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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 59 61
Rank change year-on-year -41 +2 -15
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,400 1,337 1,334
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.61% 4.08% 3.44%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.63% 34.45% 28.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 874 792 851
10th Percentile £350 £325 £313
25th Percentile £418 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £595 £614
90th Percentile £657 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £490 £513
% change year-on-year +2.09% -4.44% +7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 28 28
10th Percentile £29.00 £14.20 £21.74
25th Percentile £44.86 £15.28 £23.89
Median hourly rate £65.69 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.97% +9.09% -58.33%
75th Percentile £78.75 £35.39 £79.06
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% -28.02%

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 5,067 3,881 4,678
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.44% 11.85% 12.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,990 2,366 2,802
10th Percentile £250 £242 £220
25th Percentile £400 £367 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +0.21% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 201 301
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.00% -11.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.01 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £43.25 £54.94
% change year-on-year -40.42% -21.27% -4.46%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -38 1,219 £505 +1.00% 633
UK excluding London -33 778 £500 +2.09% 419
London -52 483 £500 - 261
Work from Home -40 392 £520 +4.00% 284
North of England -5 275 £500 +3.09% 89
South East -42 197 £520 +4.00% 118
North West +4 170 £503 +5.79% 50
South West -21 85 £550 +10.00% 54
Yorkshire -36 85 £450 -7.64% 28
East of England -8 76 £525 -4.55% 41
Midlands -79 72 £472 -0.74% 80
Scotland 0 63 £400 -13.51% 27
West Midlands -79 55 £450 -5.26% 57
North East -18 26 £500 -13.04% 12
Wales -12 17 £425 +61.90% 6
East Midlands -18 15 £500 +1.63% 23
Northern Ireland -10 1 - - 13

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 50 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (2.43%) SharePoint
3 30 (2.14%) Confluence
4 14 (1.00%) Apache
5 12 (0.86%) nginx
6 11 (0.79%) SAS
7 4 (0.29%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.29%) IIS
7 4 (0.29%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.21%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.14%) CICS
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 24 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (1.57%) MS Visio
3 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.071%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.14%) Bloomberg TOMS
2 2 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.14%) Eikon
2 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.071%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.071%) Primavera
3 1 (0.071%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 525 (37.50%) Azure
2 317 (22.64%) AWS
3 166 (11.86%) Entra ID
4 129 (9.21%) Microsoft 365
5 104 (7.43%) GCP
6 72 (5.14%) Azure DevOps
6 72 (5.14%) GitHub
7 61 (4.36%) IaaS
8 60 (4.29%) SaaS
9 55 (3.93%) Azure Monitor
10 48 (3.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 46 (3.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 42 (3.00%) Azure Sentinel
13 37 (2.64%) OCI
13 37 (2.64%) PaaS
14 36 (2.57%) Serverless
15 35 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 25 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 413 (29.50%) VPN
2 400 (28.57%) Network Security
3 379 (27.07%) WAN
4 360 (25.71%) DNS
5 272 (19.43%) LAN
6 256 (18.29%) BGP
7 210 (15.00%) DHCP
7 210 (15.00%) TCP/IP
8 193 (13.79%) OSPF
8 193 (13.79%) VLAN
9 162 (11.57%) Wireless
10 143 (10.21%) SD-WAN
11 129 (9.21%) Wi-Fi
12 87 (6.21%) Cisco ASA
13 84 (6.00%) MPLS
14 83 (5.93%) IPsec
15 80 (5.71%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 79 (5.64%) BIG-IP
17 72 (5.14%) Cisco Nexus
17 72 (5.14%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (2.36%) SQL Server
2 20 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
4 15 (1.07%) Power BI
5 12 (0.86%) Relational Database
6 10 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.64%) Oracle Database
8 8 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
8 8 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
9 7 (0.50%) Data Lake
10 6 (0.43%) MySQL
10 6 (0.43%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.36%) Delta Lake
12 4 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (0.29%) Db2
13 3 (0.21%) Big Data
13 3 (0.21%) EDRMS
13 3 (0.21%) Metadata
14 2 (0.14%) Amazon Athena
14 2 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 95 (6.79%) JIRA
2 57 (4.07%) Jenkins
3 48 (3.43%) GitLab
4 46 (3.29%) Git
5 13 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.64%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.50%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 5 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
9 5 (0.36%) Chocolatey
10 4 (0.29%) MSI
11 3 (0.21%) Burp Suite
11 3 (0.21%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.14%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.14%) Gradle
12 2 (0.14%) Introscope
12 2 (0.14%) LoadRunner
12 2 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.14%) Vagrant
General
1 306 (21.86%) Social Skills
2 175 (12.50%) Finance
3 147 (10.50%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (8.36%) Public Sector
5 84 (6.00%) Banking
6 58 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (3.93%) Telecoms
8 30 (2.14%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.00%) Legal
10 23 (1.64%) Retail
11 18 (1.29%) Local Government
12 17 (1.21%) Financial Institution
12 17 (1.21%) Military
13 13 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
13 13 (0.93%) Police
14 11 (0.79%) Investment Banking
14 11 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
15 10 (0.71%) Law
16 9 (0.64%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 442 (31.57%) Network Engineer
2 219 (15.64%) Senior
3 179 (12.79%) Architect
4 156 (11.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 101 (7.21%) Security Engineer
6 97 (6.93%) Senior Network Engineer
7 76 (5.43%) Cloud Engineer
8 67 (4.79%) Consultant
9 63 (4.50%) Azure Engineer
10 57 (4.07%) Network Architect
11 55 (3.93%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 53 (3.79%) Network Security Engineer
13 50 (3.57%) Lead
14 49 (3.50%) DevOps Engineer
15 46 (3.29%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (3.29%) Security Architect
16 42 (3.00%) Cisco Engineer
17 40 (2.86%) Cisco Network Engineer
17 40 (2.86%) Platform Engineer
18 38 (2.71%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 285 (20.36%) Terraform
2 47 (3.36%) 802.1X
3 34 (2.43%) Middleware
4 29 (2.07%) SAML
5 25 (1.79%) ARM Templates
6 18 (1.29%) OpenID
7 15 (1.07%) LDAP
7 15 (1.07%) REST
8 14 (1.00%) OAuth
9 11 (0.79%) Kafka
9 11 (0.79%) OAuth2
9 11 (0.79%) YAML
10 10 (0.71%) React
11 8 (0.57%) .NET
12 7 (0.50%) Elastic Stack
12 7 (0.50%) JSON
12 7 (0.50%) OpenTelemetry
12 7 (0.50%) SailPoint
13 5 (0.36%) ModSecurity
13 5 (0.36%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 299 (21.36%) Data Centre
2 97 (6.93%) Hybrid Cloud
3 81 (5.79%) PKI
4 76 (5.43%) Cloud Native
5 59 (4.21%) Onboarding
6 52 (3.71%) Management Information System
7 51 (3.64%) Security Posture
8 46 (3.29%) Operational Technology
9 31 (2.21%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 29 (2.07%) Data Protection Act
10 29 (2.07%) IoT
11 27 (1.93%) Public Cloud
12 24 (1.71%) Replication
12 24 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
13 23 (1.64%) Clustering
13 23 (1.64%) Driving Licence
13 23 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
14 22 (1.57%) Enterprise Storage
14 22 (1.57%) SCADA
15 21 (1.50%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 353 (25.21%) Windows
2 219 (15.64%) Linux
3 148 (10.57%) Windows Server
4 46 (3.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 25 (1.79%) Ubuntu
5 25 (1.79%) Unix
6 20 (1.43%) VMS
7 15 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 13 (0.93%) CentOS
8 13 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.64%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.57%) Amazon Linux
10 8 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.50%) Rocky
11 7 (0.50%) Windows 10
12 6 (0.43%) Android
12 6 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.36%) Apple iOS
14 4 (0.29%) SUSE
15 3 (0.21%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 244 (17.43%) DevOps
2 238 (17.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 228 (16.29%) CI/CD
4 222 (15.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 200 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
6 196 (14.00%) Load Balancing
6 196 (14.00%) Migration
7 190 (13.57%) Problem-Solving
8 187 (13.36%) ITIL
9 168 (12.00%) High Availability
10 164 (11.71%) Zero Trust
11 161 (11.50%) Agile
12 142 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
13 137 (9.79%) Project Delivery
14 133 (9.50%) Change Management
15 129 (9.21%) SIEM
16 117 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
17 114 (8.14%) Validation
18 108 (7.71%) Cloud Security
19 107 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 270 (19.29%) Python
2 217 (15.50%) PowerShell
3 127 (9.07%) Bash
4 52 (3.71%) Bicep
5 47 (3.36%) SQL
6 36 (2.57%) Java
7 12 (0.86%) Perl
8 11 (0.79%) Groovy
8 11 (0.79%) Kusto Query Language
9 10 (0.71%) ActionScript
10 6 (0.43%) Go
10 6 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
11 5 (0.36%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.29%) JavaScript
12 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.21%) C++
13 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.14%) C
14 2 (0.14%) COBOL
14 2 (0.14%) Jython
Qualifications
1 467 (33.36%) Security Cleared
2 328 (23.43%) SC Cleared
3 243 (17.36%) Cisco Certification
4 183 (13.07%) CCNP
5 122 (8.71%) DV Cleared
6 112 (8.00%) Degree
7 95 (6.79%) CCNA
8 75 (5.36%) CISSP
9 70 (5.00%) Azure Certification
10 51 (3.64%) AWS Certification
11 38 (2.71%) CCIE
12 33 (2.36%) CISM
12 33 (2.36%) Microsoft Certification
13 28 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
14 17 (1.21%) CEH
14 17 (1.21%) PMP
15 16 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 15 (1.07%) JNCIS
16 15 (1.07%) Network+ Certification
16 15 (1.07%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (5.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (4.36%) NIST
3 44 (3.14%) GDPR
4 27 (1.93%) NCSC
5 25 (1.79%) PCI DSS
5 25 (1.79%) QA
6 21 (1.50%) SLA
7 20 (1.43%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 9 (0.64%) Data Quality
8 9 (0.64%) JSP 440
9 8 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.57%) NIST 800
9 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.50%) GxP
11 6 (0.43%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 4 (0.29%) COBIT
12 4 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 3 (0.21%) PMO
System Software
1 235 (16.79%) Active Directory
2 184 (13.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 71 (5.07%) Hyper-V
4 67 (4.79%) Docker
5 58 (4.14%) VMware NSX
6 48 (3.43%) vSphere
7 44 (3.14%) VMware ESXi
8 42 (3.00%) Virtual Machines
9 27 (1.93%) Firmware
10 14 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (0.71%) BitLocker
11 10 (0.71%) Squid
12 7 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.43%) NFS
14 5 (0.36%) Dovecot
14 5 (0.36%) Postfix
15 4 (0.29%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
16 3 (0.21%) FreeRADIUS
16 3 (0.21%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 208 (14.86%) Ansible
2 121 (8.64%) Kubernetes
3 93 (6.64%) FortiGate
4 72 (5.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (4.00%) Grafana
6 54 (3.86%) Prometheus
7 39 (2.79%) SCCM
8 34 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
9 28 (2.00%) Progress Chef
10 25 (1.79%) vCenter Server
11 17 (1.21%) VxRail
12 16 (1.14%) Puppet
13 14 (1.00%) CASB
14 13 (0.93%) Cisco Prime
15 10 (0.71%) Argo
15 10 (0.71%) Packer
16 9 (0.64%) vMotion
16 9 (0.64%) WSUS
17 8 (0.57%) NetBackup
17 8 (0.57%) QRadar
Vendors
1 513 (36.64%) Cisco
2 342 (24.43%) Microsoft
3 305 (21.79%) Palo Alto
4 229 (16.36%) VMware
5 202 (14.43%) Fortinet
6 178 (12.71%) F5
7 127 (9.07%) Juniper
8 123 (8.79%) CheckPoint
9 70 (5.00%) ServiceNow
10 68 (4.86%) Splunk
11 63 (4.50%) Arista
12 62 (4.43%) Aruba
13 60 (4.29%) Zscaler
14 58 (4.14%) Google
15 54 (3.86%) SolarWinds
16 53 (3.79%) Meraki
17 43 (3.07%) Citrix
18 35 (2.50%) Red Hat
19 31 (2.21%) Infoblox
20 28 (2.00%) Dynatrace