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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 54 53
Rank change year-on-year -35 -1 -5
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,440 1,404 1,518
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.74% 4.33% 3.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.80% 35.49% 28.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 920 828 940
10th Percentile £350 £325 £275
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £688 £676
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £502
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.89% +5.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 24 46
10th Percentile £28.50 £14.20 £18.06
25th Percentile £40.08 £14.89 £23.92
Median hourly rate £61.25 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +104.17% -50.00% -4.08%
75th Percentile £78.56 £31.44 £85.65
90th Percentile £95.68 £71.08 £87.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.75 £30.00 £82.38
% change year-on-year +112.50% -63.58% +31.71%

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 5,000 3,956 5,360
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.50% 12.19% 12.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,037 2,407 3,158
10th Percentile £239 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £364 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.63% -3.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.06% +5.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 325 193 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.64
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £47.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.34% +10.47% +39.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.31% -10.53% +5.56%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 1,233 £500 - 548
UK excluding London -32 817 £500 +2.56% 529
London -53 472 £500 - 110
Work from Home -38 392 £520 +4.00% 271
North of England -15 292 £500 +5.26% 112
South East -28 217 £513 +2.50% 184
North West -4 188 £537 +13.05% 57
Yorkshire -41 88 £450 -7.22% 42
Midlands -67 78 £444 -9.81% 67
South West -35 73 £525 +5.00% 58
East of England -13 70 £525 -2.78% 56
Scotland +16 68 £450 +4.35% 38
West Midlands -72 62 £433 -15.87% 39
Wales -11 25 £425 +17.24% 11
North East -20 22 £625 +25.00% 15
East Midlands -25 13 £500 +11.11% 28
Northern Ireland -6 2 £385 - 19

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 35 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (2.36%) Confluence
3 24 (1.67%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.11%) nginx
5 12 (0.83%) Apache
6 10 (0.69%) CICS
7 6 (0.42%) SAS
8 4 (0.28%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.21%) CloudStack
9 3 (0.21%) IIS
9 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
10 2 (0.14%) CMS
10 2 (0.14%) FactoryTalk
10 2 (0.14%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.14%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.14%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 25 (1.74%) MS Visio
2 19 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.069%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.069%) Bloomberg TOMS
1 1 (0.069%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.069%) Eikon
1 1 (0.069%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.069%) Primavera
1 1 (0.069%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.069%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 495 (34.38%) Azure
2 321 (22.29%) AWS
3 135 (9.38%) Entra ID
4 121 (8.40%) GCP
5 110 (7.64%) Microsoft 365
6 71 (4.93%) GitHub
7 64 (4.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 62 (4.31%) IaaS
9 54 (3.75%) SaaS
10 53 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (2.99%) PaaS
12 41 (2.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 40 (2.78%) Azure Monitor
14 38 (2.64%) Serverless
15 35 (2.43%) OCI
16 33 (2.29%) Azure Sentinel
17 30 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (2.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 29 (2.01%) Amazon EC2
18 29 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 411 (28.54%) Network Security
2 408 (28.33%) VPN
3 393 (27.29%) WAN
4 339 (23.54%) DNS
5 292 (20.28%) LAN
6 273 (18.96%) BGP
7 223 (15.49%) OSPF
8 194 (13.47%) TCP/IP
9 192 (13.33%) VLAN
10 183 (12.71%) DHCP
11 163 (11.32%) Wireless
12 154 (10.69%) SD-WAN
13 116 (8.06%) Wi-Fi
14 98 (6.81%) BIG-IP
15 97 (6.74%) MPLS
16 88 (6.11%) IPsec
16 88 (6.11%) VXLAN
17 87 (6.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 79 (5.49%) Cisco ISE
19 77 (5.35%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (1.67%) SQL Server
2 18 (1.25%) Power BI
3 17 (1.18%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
5 11 (0.76%) Data Lake
6 10 (0.69%) DataStage
7 9 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.63%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.56%) MySQL
8 8 (0.56%) Oracle Database
9 5 (0.35%) Delta Lake
9 5 (0.35%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.21%) Big Data
11 3 (0.21%) Db2
Development Applications
1 99 (6.88%) JIRA
2 52 (3.61%) Jenkins
3 41 (2.85%) Git
4 40 (2.78%) GitLab
5 16 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (0.76%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.63%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.63%) Chocolatey
7 9 (0.63%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.28%) Burp Suite
10 3 (0.21%) Jaeger
11 2 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (0.14%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.14%) Gatling
11 2 (0.14%) Gradle
11 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.14%) Metasploit
11 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 313 (21.74%) Social Skills
2 191 (13.26%) Finance
3 126 (8.75%) Analytical Skills
4 119 (8.26%) Public Sector
5 77 (5.35%) Documentation Skills
6 75 (5.21%) Banking
7 45 (3.13%) Telecoms
8 28 (1.94%) Legal
9 25 (1.74%) Manufacturing
10 23 (1.60%) Financial Institution
11 20 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
12 18 (1.25%) Military
13 16 (1.11%) Retail
14 14 (0.97%) Local Government
15 12 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
16 11 (0.76%) Police
17 10 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 10 (0.69%) Investment Banking
18 9 (0.63%) Front Office
18 9 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 469 (32.57%) Network Engineer
2 226 (15.69%) Architect
3 191 (13.26%) Senior
4 134 (9.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 127 (8.82%) Security Engineer
6 85 (5.90%) Senior Network Engineer
7 77 (5.35%) Network Architect
8 71 (4.93%) Cloud Engineer
9 60 (4.17%) Network Security Engineer
10 59 (4.10%) Consultant
11 56 (3.89%) Azure Engineer
12 54 (3.75%) Technical Architect
13 46 (3.19%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 46 (3.19%) Security Architect
14 44 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
15 42 (2.92%) Lead
16 38 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
17 35 (2.43%) Cloud Architect
17 35 (2.43%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 34 (2.36%) Cisco Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (4.86%) 802.1X
2 42 (2.92%) Middleware
3 35 (2.43%) LDAP
4 27 (1.88%) SAML
5 21 (1.46%) OpenID
6 12 (0.83%) ARM Templates
7 11 (0.76%) Kafka
7 11 (0.76%) OAuth
8 9 (0.63%) LangChain
8 9 (0.63%) OAuth2
8 9 (0.63%) PyTorch
8 9 (0.63%) REST
8 9 (0.63%) scikit-learn
9 8 (0.56%) .NET
10 7 (0.49%) SailPoint
10 7 (0.49%) YAML
11 6 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
11 6 (0.42%) OpenTelemetry
11 6 (0.42%) React
12 5 (0.35%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 344 (23.89%) Data Centre
2 93 (6.46%) Cloud Native
3 79 (5.49%) Hybrid Cloud
4 77 (5.35%) Security Posture
5 72 (5.00%) PKI
6 49 (3.40%) Management Information System
6 49 (3.40%) Onboarding
7 42 (2.92%) Operational Technology
8 41 (2.85%) Clustering
9 32 (2.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 32 (2.22%) IoT
10 30 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
11 27 (1.88%) Public Cloud
12 24 (1.67%) Enterprise Storage
12 24 (1.67%) SCADA
13 19 (1.32%) Driving Licence
14 18 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
14 18 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.18%) Cyber Threat
15 17 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 319 (22.15%) Windows
2 193 (13.40%) Linux
3 110 (7.64%) Windows Server
4 49 (3.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 33 (2.29%) Unix
6 21 (1.46%) VMS
7 16 (1.11%) Ubuntu
8 14 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.76%) Solaris
10 10 (0.69%) AIX
10 10 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
11 9 (0.63%) CentOS
12 7 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.42%) Mac OS
13 6 (0.42%) Windows 10
13 6 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.35%) Rocky
15 4 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
15 4 (0.28%) Android
15 4 (0.28%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (16.32%) DevOps
2 217 (15.07%) CI/CD
3 216 (15.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 198 (13.75%) Load Balancing
5 192 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
6 191 (13.26%) Migration
7 182 (12.64%) High Availability
8 181 (12.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 181 (12.57%) ITIL
9 178 (12.36%) Cybersecurity
10 158 (10.97%) Zero Trust
11 157 (10.90%) Agile
12 130 (9.03%) Change Management
13 129 (8.96%) SIEM
14 119 (8.26%) Project Delivery
15 114 (7.92%) Validation
16 113 (7.85%) Observability
17 109 (7.57%) Stakeholder Management
18 107 (7.43%) Cloud Security
19 105 (7.29%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 257 (17.85%) Python
2 169 (11.74%) PowerShell
3 102 (7.08%) Bash
4 42 (2.92%) Bicep
4 42 (2.92%) SQL
5 34 (2.36%) Java
6 11 (0.76%) ActionScript
6 11 (0.76%) Perl
7 10 (0.69%) COBOL
8 7 (0.49%) Groovy
9 6 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (0.35%) C++
10 5 (0.35%) Go
10 5 (0.35%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.21%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.14%) C
12 2 (0.14%) Jython
12 2 (0.14%) PHP
12 2 (0.14%) Rust
Qualifications
1 470 (32.64%) Security Cleared
2 332 (23.06%) SC Cleared
3 288 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
4 216 (15.00%) CCNP
5 121 (8.40%) DV Cleared
6 120 (8.33%) CCNA
7 110 (7.64%) Degree
8 71 (4.93%) CISSP
9 58 (4.03%) Azure Certification
10 44 (3.06%) CCIE
11 43 (2.99%) AWS Certification
12 33 (2.29%) CISM
13 32 (2.22%) Microsoft Certification
14 22 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
14 22 (1.53%) JNCIS
15 21 (1.46%) Network+ Certification
16 18 (1.25%) JNCIP
16 18 (1.25%) PMP
17 17 (1.18%) JNCIA
17 17 (1.18%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 59 (4.10%) NIST
3 40 (2.78%) GDPR
4 31 (2.15%) NCSC
5 25 (1.74%) PCI DSS
6 22 (1.53%) QA
7 21 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
8 19 (1.32%) SLA
9 9 (0.63%) Data Quality
9 9 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 6 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 6 (0.42%) GxP
11 6 (0.42%) JSP 440
12 5 (0.35%) GRC
12 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.35%) PMO
13 4 (0.28%) RMADS
13 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 211 (14.65%) Active Directory
2 156 (10.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 58 (4.03%) Docker
3 58 (4.03%) VMware NSX
4 43 (2.99%) Hyper-V
5 42 (2.92%) vSphere
6 39 (2.71%) Virtual Machines
7 38 (2.64%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (1.81%) Firmware
9 19 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
10 16 (1.11%) Squid
11 12 (0.83%) BitLocker
12 8 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
13 5 (0.35%) NFS
14 4 (0.28%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.21%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.21%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.21%) Postfix
15 3 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
16 2 (0.14%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 263 (18.26%) Terraform
2 184 (12.78%) Ansible
3 117 (8.13%) FortiGate
4 111 (7.71%) Kubernetes
5 64 (4.44%) Grafana
6 60 (4.17%) Prometheus
7 56 (3.89%) Microsoft Intune
8 35 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
9 32 (2.22%) SCCM
10 23 (1.60%) vCenter Server
11 18 (1.25%) Progress Chef
12 17 (1.18%) Puppet
13 16 (1.11%) CASB
14 12 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 11 (0.76%) Consul
16 10 (0.69%) Cisco Prime
16 10 (0.69%) QRadar
16 10 (0.69%) VxRail
17 9 (0.63%) Nessus
18 8 (0.56%) Nagios
Vendors
1 519 (36.04%) Cisco
2 311 (21.60%) Palo Alto
3 295 (20.49%) Microsoft
4 211 (14.65%) Fortinet
5 208 (14.44%) VMware
6 203 (14.10%) F5
7 169 (11.74%) Juniper
8 131 (9.10%) CheckPoint
9 82 (5.69%) Splunk
10 77 (5.35%) Arista
11 75 (5.21%) Aruba
12 70 (4.86%) ServiceNow
13 67 (4.65%) Google
13 67 (4.65%) SolarWinds
14 60 (4.17%) Zscaler
15 48 (3.33%) Citrix
15 48 (3.33%) Red Hat
16 42 (2.92%) Meraki
17 32 (2.22%) Infoblox
18 31 (2.15%) Dynatrace