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 4 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 66 54 44
Rank change year-on-year -12 -10 +23
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,302 1,343 2,103
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.77% 3.70% 4.50%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 33.07% 30.54% 32.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 820 804 1,400
10th Percentile £313 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 22 64
10th Percentile £20.47 £20.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £29.00 £20.45 £62.50
Median hourly rate £33.39 £27.50 £66.62
Median % change year-on-year +21.40% -58.72% +73.68%
75th Percentile £69.31 £37.25 £75.82
90th Percentile £89.63 £58.88 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £27.50 £66.62
% change year-on-year +27.27% -58.72% +55.97%

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 3,937 4,398 6,540
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.40% 12.11% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,551 2,532 4,075
10th Percentile £213 £223 £213
25th Percentile £358 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 161 341
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.03 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £26.25 £22.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £48.56 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.92% -11.71% +34.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £52.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -19.05% -7.06% +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 4 November 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 4 November 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 4 November 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 -12 1,114 £500 -4.76% 653
UK excluding London -8 718 £488 -2.50% 570
London -13 458 £525 -4.55% 228
Work from Home -8 375 £500 -6.98% 225
North of England -14 208 £492 -2.57% 92
South East -9 167 £500 - 258
Midlands -7 148 £475 -5.00% 81
West Midlands +13 134 £475 -5.00% 55
Yorkshire +5 109 £488 -13.14% 27
North West -23 96 £525 +3.96% 51
Scotland -16 61 £463 -5.13% 22
South West -10 58 £525 +10.53% 49
East of England -6 54 £483 -8.10% 62
Wales -4 14 £200 -37.25% 18
East Midlands -37 14 £492 +3.58% 25
Northern Ireland - 13 £488 - 8
North East -13 6 £550 +57.14% 14
Channel Islands - 4 £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 57 (4.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 51 (3.92%) Confluence
3 36 (2.76%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.23%) OpenStack
5 13 (1.00%) nginx
6 7 (0.54%) Apache
6 7 (0.54%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.31%) CMS
7 4 (0.31%) JBoss
8 3 (0.23%) SAS
9 2 (0.15%) CICS
9 2 (0.15%) IIS
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.15%) Traefik
9 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
9 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.077%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.077%) Exchange Server 2013
10 1 (0.077%) Mattermost
10 1 (0.077%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 28 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.77%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 10 (0.77%) MS Visio
3 9 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.23%) ION MarketView
1 3 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.15%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.15%) SAP PM
2 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.077%) Finacle
3 1 (0.077%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 400 (30.72%) Azure
2 343 (26.34%) AWS
3 150 (11.52%) GCP
4 148 (11.37%) Microsoft 365
5 89 (6.84%) Entra ID
6 80 (6.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 64 (4.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 64 (4.92%) Amazon EC2
8 57 (4.38%) Amazon S3
9 50 (3.84%) Azure Sentinel
10 45 (3.46%) Amazon ELB
11 37 (2.84%) Akamai
11 37 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
11 37 (2.84%) IaaS
12 34 (2.61%) GitHub
13 29 (2.23%) PaaS
14 28 (2.15%) Serverless
15 27 (2.07%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 25 (1.92%) AWS KMS
17 24 (1.84%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 283 (21.74%) VPN
2 275 (21.12%) Network Security
3 271 (20.81%) DNS
4 244 (18.74%) WAN
5 173 (13.29%) LAN
6 164 (12.60%) TCP/IP
7 151 (11.60%) BGP
8 140 (10.75%) SD-WAN
9 128 (9.83%) OSPF
10 122 (9.37%) Wireless
11 114 (8.76%) VLAN
12 112 (8.60%) DHCP
13 100 (7.68%) Wi-Fi
14 90 (6.91%) SSL
15 79 (6.07%) Cisco Nexus
16 69 (5.30%) MPLS
17 65 (4.99%) Cisco ISE
18 56 (4.30%) IPsec
19 53 (4.07%) HTTP
20 52 (3.99%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (2.84%) Amazon RDS
1 37 (2.84%) SQL Server
2 24 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (0.84%) Relational Database
4 10 (0.77%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
6 7 (0.54%) Data Lake
6 7 (0.54%) MySQL
6 7 (0.54%) NoSQL
6 7 (0.54%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.38%) DB2
7 5 (0.38%) Redis
8 4 (0.31%) Apache Cassandra
8 4 (0.31%) DynamoDB
8 4 (0.31%) MongoDB
9 3 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.23%) Power BI
10 2 (0.15%) Amazon QuickSight
10 2 (0.15%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.15%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 107 (8.22%) Jenkins
2 91 (6.99%) Git
3 83 (6.37%) JIRA
4 65 (4.99%) GitLab
5 25 (1.92%) Sonatype Nexus
6 22 (1.69%) Vagrant
7 16 (1.23%) Postman
8 10 (0.77%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.77%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.15%) Maven
10 2 (0.15%) MSI
11 1 (0.077%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.077%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.077%) Gradle
11 1 (0.077%) Subversion
General
1 314 (24.12%) Social Skills
2 144 (11.06%) Finance
3 141 (10.83%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (9.60%) Public Sector
5 64 (4.92%) Banking
6 54 (4.15%) Telecoms
7 50 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.69%) Manufacturing
9 31 (2.38%) Legal
10 29 (2.23%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.00%) Games
12 20 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (1.08%) Military
14 13 (1.00%) Local Government
15 11 (0.84%) Law
15 11 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.77%) Retail
17 9 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
18 6 (0.46%) Financial Institution
19 5 (0.38%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 298 (22.89%) Network Engineer
2 206 (15.82%) Architect
3 130 (9.98%) Security Engineer
4 114 (8.76%) Senior
5 88 (6.76%) Analyst
6 76 (5.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 76 (5.84%) Network Architect
7 70 (5.38%) Consultant
8 69 (5.30%) Platform Engineer
9 64 (4.92%) DevOps Engineer
10 54 (4.15%) Security Architect
11 52 (3.99%) Network Security Engineer
12 44 (3.38%) Support Engineer
13 40 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
14 39 (3.00%) Lead
15 37 (2.84%) Azure Engineer
16 36 (2.76%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 35 (2.69%) Cisco Engineer
18 34 (2.61%) AWS Engineer
18 34 (2.61%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (2.61%) LDAP
2 28 (2.15%) 802.1X
3 25 (1.92%) RFC 2544
4 20 (1.54%) REST
5 19 (1.46%) Middleware
6 18 (1.38%) SAML
7 15 (1.15%) JSON
8 14 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
8 14 (1.08%) OAuth
8 14 (1.08%) OpenID
9 13 (1.00%) OAuth2
10 10 (0.77%) Node.js
11 8 (0.61%) XML
11 8 (0.61%) YAML
12 7 (0.54%) ARM Templates
13 6 (0.46%) Kafka
13 6 (0.46%) Microsoft Graph
14 3 (0.23%) Azure Blueprints
14 3 (0.23%) CSS
14 3 (0.23%) React
Miscellaneous
1 195 (14.98%) Data Centre
2 83 (6.37%) Security Posture
3 63 (4.84%) Hybrid Cloud
4 59 (4.53%) Operational Technology
5 46 (3.53%) Onboarding
6 43 (3.30%) Replication
7 42 (3.23%) PKI
8 34 (2.61%) Management Information System
9 32 (2.46%) Cloud Native
10 30 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
11 27 (2.07%) Cyber Threat
12 23 (1.77%) Public Cloud
13 22 (1.69%) SCADA
13 22 (1.69%) Security Operations Centre
14 19 (1.46%) Fibre Optics
15 18 (1.38%) Cyber Defence
16 17 (1.31%) Private Cloud
17 16 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
17 16 (1.23%) Virtual Team
18 15 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 316 (24.27%) Windows
2 221 (16.97%) Linux
3 102 (7.83%) Windows Server
4 38 (2.92%) Unix
4 38 (2.92%) VMS
5 37 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 36 (2.76%) Mac OS
7 32 (2.46%) Android
8 24 (1.84%) Amazon Linux
9 22 (1.69%) Ubuntu
10 19 (1.46%) Windows 10
11 14 (1.08%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.69%) CentOS
13 9 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.54%) Solaris
15 6 (0.46%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.23%) AIX
16 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
16 3 (0.23%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (17.28%) Cybersecurity
2 206 (15.82%) DevOps
3 185 (14.21%) Cloud Security
4 182 (13.98%) Problem-Solving
5 162 (12.44%) Incident Response
6 160 (12.29%) CI/CD
7 157 (12.06%) SIEM
8 153 (11.75%) Infrastructure as Code
9 139 (10.68%) Migration
10 132 (10.14%) Agile
10 132 (10.14%) ITIL
11 121 (9.29%) High Availability
12 120 (9.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 100 (7.68%) Change Management
14 96 (7.37%) Security Operations
15 89 (6.84%) Network Design
16 88 (6.76%) Stakeholder Management
17 86 (6.61%) Zero Trust
18 85 (6.53%) Configuration Management
19 83 (6.37%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 283 (21.74%) Python
2 206 (15.82%) PowerShell
3 113 (8.68%) Bash
4 62 (4.76%) SQL
5 45 (3.46%) Java
6 43 (3.30%) Perl
7 22 (1.69%) Groovy
8 20 (1.54%) Kusto Query Language
9 19 (1.46%) Bicep
10 12 (0.92%) Shell Script
11 7 (0.54%) Go
11 7 (0.54%) JavaScript
11 7 (0.54%) Ruby
12 4 (0.31%) C
13 3 (0.23%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.23%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.15%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.15%) C++
14 2 (0.15%) PHP
15 1 (0.077%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 362 (27.80%) Security Cleared
2 261 (20.05%) SC Cleared
3 228 (17.51%) Cisco Certification
4 165 (12.67%) CCNP
5 108 (8.29%) Degree
6 100 (7.68%) CISSP
7 85 (6.53%) CCNA
8 73 (5.61%) DV Cleared
9 59 (4.53%) Azure Certification
10 52 (3.99%) AWS Certification
10 52 (3.99%) CISM
11 50 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
12 49 (3.76%) CCIE
13 40 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
14 27 (2.07%) CEH
15 26 (2.00%) CompTIA Security+
16 17 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
16 17 (1.31%) GIAC
17 15 (1.15%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 14 (1.08%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (8.68%) NIST
2 102 (7.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 73 (5.61%) GDPR
4 39 (3.00%) PCI DSS
5 25 (1.92%) SLA
6 19 (1.46%) NCSC
6 19 (1.46%) QA
7 14 (1.08%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.00%) GRC
9 12 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.84%) SOC 2
11 9 (0.69%) COBIT
12 8 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
13 6 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 5 (0.38%) GxP
14 5 (0.38%) PSD2
15 4 (0.31%) Accessibility
16 3 (0.23%) NIST 800
System Software
1 230 (17.67%) Active Directory
2 143 (10.98%) Docker
3 135 (10.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (3.07%) Hyper-V
5 32 (2.46%) Virtual Machines
6 25 (1.92%) DFS Replication
6 25 (1.92%) vSphere
7 18 (1.38%) VMware NSX
8 15 (1.15%) Squid
9 14 (1.08%) Firmware
10 11 (0.84%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.77%) Dovecot
11 10 (0.77%) Postfix
12 7 (0.54%) Terminal Services
12 7 (0.54%) Veritas Cluster Server
13 6 (0.46%) KVM
13 6 (0.46%) Snort
13 6 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.38%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 187 (14.36%) Ansible
2 185 (14.21%) Terraform
3 103 (7.91%) Kubernetes
4 70 (5.38%) Microsoft Intune
5 68 (5.22%) FortiGate
6 56 (4.30%) SCCM
7 43 (3.30%) Grafana
8 40 (3.07%) Prometheus
9 30 (2.30%) Single Sign-On
10 25 (1.92%) Puppet
11 22 (1.69%) Nessus
12 18 (1.38%) CSIRT
13 17 (1.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 16 (1.23%) vCenter Server
15 15 (1.15%) CASB
16 14 (1.08%) QRadar
17 11 (0.84%) Fluentd
18 10 (0.77%) Microsoft Clustering
18 10 (0.77%) Proxmox
19 9 (0.69%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 454 (34.87%) Cisco
2 322 (24.73%) Microsoft
3 220 (16.90%) Palo Alto
4 170 (13.06%) VMware
5 169 (12.98%) F5
6 145 (11.14%) Fortinet
7 123 (9.45%) CheckPoint
8 112 (8.60%) Splunk
9 102 (7.83%) Juniper
10 78 (5.99%) Meraki
11 72 (5.53%) SolarWinds
12 70 (5.38%) Oracle
13 60 (4.61%) ServiceNow
14 56 (4.30%) Zscaler
15 53 (4.07%) Google
16 43 (3.30%) Citrix
17 34 (2.61%) Red Hat
18 28 (2.15%) Aruba
19 26 (2.00%) Dell
20 23 (1.77%) Arista