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 17 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 62 58
Rank change year-on-year -40 -4 -12
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,376 1,288 1,347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.52% 3.91% 3.52%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 26.92% 33.83% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 844 779 840
10th Percentile £350 £313 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £508
% change year-on-year +2.56% -3.94% +6.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 28 32
10th Percentile £29.00 £14.85 £20.00
25th Percentile £54.37 £28.00 £22.11
Median hourly rate £67.47 £30.00 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year +124.90% -4.00% -52.64%
75th Percentile £78.75 £37.06 £75.68
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.57 £30.00 £41.25
% change year-on-year +118.57% -27.27% -37.48%

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 5,111 3,807 4,537
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.35% 11.56% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,962 2,354 2,642
10th Percentile £232 £225 £225
25th Percentile £390 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £476 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £452 £500
% change year-on-year +5.20% -9.70% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 198 255
10th Percentile £14.74 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £32.50 £43.00 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.42% -14.85% -10.60%
75th Percentile £68.75 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.55 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.69 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -37.20% -25.89% -0.26%

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 17 September 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 17 September 2026.

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 17 September 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 -41 1,209 £500 - 1,122
UK excluding London -40 755 £500 +2.56% 671
London -55 485 £500 -2.91% 522
Work from Home -33 388 £518 +3.50% 435
North of England -8 275 £500 +4.17% 139
South East -49 169 £518 +3.50% 216
North West +8 162 £511 +7.47% 81
Yorkshire -35 92 £483 -1.43% 42
South West -13 87 £556 +14.34% 78
Midlands -77 82 £450 -5.26% 113
East of England -6 76 £530 +9.84% 48
Scotland -18 61 £400 -11.11% 59
West Midlands -82 60 £429 -9.68% 76
North East -17 27 £500 -13.04% 18
East Midlands -3 20 £500 +1.63% 37
Wales -16 9 £425 +112.50% 11
Channel Islands -7 2 £600 -17.24% 1
Northern Ireland -10 1 - - 14

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 (3.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 37 (2.69%) SharePoint
3 33 (2.40%) Confluence
4 12 (0.87%) Apache
4 12 (0.87%) nginx
5 10 (0.73%) SAS
6 4 (0.29%) FactoryTalk
6 4 (0.29%) IIS
7 3 (0.22%) CloudStack
7 3 (0.22%) Skype for Business
7 3 (0.22%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.15%) CICS
8 2 (0.15%) CMS
8 2 (0.15%) Umbraco
9 1 (0.073%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.073%) MTS
9 1 (0.073%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 1 (0.073%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.073%) WebSphere Application Server
9 1 (0.073%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 21 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
1 21 (1.53%) MS Visio
2 20 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.073%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.15%) Bloomberg TOMS
3 2 (0.15%) Dynamics GP
3 2 (0.15%) Eikon
3 2 (0.15%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.073%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 526 (38.23%) Azure
2 321 (23.33%) AWS
3 173 (12.57%) Entra ID
4 130 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
5 105 (7.63%) GCP
6 76 (5.52%) GitHub
7 69 (5.01%) IaaS
8 65 (4.72%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (4.65%) SaaS
10 55 (4.00%) Azure Monitor
11 47 (3.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 43 (3.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 39 (2.83%) PaaS
14 37 (2.69%) OCI
15 35 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
15 35 (2.54%) Serverless
16 31 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 27 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
18 26 (1.89%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 414 (30.09%) VPN
2 397 (28.85%) Network Security
3 370 (26.89%) DNS
4 355 (25.80%) WAN
5 256 (18.60%) LAN
6 242 (17.59%) BGP
7 216 (15.70%) TCP/IP
8 210 (15.26%) DHCP
9 201 (14.61%) VLAN
10 177 (12.86%) OSPF
11 175 (12.72%) Wireless
12 129 (9.38%) SD-WAN
13 128 (9.30%) Wi-Fi
14 82 (5.96%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 80 (5.81%) Cisco ASA
16 79 (5.74%) IPsec
17 78 (5.67%) SSL
18 77 (5.60%) BIG-IP
18 77 (5.60%) MPLS
19 67 (4.87%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (2.54%) SQL Server
2 19 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
3 18 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (0.94%) Relational Database
5 11 (0.80%) Data Lake
5 11 (0.80%) Power BI
6 8 (0.58%) Amazon Aurora
7 7 (0.51%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.44%) Elasticsearch
9 5 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.36%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.29%) Db2
10 4 (0.29%) MySQL
11 3 (0.22%) Big Data
11 3 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.22%) EDRMS
11 3 (0.22%) Metadata
12 2 (0.15%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (0.15%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.15%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 92 (6.69%) JIRA
2 62 (4.51%) Jenkins
3 49 (3.56%) Git
4 46 (3.34%) GitLab
5 15 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.65%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.51%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 6 (0.44%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.36%) Chocolatey
10 4 (0.29%) Maven
10 4 (0.29%) MSI
11 3 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
12 2 (0.15%) Burp Suite
12 2 (0.15%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.15%) Gatling
12 2 (0.15%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.15%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.15%) Vagrant
General
1 308 (22.38%) Social Skills
2 172 (12.50%) Finance
3 143 (10.39%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (8.07%) Public Sector
5 90 (6.54%) Banking
6 58 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
7 57 (4.14%) Telecoms
8 34 (2.47%) Manufacturing
9 27 (1.96%) Legal
10 21 (1.53%) Retail
11 19 (1.38%) Local Government
12 18 (1.31%) Military
13 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
13 13 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (0.94%) Police
14 12 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
15 11 (0.80%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.80%) Investment Banking
16 10 (0.73%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 444 (32.27%) Network Engineer
2 215 (15.63%) Senior
3 162 (11.77%) Architect
4 157 (11.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 109 (7.92%) Security Engineer
6 96 (6.98%) Senior Network Engineer
7 83 (6.03%) Cloud Engineer
8 68 (4.94%) Consultant
9 63 (4.58%) Azure Engineer
10 60 (4.36%) Network Security Engineer
11 56 (4.07%) Network Architect
12 54 (3.92%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 53 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
14 51 (3.71%) Lead
15 49 (3.56%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 45 (3.27%) Security Architect
17 41 (2.98%) Cisco Engineer
18 40 (2.91%) Platform Engineer
19 39 (2.83%) Cisco Network Engineer
20 37 (2.69%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 288 (20.93%) Terraform
2 41 (2.98%) 802.1X
3 30 (2.18%) Middleware
4 28 (2.03%) SAML
5 27 (1.96%) ARM Templates
6 20 (1.45%) OpenID
6 20 (1.45%) REST
7 16 (1.16%) OAuth
8 14 (1.02%) LDAP
9 13 (0.94%) OAuth2
9 13 (0.94%) YAML
10 10 (0.73%) JSON
10 10 (0.73%) React
11 7 (0.51%) Kafka
11 7 (0.51%) OpenTelemetry
11 7 (0.51%) SailPoint
12 6 (0.44%) .NET
12 6 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
13 5 (0.36%) Web Services
13 5 (0.36%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 292 (21.22%) Data Centre
2 105 (7.63%) Hybrid Cloud
3 74 (5.38%) PKI
4 72 (5.23%) Cloud Native
5 61 (4.43%) Onboarding
6 54 (3.92%) Security Posture
7 53 (3.85%) Management Information System
8 47 (3.42%) Operational Technology
9 35 (2.54%) Public Cloud
10 32 (2.33%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 26 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (1.82%) Replication
13 24 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
13 24 (1.74%) IoT
13 24 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (1.67%) Driving Licence
14 23 (1.67%) Linux Command Line
15 21 (1.53%) SCADA
16 19 (1.38%) Enterprise Storage
17 18 (1.31%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 340 (24.71%) Windows
2 218 (15.84%) Linux
3 148 (10.76%) Windows Server
4 46 (3.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (2.11%) Unix
6 25 (1.82%) Ubuntu
7 21 (1.53%) VMS
8 16 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 14 (1.02%) CentOS
10 12 (0.87%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.80%) Windows 10
12 9 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.58%) Amazon Linux
14 7 (0.51%) Android
14 7 (0.51%) Rocky
15 6 (0.44%) Apple iOS
15 6 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.29%) SUSE
18 3 (0.22%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (18.39%) Infrastructure as Code
2 243 (17.66%) DevOps
3 236 (17.15%) CI/CD
4 231 (16.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 205 (14.90%) Migration
6 203 (14.75%) Cybersecurity
7 197 (14.32%) Problem-Solving
8 188 (13.66%) Load Balancing
9 176 (12.79%) ITIL
10 159 (11.56%) Zero Trust
11 158 (11.48%) Agile
12 149 (10.83%) High Availability
13 143 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
14 139 (10.10%) Project Delivery
15 134 (9.74%) Change Management
16 133 (9.67%) SIEM
17 114 (8.28%) Cloud Security
17 114 (8.28%) Technical Leadership
18 113 (8.21%) Incident Response
19 111 (8.07%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 286 (20.78%) Python
2 229 (16.64%) PowerShell
3 136 (9.88%) Bash
4 47 (3.42%) Bicep
5 41 (2.98%) SQL
6 39 (2.83%) Java
7 16 (1.16%) ActionScript
8 14 (1.02%) Groovy
9 9 (0.65%) Perl
10 8 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
11 7 (0.51%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.44%) Go
12 6 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
13 4 (0.29%) C++
13 4 (0.29%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.22%) C
14 3 (0.22%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.15%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.15%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 458 (33.28%) Security Cleared
2 325 (23.62%) SC Cleared
3 239 (17.37%) Cisco Certification
4 179 (13.01%) CCNP
5 116 (8.43%) DV Cleared
6 110 (7.99%) Degree
7 93 (6.76%) CCNA
8 76 (5.52%) CISSP
9 71 (5.16%) Azure Certification
10 51 (3.71%) AWS Certification
11 37 (2.69%) Microsoft Certification
12 35 (2.54%) CCIE
13 34 (2.47%) CISM
14 29 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
15 17 (1.24%) CEH
15 17 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 15 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
16 15 (1.09%) PMI Certification
16 15 (1.09%) PMP
17 13 (0.94%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (5.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 59 (4.29%) NIST
3 34 (2.47%) GDPR
4 25 (1.82%) NCSC
4 25 (1.82%) QA
5 24 (1.74%) Cyber Essentials
6 21 (1.53%) PCI DSS
6 21 (1.53%) SLA
7 13 (0.94%) NIST 800
8 12 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 9 (0.65%) JSP 440
10 8 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
12 6 (0.44%) GxP
12 6 (0.44%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.36%) COBIT
13 5 (0.36%) Data Quality
13 5 (0.36%) GRC
14 4 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 237 (17.22%) Active Directory
2 176 (12.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 75 (5.45%) Docker
4 69 (5.01%) Hyper-V
5 57 (4.14%) VMware NSX
6 53 (3.85%) vSphere
7 47 (3.42%) VMware ESXi
8 45 (3.27%) Virtual Machines
9 25 (1.82%) Firmware
10 15 (1.09%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (0.73%) Squid
12 7 (0.51%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.44%) NFS
13 6 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.36%) Dovecot
14 5 (0.36%) Postfix
15 4 (0.29%) FreeRADIUS
15 4 (0.29%) Microsoft App-V
16 3 (0.22%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.22%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 215 (15.63%) Ansible
2 128 (9.30%) Kubernetes
3 90 (6.54%) FortiGate
4 72 (5.23%) Microsoft Intune
5 55 (4.00%) Grafana
6 51 (3.71%) Prometheus
7 42 (3.05%) SCCM
8 30 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
9 28 (2.03%) Progress Chef
10 25 (1.82%) vCenter Server
11 19 (1.38%) VxRail
12 15 (1.09%) Cisco Prime
13 14 (1.02%) Puppet
14 12 (0.87%) CASB
15 10 (0.73%) Argo
15 10 (0.73%) Packer
16 9 (0.65%) WSUS
17 8 (0.58%) Nagios
17 8 (0.58%) Nessus
17 8 (0.58%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 515 (37.43%) Cisco
2 342 (24.85%) Microsoft
3 325 (23.62%) Palo Alto
4 222 (16.13%) VMware
5 203 (14.75%) Fortinet
6 178 (12.94%) F5
7 122 (8.87%) CheckPoint
8 121 (8.79%) Juniper
9 71 (5.16%) Zscaler
10 64 (4.65%) Splunk
11 60 (4.36%) ServiceNow
12 59 (4.29%) Aruba
13 58 (4.22%) Arista
13 58 (4.22%) Google
14 55 (4.00%) Meraki
15 51 (3.71%) SolarWinds
16 35 (2.54%) Citrix
17 32 (2.33%) Red Hat
18 29 (2.11%) Dynatrace
18 29 (2.11%) Infoblox