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 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 57 58
Rank change year-on-year -41 +1 -9
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,416 1,368 1,347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.64% 4.16% 3.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.03% 35.25% 28.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 887 810 863
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £419 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £614
90th Percentile £651 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £513
% change year-on-year +2.15% -4.49% +7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 29 29
10th Percentile £29.00 £14.20 £21.62
25th Percentile £44.86 £15.33 £23.92
Median hourly rate £65.45 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.17% +9.09% -58.33%
75th Percentile £79.38 £43.25 £76.99
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.57 £30.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +118.57% -36.84% -28.03%

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 5,052 3,881 4,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,350 2,889
10th Percentile £250 £245 £221
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.58% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -2.86%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 1,238 £510 +2.00% 412
UK excluding London -33 805 £500 +2.15% 362
London -56 476 £500 - 106
Work from Home -31 386 £520 +4.00% 156
North of England -13 283 £500 +3.09% 80
South East -43 211 £520 +4.00% 135
North West 0 183 £525 +10.53% 41
South West -28 84 £550 +13.11% 40
Yorkshire -41 82 £450 -7.64% 25
East of England -9 78 £525 -4.55% 35
Midlands -75 78 £459 -3.37% 63
Scotland +3 61 £400 -13.51% 12
West Midlands -70 59 £440 -7.37% 38
North East -18 24 £625 +8.70% 17
Wales -18 17 £425 +61.90% 5
East Midlands -22 17 £500 +6.16% 25
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 2

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 49 (3.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 31 (2.19%) SharePoint
3 28 (1.98%) Confluence
4 15 (1.06%) Apache
5 11 (0.78%) nginx
6 9 (0.64%) SAS
7 4 (0.28%) CICS
7 4 (0.28%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.28%) IIS
7 4 (0.28%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.21%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.14%) CMS
9 2 (0.14%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.14%) Umbraco
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.14%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.071%) MTS
Applications
1 23 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (1.55%) MS Visio
3 21 (1.48%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.071%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.071%) Bloomberg TOMS
3 1 (0.071%) Eikon
3 1 (0.071%) Primavera
3 1 (0.071%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 529 (37.36%) Azure
2 330 (23.31%) AWS
3 163 (11.51%) Entra ID
4 124 (8.76%) Microsoft 365
5 116 (8.19%) GCP
6 76 (5.37%) GitHub
7 69 (4.87%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (4.73%) IaaS
9 62 (4.38%) SaaS
10 53 (3.74%) Azure Monitor
10 53 (3.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 47 (3.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 41 (2.90%) Azure Sentinel
13 40 (2.82%) PaaS
14 38 (2.68%) Serverless
15 37 (2.61%) OCI
16 36 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
17 32 (2.26%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 26 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
19 25 (1.77%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 420 (29.66%) VPN
2 385 (27.19%) Network Security
3 384 (27.12%) WAN
4 367 (25.92%) DNS
5 279 (19.70%) LAN
6 251 (17.73%) BGP
7 213 (15.04%) TCP/IP
8 212 (14.97%) DHCP
9 199 (14.05%) VLAN
10 196 (13.84%) OSPF
11 166 (11.72%) Wireless
12 144 (10.17%) SD-WAN
13 129 (9.11%) Wi-Fi
14 92 (6.50%) MPLS
15 88 (6.21%) IPsec
16 83 (5.86%) Cisco ASA
17 82 (5.79%) BIG-IP
17 82 (5.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 74 (5.23%) SSL
19 72 (5.08%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.47%) SQL Server
2 19 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (1.13%) Power BI
4 14 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
5 10 (0.71%) Relational Database
6 9 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (0.64%) Oracle Database
7 8 (0.56%) Data Lake
7 8 (0.56%) MySQL
8 6 (0.42%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (0.35%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.28%) DataStage
10 4 (0.28%) Db2
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.21%) Big Data
11 3 (0.21%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 94 (6.64%) JIRA
2 59 (4.17%) Jenkins
3 49 (3.46%) GitLab
4 46 (3.25%) Git
5 12 (0.85%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (0.71%) Bitbucket
7 8 (0.56%) Artifactory
8 7 (0.49%) Chocolatey
9 6 (0.42%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 6 (0.42%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.28%) MSI
10 4 (0.28%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.21%) Burp Suite
12 2 (0.14%) Gatling
12 2 (0.14%) Gradle
12 2 (0.14%) Introscope
12 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.14%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 307 (21.68%) Social Skills
2 174 (12.29%) Finance
3 147 (10.38%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (8.62%) Public Sector
5 81 (5.72%) Banking
6 60 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
7 52 (3.67%) Telecoms
8 27 (1.91%) Manufacturing
9 24 (1.69%) Legal
10 21 (1.48%) Financial Institution
11 19 (1.34%) Retail
12 18 (1.27%) Local Government
13 17 (1.20%) Military
14 15 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
15 14 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
16 13 (0.92%) Police
17 11 (0.78%) Law
18 10 (0.71%) Investment Banking
19 9 (0.64%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 450 (31.78%) Network Engineer
2 214 (15.11%) Senior
3 189 (13.35%) Architect
4 155 (10.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 111 (7.84%) Security Engineer
6 93 (6.57%) Senior Network Engineer
7 83 (5.86%) Cloud Engineer
8 64 (4.52%) Azure Engineer
9 62 (4.38%) Network Architect
10 60 (4.24%) Consultant
11 54 (3.81%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 50 (3.53%) Network Security Engineer
13 48 (3.39%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 46 (3.25%) Security Architect
15 45 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
16 44 (3.11%) Lead
16 44 (3.11%) Technical Architect
17 42 (2.97%) Cisco Engineer
18 40 (2.82%) Cisco Network Engineer
19 37 (2.61%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (4.17%) 802.1X
2 38 (2.68%) Middleware
3 28 (1.98%) SAML
4 24 (1.69%) ARM Templates
5 19 (1.34%) OpenID
6 15 (1.06%) LDAP
7 14 (0.99%) OAuth
7 14 (0.99%) REST
8 12 (0.85%) YAML
9 11 (0.78%) Kafka
9 11 (0.78%) OAuth2
10 10 (0.71%) React
11 9 (0.64%) LangChain
11 9 (0.64%) PyTorch
11 9 (0.64%) scikit-learn
12 8 (0.56%) .NET
13 7 (0.49%) Elastic Stack
13 7 (0.49%) JSON
13 7 (0.49%) OpenTelemetry
13 7 (0.49%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 303 (21.40%) Data Centre
2 94 (6.64%) Hybrid Cloud
3 92 (6.50%) Cloud Native
4 84 (5.93%) PKI
5 59 (4.17%) Management Information System
5 59 (4.17%) Security Posture
6 57 (4.03%) Onboarding
7 47 (3.32%) Operational Technology
8 31 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
9 30 (2.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 30 (2.12%) Public Cloud
10 28 (1.98%) Clustering
11 26 (1.84%) IoT
12 25 (1.77%) SCADA
13 24 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
14 23 (1.62%) Enterprise Storage
15 22 (1.55%) Driving Licence
16 21 (1.48%) Replication
17 20 (1.41%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 352 (24.86%) Windows
2 224 (15.82%) Linux
3 145 (10.24%) Windows Server
4 52 (3.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 27 (1.91%) Unix
6 22 (1.55%) Ubuntu
7 20 (1.41%) VMS
8 15 (1.06%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.92%) CentOS
9 13 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.49%) Rocky
12 7 (0.49%) Windows 10
13 5 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
13 5 (0.35%) Android
13 5 (0.35%) Solaris
13 5 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.28%) AIX
14 4 (0.28%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (17.66%) DevOps
2 242 (17.09%) CI/CD
2 242 (17.09%) Infrastructure as Code
3 219 (15.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 204 (14.41%) Cybersecurity
5 196 (13.84%) Load Balancing
6 194 (13.70%) Problem-Solving
7 186 (13.14%) ITIL
8 180 (12.71%) Migration
9 164 (11.58%) High Availability
10 160 (11.30%) Agile
11 155 (10.95%) Zero Trust
12 143 (10.10%) SIEM
13 135 (9.53%) Project Delivery
14 132 (9.32%) Change Management
15 128 (9.04%) Stakeholder Management
16 112 (7.91%) Validation
17 110 (7.77%) Cloud Security
18 109 (7.70%) Observability
18 109 (7.70%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 284 (20.06%) Python
2 216 (15.25%) PowerShell
3 138 (9.75%) Bash
4 51 (3.60%) Bicep
5 49 (3.46%) SQL
6 36 (2.54%) Java
7 11 (0.78%) Perl
8 10 (0.71%) ActionScript
8 10 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.56%) Groovy
10 6 (0.42%) Go
10 6 (0.42%) Search Processing Language
11 5 (0.35%) C++
11 5 (0.35%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.28%) COBOL
12 4 (0.28%) JavaScript
12 4 (0.28%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.14%) PHP
14 2 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 482 (34.04%) Security Cleared
2 339 (23.94%) SC Cleared
3 251 (17.73%) Cisco Certification
4 190 (13.42%) CCNP
5 124 (8.76%) DV Cleared
6 117 (8.26%) Degree
7 108 (7.63%) CCNA
8 73 (5.16%) CISSP
9 71 (5.01%) Azure Certification
10 53 (3.74%) AWS Certification
11 38 (2.68%) CCIE
12 32 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
13 30 (2.12%) CISM
13 30 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
14 20 (1.41%) Network+ Certification
15 17 (1.20%) JNCIS
16 16 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 15 (1.06%) Server+ Certification
18 14 (0.99%) CEH
18 14 (0.99%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (4.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (4.38%) NIST
3 44 (3.11%) GDPR
4 31 (2.19%) NCSC
5 26 (1.84%) PCI DSS
5 26 (1.84%) SLA
6 23 (1.62%) QA
7 19 (1.34%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.78%) JSP 440
9 9 (0.64%) Data Quality
9 9 (0.64%) NIST 800
9 9 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.49%) GxP
12 6 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 6 (0.42%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 4 (0.28%) 21 CFR Part 11
14 4 (0.28%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 239 (16.88%) Active Directory
2 182 (12.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 72 (5.08%) Docker
4 69 (4.87%) Hyper-V
5 59 (4.17%) VMware NSX
6 48 (3.39%) vSphere
7 42 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
8 41 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
9 27 (1.91%) Firmware
10 16 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (0.71%) BitLocker
12 9 (0.64%) Squid
13 7 (0.49%) Microsoft App-V
14 6 (0.42%) NFS
15 4 (0.28%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.21%) Dovecot
16 3 (0.21%) FreeRADIUS
16 3 (0.21%) Postfix
16 3 (0.21%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 291 (20.55%) Terraform
2 208 (14.69%) Ansible
3 130 (9.18%) Kubernetes
4 100 (7.06%) FortiGate
5 73 (5.16%) Microsoft Intune
6 54 (3.81%) Grafana
7 52 (3.67%) Prometheus
8 39 (2.75%) SCCM
9 33 (2.33%) Single Sign-On
10 29 (2.05%) Progress Chef
11 24 (1.69%) vCenter Server
12 18 (1.27%) VxRail
13 17 (1.20%) Puppet
14 15 (1.06%) CASB
15 13 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
16 10 (0.71%) Argo
16 10 (0.71%) Packer
17 8 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 8 (0.56%) NetBackup
17 8 (0.56%) QRadar
Vendors
1 506 (35.73%) Cisco
2 344 (24.29%) Microsoft
3 301 (21.26%) Palo Alto
4 231 (16.31%) VMware
5 198 (13.98%) Fortinet
6 183 (12.92%) F5
7 137 (9.68%) Juniper
8 125 (8.83%) CheckPoint
9 74 (5.23%) Google
9 74 (5.23%) Splunk
10 72 (5.08%) ServiceNow
11 68 (4.80%) Aruba
12 64 (4.52%) Arista
13 61 (4.31%) Zscaler
14 58 (4.10%) SolarWinds
15 45 (3.18%) Meraki
16 42 (2.97%) Red Hat
17 41 (2.90%) Citrix
18 33 (2.33%) Infoblox
19 31 (2.19%) Dynatrace