
13 8 (0.62%) CentOS
13 8 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.23%) Solaris
14 3 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
15 2 (0.15%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (18.12%) Cybersecurity
2 204 (15.73%) Problem-Solving
3 198 (15.27%) DevOps
4 181 (13.96%) CI/CD
5 177 (13.65%) Infrastructure as Code
6 166 (12.80%) SIEM
7 163 (12.57%) Cloud Security
8 153 (11.80%) Incident Response
9 146 (11.26%) Migration
10 132 (10.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 128 (9.87%) Agile
12 123 (9.48%) ITIL
13 122 (9.41%) High Availability
14 108 (8.33%) Load Balancing
15 103 (7.94%) Change Management
16 99 (7.63%) Stakeholder Management
17 96 (7.40%) Network Design
18 91 (7.02%) Security Operations
19 89 (6.86%) Zero Trust
20 86 (6.63%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 270 (20.82%) Python
2 212 (16.35%) PowerShell
3 122 (9.41%) Bash
4 67 (5.17%) SQL
5 46 (3.55%) Java
6 42 (3.24%) Perl
7 22 (1.70%) Bicep
8 19 (1.46%) Groovy
8 19 (1.46%) Kusto Query Language
9 12 (0.93%) Ruby
10 11 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.77%) JavaScript
12 8 (0.62%) Go
13 4 (0.31%) C#
14 3 (0.23%) C
14 3 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.23%) Rust
14 3 (0.23%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.15%) Apex Code
15 2 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 405 (31.23%) Security Cleared
2 286 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 226 (17.42%) Cisco Certification
4 176 (13.57%) CCNP
5 113 (8.71%) Degree
6 101 (7.79%) CISSP
7 83 (6.40%) DV Cleared
8 77 (5.94%) CCNA
9 62 (4.78%) Azure Certification
10 56 (4.32%) AWS Certification
11 53 (4.09%) CISM
12 51 (3.93%) CCIE
12 51 (3.93%) Microsoft Certification
13 30 (2.31%) CompTIA Security+
14 28 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
15 27 (2.08%) CEH
16 20 (1.54%) GIAC
17 18 (1.39%) JNCIP
18 17 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
19 16 (1.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (8.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 108 (8.33%) NIST
3 74 (5.71%) GDPR
4 49 (3.78%) PCI DSS
5 21 (1.62%) NCSC
5 21 (1.62%) QA
6 18 (1.39%) SLA
7 15 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.93%) GRC
8 12 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.77%) HIPAA
9 10 (0.77%) PMO
10 9 (0.69%) COBIT
11 7 (0.54%) SOC 2
12 5 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.39%) PSD2
13 4 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
13 4 (0.31%) GxP
13 4 (0.31%) JSP 440
13 4 (0.31%) NIST 800
System Software
1 235 (18.12%) Active Directory
2 153 (11.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 145 (11.18%) Docker
4 52 (4.01%) Hyper-V
5 39 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
5 39 (3.01%) VMware NSX
6 24 (1.85%) vSphere
7 19 (1.46%) DFS Replication
8 16 (1.23%) Squid
8 16 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
9 15 (1.16%) Firmware
10 10 (0.77%) Dovecot
10 10 (0.77%) Postfix
11 8 (0.62%) KVM
11 8 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
11 8 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
12 7 (0.54%) Snort
12 7 (0.54%) Terminal Services
13 5 (0.39%) NDS
13 5 (0.39%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 214 (16.50%) Terraform
2 170 (13.11%) Ansible
3 112 (8.64%) Kubernetes
4 75 (5.78%) FortiGate
5 60 (4.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 44 (3.39%) SCCM
7 42 (3.24%) Grafana
8 38 (2.93%) Prometheus
9 33 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
10 24 (1.85%) Nessus
10 24 (1.85%) vCenter Server
11 21 (1.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 16 (1.23%) CASB
12 16 (1.23%) CSIRT
13 15 (1.16%) QRadar
14 13 (1.00%) Fluentd
15 12 (0.93%) Nagios
16 11 (0.85%) Nmap
16 11 (0.85%) SCOM
16 11 (0.85%) WMI
Vendors
1 433 (33.38%) Cisco
2 318 (24.52%) Microsoft
3 244 (18.81%) Palo Alto
4 193 (14.88%) VMware
5 166 (12.80%) F5
6 147 (11.33%) Fortinet
7 139 (10.72%) CheckPoint
8 111 (8.56%) Juniper
9 105 (8.10%) Splunk
10 72 (5.55%) Meraki
11 71 (5.47%) SolarWinds
12 68 (5.24%) Oracle
13 64 (4.93%) Google
14 56 (4.32%) Zscaler
15 53 (4.09%) Aruba
15 53 (4.09%) Citrix
16 51 (3.93%) ServiceNow
17 30 (2.31%) Red Hat
18 26 (2.00%) Tenable
19 21 (1.62%) Dell