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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 54 55
Rank change year-on-year -34 +1 -7
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,434 1,386 1,553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.73% 4.29% 3.58%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.65% 35.20% 28.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 917 818 968
10th Percentile £338 £325 £275
25th Percentile £413 £411 £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 £644 £688 £691
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 24 46
10th Percentile £28.30 £14.20 £18.06
25th Percentile £36.50 £14.89 £23.92
Median hourly rate £59.37 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +97.89% -50.00% -4.08%
75th Percentile £71.64 £31.44 £85.65
90th Percentile £80.74 £44.48 £87.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.37 £30.00 £82.38
% change year-on-year +91.23% -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 5,006 3,938 5,457
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.19% 12.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,044 2,412 3,219
10th Percentile £238 £231 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.06% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +2.58% -4.08% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 316 185 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.75
25th Percentile £19.34 £23.75 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.55 £45.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.00% +2.27% +53.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £36.65 £47.50
% change year-on-year -28.45% -22.85% +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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -43 1,228 £500 - 546
UK excluding London -30 815 £500 +3.09% 515
London -63 465 £500 -3.40% 130
Work from Home -35 394 £520 +4.00% 231
North of England -16 288 £500 +5.26% 107
South East -27 217 £500 - 182
North West 0 186 £528 +11.16% 62
Yorkshire -40 86 £438 -10.21% 34
Midlands -65 81 £438 -7.89% 61
East of England -10 72 £525 -0.94% 42
South West -41 71 £538 +7.50% 78
Scotland +17 67 £456 +5.80% 26
West Midlands -62 66 £427 -18.67% 41
Wales -17 25 £425 +30.77% 12
North East -13 22 £625 +25.00% 13
East Midlands -27 12 £500 +11.11% 20
Northern Ireland -2 2 £385 - 21

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 (2.44%) Confluence
2 33 (2.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 25 (1.74%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.12%) nginx
5 12 (0.84%) Apache
6 10 (0.70%) 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 28 (1.95%) MS Visio
2 18 (1.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.070%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.070%) Bloomberg TOMS
1 1 (0.070%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.070%) Eikon
1 1 (0.070%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.070%) Primavera
1 1 (0.070%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.070%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 486 (33.89%) Azure
2 318 (22.18%) AWS
3 132 (9.21%) Entra ID
4 120 (8.37%) GCP
5 109 (7.60%) Microsoft 365
6 69 (4.81%) GitHub
7 65 (4.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 63 (4.39%) IaaS
9 53 (3.70%) SaaS
10 51 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (3.00%) PaaS
12 41 (2.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 39 (2.72%) Azure Monitor
14 36 (2.51%) OCI
14 36 (2.51%) Serverless
15 34 (2.37%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
16 30 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (2.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 27 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 408 (28.45%) Network Security
2 401 (27.96%) VPN
2 401 (27.96%) WAN
3 332 (23.15%) DNS
4 296 (20.64%) LAN
5 267 (18.62%) BGP
6 219 (15.27%) OSPF
7 188 (13.11%) VLAN
8 183 (12.76%) TCP/IP
9 174 (12.13%) DHCP
10 163 (11.37%) Wireless
11 160 (11.16%) SD-WAN
12 114 (7.95%) Wi-Fi
13 102 (7.11%) BIG-IP
14 96 (6.69%) MPLS
15 91 (6.35%) VXLAN
16 86 (6.00%) IPsec
17 84 (5.86%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 79 (5.51%) SSL
19 76 (5.30%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (1.53%) SQL Server
2 18 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
2 18 (1.26%) Power BI
3 17 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
5 11 (0.77%) Data Lake
6 10 (0.70%) 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 Athena
10 4 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (0.28%) Amazon QuickSight
10 4 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.21%) Big Data
11 3 (0.21%) Db2
Development Applications
1 99 (6.90%) JIRA
2 53 (3.70%) Jenkins
3 41 (2.86%) Git
3 41 (2.86%) GitLab
4 16 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
5 11 (0.77%) Bitbucket
6 10 (0.70%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.63%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.56%) Chocolatey
9 6 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.28%) Burp Suite
11 3 (0.21%) Jaeger
12 2 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 2 (0.14%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.14%) Gatling
12 2 (0.14%) Gradle
12 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.14%) Metasploit
12 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 309 (21.55%) Social Skills
2 183 (12.76%) Finance
3 120 (8.37%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 76 (5.30%) Documentation Skills
6 70 (4.88%) Banking
7 42 (2.93%) Telecoms
8 31 (2.16%) Legal
9 24 (1.67%) Manufacturing
10 20 (1.39%) Financial Institution
10 20 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (1.26%) Military
12 14 (0.98%) Local Government
13 13 (0.91%) Retail
14 12 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (0.77%) Law
16 10 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 10 (0.70%) Investment Banking
16 10 (0.70%) Police
17 9 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 466 (32.50%) Network Engineer
2 235 (16.39%) Architect
3 180 (12.55%) Senior
4 131 (9.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 123 (8.58%) Security Engineer
6 81 (5.65%) Network Architect
7 78 (5.44%) Senior Network Engineer
8 70 (4.88%) Cloud Engineer
9 58 (4.04%) Network Security Engineer
10 57 (3.97%) Consultant
11 55 (3.84%) Technical Architect
12 54 (3.77%) Azure Engineer
13 49 (3.42%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 47 (3.28%) Security Architect
15 42 (2.93%) DevOps Engineer
16 41 (2.86%) Lead
17 40 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
18 36 (2.51%) Cloud Architect
19 34 (2.37%) Cisco Engineer
20 33 (2.30%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (4.88%) 802.1X
2 42 (2.93%) Middleware
3 37 (2.58%) LDAP
4 31 (2.16%) SAML
5 23 (1.60%) OpenID
6 13 (0.91%) OAuth
7 11 (0.77%) Kafka
7 11 (0.77%) OAuth2
8 10 (0.70%) ARM Templates
9 9 (0.63%) LangChain
9 9 (0.63%) PyTorch
9 9 (0.63%) REST
9 9 (0.63%) scikit-learn
10 8 (0.56%) .NET
11 7 (0.49%) SailPoint
11 7 (0.49%) YAML
12 6 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
12 6 (0.42%) OpenTelemetry
12 6 (0.42%) React
13 5 (0.35%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 344 (23.99%) Data Centre
2 93 (6.49%) Cloud Native
3 79 (5.51%) Security Posture
4 76 (5.30%) Hybrid Cloud
5 69 (4.81%) PKI
6 47 (3.28%) Management Information System
7 46 (3.21%) Onboarding
8 42 (2.93%) Operational Technology
9 41 (2.86%) Clustering
10 32 (2.23%) IoT
11 31 (2.16%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 30 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
13 26 (1.81%) Public Cloud
14 25 (1.74%) Enterprise Storage
15 24 (1.67%) SCADA
16 19 (1.32%) Cyber Threat
16 19 (1.32%) Driving Licence
17 18 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
18 17 (1.19%) NHS
18 17 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 314 (21.90%) Windows
2 186 (12.97%) Linux
3 110 (7.67%) Windows Server
4 46 (3.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 32 (2.23%) Unix
6 21 (1.46%) VMS
7 14 (0.98%) Ubuntu
7 14 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.77%) Solaris
9 10 (0.70%) AIX
9 10 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.56%) CentOS
11 7 (0.49%) Windows Server 2003
12 6 (0.42%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.42%) Windows 10
12 6 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
13 4 (0.28%) Android
13 4 (0.28%) Rocky
13 4 (0.28%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 234 (16.32%) DevOps
2 214 (14.92%) CI/CD
3 210 (14.64%) Infrastructure as Code
4 200 (13.95%) Load Balancing
5 188 (13.11%) Migration
6 185 (12.90%) Problem-Solving
7 182 (12.69%) ITIL
8 181 (12.62%) High Availability
9 177 (12.34%) Cybersecurity
10 174 (12.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 156 (10.88%) Agile
12 155 (10.81%) Zero Trust
13 126 (8.79%) SIEM
14 125 (8.72%) Change Management
15 113 (7.88%) Observability
15 113 (7.88%) Validation
16 110 (7.67%) Project Delivery
17 105 (7.32%) Roadmaps
17 105 (7.32%) Stakeholder Management
18 104 (7.25%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 250 (17.43%) Python
2 158 (11.02%) PowerShell
3 96 (6.69%) Bash
4 40 (2.79%) Bicep
4 40 (2.79%) SQL
5 33 (2.30%) Java
6 11 (0.77%) ActionScript
6 11 (0.77%) Perl
7 10 (0.70%) COBOL
8 7 (0.49%) Groovy
9 6 (0.42%) JavaScript
9 6 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (0.35%) C++
10 5 (0.35%) Go
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
1 471 (32.85%) Security Cleared
2 339 (23.64%) SC Cleared
3 291 (20.29%) Cisco Certification
4 218 (15.20%) CCNP
5 121 (8.44%) CCNA
6 114 (7.95%) DV Cleared
7 112 (7.81%) Degree
8 69 (4.81%) CISSP
9 55 (3.84%) Azure Certification
10 44 (3.07%) CCIE
11 41 (2.86%) AWS Certification
12 33 (2.30%) Microsoft Certification
13 32 (2.23%) CISM
14 22 (1.53%) JNCIS
15 21 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
15 21 (1.46%) Network+ Certification
16 18 (1.26%) JNCIP
16 18 (1.26%) PMP
17 17 (1.19%) JNCIA
17 17 (1.19%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 58 (4.04%) NIST
3 41 (2.86%) GDPR
4 34 (2.37%) NCSC
5 26 (1.81%) PCI DSS
6 22 (1.53%) QA
7 21 (1.46%) Cyber Essentials
8 20 (1.39%) SLA
9 9 (0.63%) Data Quality
9 9 (0.63%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.49%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.42%) GRC
12 6 (0.42%) GxP
13 5 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 5 (0.35%) PMO
13 5 (0.35%) RMADS
14 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 211 (14.71%) Active Directory
2 158 (11.02%) VMware Infrastructure
3 59 (4.11%) VMware NSX
4 55 (3.84%) Docker
5 41 (2.86%) Hyper-V
5 41 (2.86%) vSphere
6 39 (2.72%) VMware ESXi
7 38 (2.65%) Virtual Machines
8 26 (1.81%) Firmware
9 19 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
10 16 (1.12%) Squid
11 13 (0.91%) BitLocker
12 9 (0.63%) 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%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 255 (17.78%) Terraform
2 178 (12.41%) Ansible
3 115 (8.02%) FortiGate
4 107 (7.46%) Kubernetes
5 65 (4.53%) Grafana
6 61 (4.25%) Prometheus
7 55 (3.84%) Microsoft Intune
8 39 (2.72%) Single Sign-On
9 31 (2.16%) SCCM
10 24 (1.67%) vCenter Server
11 19 (1.32%) Puppet
12 17 (1.19%) Progress Chef
13 16 (1.12%) CASB
14 14 (0.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 12 (0.84%) Cisco Prime
16 11 (0.77%) Consul
16 11 (0.77%) QRadar
17 9 (0.63%) Nagios
17 9 (0.63%) vMotion
17 9 (0.63%) VxRail
Vendors
1 515 (35.91%) Cisco
2 313 (21.83%) Palo Alto
3 292 (20.36%) Microsoft
4 210 (14.64%) Fortinet
5 207 (14.44%) VMware
6 201 (14.02%) F5
7 168 (11.72%) Juniper
8 133 (9.27%) CheckPoint
9 81 (5.65%) Splunk
10 78 (5.44%) Aruba
11 75 (5.23%) Arista
12 71 (4.95%) ServiceNow
13 70 (4.88%) SolarWinds
14 65 (4.53%) Google
15 59 (4.11%) Zscaler
16 48 (3.35%) Citrix
17 46 (3.21%) Red Hat
18 41 (2.86%) Meraki
19 32 (2.23%) Infoblox
20 30 (2.09%) Dynatrace