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

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 68 54 46
Rank change year-on-year -14 -8 +20
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,324 1,360 1,984
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.67% 3.71% 4.37%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 33.08% 30.41% 31.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 838 819 1,304
10th Percentile £313 £312 £316
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £704
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 23 60
10th Percentile - £20.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £29.00 £20.09 £62.50
Median hourly rate £34.00 £27.50 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +23.64% -58.32% +96.96%
75th Percentile £75.70 £39.75 £75.82
90th Percentile £89.27 £48.50 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £25.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +67.76% -62.11% +60.81%

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 4,002 4,472 6,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.08% 12.19% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,587 2,577 3,921
10th Percentile £206 £223 £211
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £683 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 174 346
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.67 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.75 £23.59 £22.81
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.75 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -18.56% -25.04% +34.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -10.53% -15.91% +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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -10 1,133 £500 -4.76% 565
UK excluding London -13 726 £488 -2.50% 535
London -8 467 £520 -5.45% 157
Work from Home -8 379 £500 -4.76% 206
North of England -17 213 £492 -1.60% 98
South East -3 182 £492 -1.60% 237
Midlands -9 143 £475 -5.00% 67
West Midlands +6 132 £475 -5.00% 48
Yorkshire -4 108 £486 +9.58% 38
North West -26 101 £523 +4.50% 55
Scotland -19 60 £438 -7.89% 24
East of England -7 56 £475 -9.52% 42
South West -25 52 £540 +8.00% 53
Wales -8 13 £250 -32.43% 22
East Midlands -40 11 £450 -12.20% 17
Northern Ireland - 11 £500 - 6
North East -9 7 £550 +22.22% 5
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 62 (4.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 47 (3.55%) Confluence
3 34 (2.57%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.21%) OpenStack
5 14 (1.06%) Apache
6 13 (0.98%) nginx
7 6 (0.45%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.38%) JBoss
9 4 (0.30%) IIS
10 3 (0.23%) SAS
10 3 (0.23%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.15%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.15%) CICS
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.15%) Traefik
11 2 (0.15%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.076%) CMS
12 1 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2010
12 1 (0.076%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.076%) Mattermost
Applications
1 34 (2.57%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.76%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 9 (0.68%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.23%) ION MarketView
2 2 (0.15%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.076%) Finacle
3 1 (0.076%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 417 (31.50%) Azure
2 349 (26.36%) AWS
3 155 (11.71%) Microsoft 365
4 148 (11.18%) GCP
5 93 (7.02%) Entra ID
6 78 (5.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 68 (5.14%) Amazon EC2
8 58 (4.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 57 (4.31%) Amazon S3
9 57 (4.31%) Azure Sentinel
10 45 (3.40%) Amazon ELB
11 39 (2.95%) GitHub
12 38 (2.87%) IaaS
13 35 (2.64%) Akamai
14 34 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
15 32 (2.42%) Serverless
16 31 (2.34%) Azure Monitor
17 30 (2.27%) PaaS
17 30 (2.27%) SaaS
18 27 (2.04%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 285 (21.53%) Network Security
2 282 (21.30%) VPN
3 276 (20.85%) DNS
4 245 (18.50%) WAN
5 169 (12.76%) LAN
6 162 (12.24%) TCP/IP
7 149 (11.25%) BGP
8 141 (10.65%) SD-WAN
9 125 (9.44%) OSPF
10 124 (9.37%) Wireless
11 117 (8.84%) DHCP
12 114 (8.61%) VLAN
13 106 (8.01%) Wi-Fi
14 81 (6.12%) SSL
15 75 (5.66%) Cisco Nexus
15 75 (5.66%) MPLS
16 69 (5.21%) Cisco ISE
17 60 (4.53%) Cisco IOS
18 55 (4.15%) Cisco ASA
19 54 (4.08%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (2.95%) Amazon RDS
2 37 (2.79%) SQL Server
3 26 (1.96%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (0.83%) Relational Database
5 10 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
6 8 (0.60%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.53%) MySQL
8 6 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (0.38%) Oracle Database
9 5 (0.38%) Redis
10 4 (0.30%) DB2
10 4 (0.30%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.23%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.23%) DynamoDB
11 3 (0.23%) NoSQL
12 2 (0.15%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.15%) Data Vault
12 2 (0.15%) RDBMS
13 1 (0.076%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 107 (8.08%) Jenkins
2 94 (7.10%) Git
3 81 (6.12%) JIRA
4 66 (4.98%) GitLab
5 25 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 21 (1.59%) Vagrant
7 16 (1.21%) Postman
8 15 (1.13%) Bitbucket
9 7 (0.53%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.30%) Burp Suite
10 4 (0.30%) Metasploit
11 3 (0.23%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.15%) Maven
12 2 (0.15%) MSI
13 1 (0.076%) Eclipse
13 1 (0.076%) Subversion
General
1 335 (25.30%) Social Skills
2 145 (10.95%) Analytical Skills
3 144 (10.88%) Finance
4 126 (9.52%) Public Sector
5 65 (4.91%) Banking
6 58 (4.38%) Documentation Skills
6 58 (4.38%) Telecoms
7 34 (2.57%) Manufacturing
8 30 (2.27%) Legal
8 30 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
9 25 (1.89%) Games
10 17 (1.28%) Local Government
11 13 (0.98%) Military
12 11 (0.83%) Law
12 11 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
12 11 (0.83%) Retail
13 10 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 9 (0.68%) Financial Institution
14 9 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.45%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 306 (23.11%) Network Engineer
2 212 (16.01%) Architect
3 137 (10.35%) Security Engineer
4 121 (9.14%) Senior
5 84 (6.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 82 (6.19%) Analyst
7 78 (5.89%) Network Architect
8 76 (5.74%) Platform Engineer
9 67 (5.06%) Consultant
10 64 (4.83%) DevOps Engineer
11 58 (4.38%) Security Architect
12 55 (4.15%) Network Security Engineer
13 44 (3.32%) Support Engineer
14 42 (3.17%) Azure Engineer
14 42 (3.17%) Solutions Architect
15 36 (2.72%) Lead
16 35 (2.64%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 34 (2.57%) Cloud Engineer
18 32 (2.42%) AWS Engineer
19 31 (2.34%) Cybersecurity Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (2.34%) 802.1X
1 31 (2.34%) LDAP
2 22 (1.66%) SAML
3 21 (1.59%) RFC 2544
4 19 (1.44%) Middleware
5 18 (1.36%) JSON
5 18 (1.36%) OpenID
6 16 (1.21%) OAuth
6 16 (1.21%) REST
7 14 (1.06%) Node.js
7 14 (1.06%) OAuth2
8 11 (0.83%) Elastic Stack
8 11 (0.83%) XML
9 8 (0.60%) ARM Templates
9 8 (0.60%) YAML
10 6 (0.45%) Kafka
10 6 (0.45%) Microsoft Graph
11 4 (0.30%) Regular Expression
12 3 (0.23%) Lambda Expressions
12 3 (0.23%) React
Miscellaneous
1 204 (15.41%) Data Centre
2 82 (6.19%) Security Posture
3 63 (4.76%) Operational Technology
4 59 (4.46%) Hybrid Cloud
5 54 (4.08%) PKI
6 48 (3.63%) Replication
7 43 (3.25%) Onboarding
8 41 (3.10%) Cloud Native
9 29 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
9 29 (2.19%) Management Information System
10 25 (1.89%) Public Cloud
11 24 (1.81%) Cyber Threat
12 22 (1.66%) SCADA
12 22 (1.66%) Security Operations Centre
13 19 (1.44%) Private Cloud
14 18 (1.36%) Cyber Defence
15 17 (1.28%) Fibre Optics
16 15 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
16 15 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
16 15 (1.13%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 333 (25.15%) Windows
2 226 (17.07%) Linux
3 113 (8.53%) Windows Server
4 41 (3.10%) Unix
5 37 (2.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 37 (2.79%) VMS
6 32 (2.42%) Mac OS
7 28 (2.11%) Android
8 24 (1.81%) Amazon Linux
9 22 (1.66%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.98%) Windows 10
11 12 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
12 11 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
13 9 (0.68%) CentOS
13 9 (0.68%) Windows 7
14 8 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
15 6 (0.45%) Solaris
16 3 (0.23%) AIX
16 3 (0.23%) Apple iOS
16 3 (0.23%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (17.82%) Cybersecurity
2 204 (15.41%) DevOps
3 195 (14.73%) Problem-Solving
4 175 (13.22%) Cloud Security
5 171 (12.92%) CI/CD
6 160 (12.08%) Infrastructure as Code
6 160 (12.08%) SIEM
7 154 (11.63%) Incident Response
8 149 (11.25%) Migration
9 138 (10.42%) Agile
10 134 (10.12%) ITIL
11 126 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 114 (8.61%) High Availability
13 106 (8.01%) Change Management
14 98 (7.40%) Stakeholder Management
15 97 (7.33%) Load Balancing
16 94 (7.10%) Network Design
17 93 (7.02%) Security Operations
18 85 (6.42%) Zero Trust
19 81 (6.12%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 282 (21.30%) Python
2 218 (16.47%) PowerShell
3 119 (8.99%) Bash
4 59 (4.46%) SQL
5 46 (3.47%) Perl
6 42 (3.17%) Java
7 21 (1.59%) Groovy
8 19 (1.44%) Kusto Query Language
9 17 (1.28%) Bicep
10 11 (0.83%) Ruby
11 9 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 8 (0.60%) JavaScript
13 6 (0.45%) Go
14 3 (0.23%) C
14 3 (0.23%) C#
14 3 (0.23%) Kotlin
14 3 (0.23%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.15%) Apex Code
15 2 (0.15%) C++
15 2 (0.15%) PHP
Qualifications
1 378 (28.55%) Security Cleared
2 264 (19.94%) SC Cleared
3 223 (16.84%) Cisco Certification
4 167 (12.61%) CCNP
5 107 (8.08%) Degree
6 102 (7.70%) CISSP
7 85 (6.42%) CCNA
8 84 (6.34%) DV Cleared
9 59 (4.46%) Azure Certification
10 54 (4.08%) AWS Certification
11 52 (3.93%) CISM
12 51 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
13 50 (3.78%) CCIE
14 33 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
15 28 (2.11%) CompTIA Security+
16 27 (2.04%) CEH
17 20 (1.51%) GIAC
18 17 (1.28%) JNCIP
19 15 (1.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 15 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (8.46%) NIST
2 110 (8.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 75 (5.66%) GDPR
4 43 (3.25%) PCI DSS
5 21 (1.59%) SLA
6 20 (1.51%) NCSC
6 20 (1.51%) QA
7 15 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
8 13 (0.98%) GRC
9 12 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.83%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.68%) COBIT
12 8 (0.60%) SOC 2
13 6 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 6 (0.45%) PMO
14 5 (0.38%) GxP
14 5 (0.38%) PSD2
15 4 (0.30%) Accessibility
15 4 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.30%) NIST 800
System Software
1 243 (18.35%) Active Directory
2 149 (11.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 145 (10.95%) Docker
4 45 (3.40%) Hyper-V
5 38 (2.87%) Virtual Machines
6 29 (2.19%) VMware NSX
7 25 (1.89%) vSphere
8 24 (1.81%) DFS Replication
9 16 (1.21%) Firmware
9 16 (1.21%) Squid
10 12 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
11 10 (0.76%) Dovecot
11 10 (0.76%) Postfix
12 8 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
12 8 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
13 7 (0.53%) KVM
13 7 (0.53%) Snort
13 7 (0.53%) Terminal Services
13 7 (0.53%) Veritas Cluster Server
14 5 (0.38%) NDS
Systems Management
1 193 (14.58%) Terraform
2 180 (13.60%) Ansible
3 101 (7.63%) Kubernetes
4 79 (5.97%) Microsoft Intune
5 70 (5.29%) FortiGate
6 63 (4.76%) SCCM
7 39 (2.95%) Grafana
8 37 (2.79%) Prometheus
9 31 (2.34%) Single Sign-On
10 23 (1.74%) Nessus
11 22 (1.66%) Puppet
12 20 (1.51%) vCenter Server
13 19 (1.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 17 (1.28%) CASB
14 17 (1.28%) CSIRT
15 15 (1.13%) QRadar
16 13 (0.98%) Fluentd
17 12 (0.91%) SCOM
18 10 (0.76%) Microsoft Clustering
18 10 (0.76%) WMI
Vendors
1 454 (34.29%) Cisco
2 347 (26.21%) Microsoft
3 239 (18.05%) Palo Alto
4 185 (13.97%) VMware
5 166 (12.54%) F5
6 144 (10.88%) Fortinet
7 125 (9.44%) CheckPoint
8 112 (8.46%) Splunk
9 103 (7.78%) Juniper
10 87 (6.57%) Meraki
11 73 (5.51%) SolarWinds
12 67 (5.06%) Oracle
13 60 (4.53%) Google
14 57 (4.31%) Zscaler
15 52 (3.93%) ServiceNow
16 49 (3.70%) Citrix
17 32 (2.42%) Aruba
18 31 (2.34%) Red Hat
19 26 (1.96%) Dell
20 23 (1.74%) Tenable