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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 61 59
Rank change year-on-year -39 -2 -11
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,396 1,296 1,325
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.60% 3.99% 3.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.48% 33.91% 28.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 871 777 842
10th Percentile £350 £323 £320
25th Percentile £425 £410 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £624
90th Percentile £658 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £515
% change year-on-year +2.56% -5.34% +8.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 28 28
10th Percentile £29.00 £14.20 £20.13
25th Percentile £49.61 £17.18 £23.80
Median hourly rate £65.69 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.97% +9.09% -58.32%
75th Percentile £78.75 £37.06 £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% -28.01%

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 5,080 3,822 4,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 11.76% 11.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,005 2,349 2,716
10th Percentile £235 £238 £230
25th Percentile £399 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £469 £500
% change year-on-year +2.31% -6.16% +10.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 201 286
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.69
Median hourly rate £26.00 £45.00 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year -42.22% -10.45% -8.64%
75th Percentile £65.22 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.92 £42.50 £56.87
% change year-on-year -39.01% -25.27% +0.67%

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 3 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 3 September 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 3 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 -38 1,221 £501 +0.25% 901
UK excluding London -28 777 £500 +2.56% 578
London -57 479 £500 - 431
Work from Home -31 397 £520 +4.00% 433
North of England -5 278 £500 +5.26% 112
South East -40 193 £523 +4.50% 180
North West +7 172 £500 +5.82% 62
South West -15 87 £556 +12.61% 74
Yorkshire -30 85 £463 -5.08% 31
East of England +1 78 £525 -2.78% 48
Midlands -76 75 £472 -0.74% 100
Scotland -10 63 £400 -11.11% 37
West Midlands -79 55 £450 -5.26% 69
North East -18 27 £500 -13.04% 21
East Midlands -17 18 £500 +1.63% 31
Wales -17 11 £425 +112.50% 8
Northern Ireland -8 1 - - 28

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 (3.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 37 (2.65%) SharePoint
3 29 (2.08%) Confluence
4 13 (0.93%) 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
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%) Skype for Business
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 (0.072%) MTS
Applications
1 25 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (1.58%) MS Visio
3 12 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.072%) 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%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.072%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.072%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 531 (38.04%) Azure
2 321 (22.99%) AWS
3 172 (12.32%) Entra ID
4 132 (9.46%) Microsoft 365
5 107 (7.66%) GCP
6 73 (5.23%) Azure DevOps
6 73 (5.23%) GitHub
7 62 (4.44%) SaaS
8 61 (4.37%) IaaS
9 55 (3.94%) Azure Monitor
10 48 (3.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 45 (3.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 40 (2.87%) Azure Sentinel
13 39 (2.79%) Serverless
14 37 (2.65%) PaaS
15 36 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (2.58%) OCI
16 28 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
17 27 (1.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 27 (1.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 421 (30.16%) VPN
2 398 (28.51%) Network Security
3 372 (26.65%) WAN
4 363 (26.00%) DNS
5 266 (19.05%) LAN
6 251 (17.98%) BGP
7 213 (15.26%) DHCP
8 211 (15.11%) TCP/IP
9 198 (14.18%) VLAN
10 188 (13.47%) OSPF
11 171 (12.25%) Wireless
12 137 (9.81%) SD-WAN
13 133 (9.53%) Wi-Fi
14 87 (6.23%) Cisco ASA
15 86 (6.16%) IPsec
16 82 (5.87%) MPLS
17 81 (5.80%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 79 (5.66%) BIG-IP
19 73 (5.23%) SSL
20 69 (4.94%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.44%) SQL Server
2 20 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
4 16 (1.15%) Power BI
5 12 (0.86%) Relational Database
6 11 (0.79%) Data Lake
7 9 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.64%) NoSQL
7 9 (0.64%) Oracle Database
8 8 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
9 7 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
10 5 (0.36%) Delta Lake
10 5 (0.36%) MySQL
11 4 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.29%) Db2
12 3 (0.21%) Big Data
12 3 (0.21%) EDRMS
12 3 (0.21%) Metadata
13 2 (0.14%) Amazon Athena
13 2 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 90 (6.45%) JIRA
2 61 (4.37%) Jenkins
3 49 (3.51%) GitLab
4 46 (3.30%) Git
5 15 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.64%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.50%) Artifactory
8 6 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
9 5 (0.36%) Chocolatey
10 4 (0.29%) Maven
10 4 (0.29%) MSI
11 3 (0.21%) Burp Suite
12 2 (0.14%) Cucumber
12 2 (0.14%) Gatling
12 2 (0.14%) Gradle
12 2 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
12 2 (0.14%) Vagrant
General
1 307 (21.99%) Social Skills
2 175 (12.54%) Finance
3 145 (10.39%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (8.09%) Public Sector
5 85 (6.09%) Banking
6 59 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 56 (4.01%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.36%) Manufacturing
9 28 (2.01%) Legal
10 20 (1.43%) Retail
11 17 (1.22%) Local Government
11 17 (1.22%) Military
12 14 (1.00%) Financial Institution
13 13 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (0.93%) Police
14 12 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (0.79%) Aerospace
15 11 (0.79%) Investment Banking
15 11 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
16 10 (0.72%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 443 (31.73%) Network Engineer
2 225 (16.12%) Senior
3 178 (12.75%) Architect
4 160 (11.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 102 (7.31%) Security Engineer
6 99 (7.09%) Senior Network Engineer
7 82 (5.87%) Cloud Engineer
8 67 (4.80%) Consultant
9 63 (4.51%) Azure Engineer
10 59 (4.23%) Network Architect
11 55 (3.94%) Network Security Engineer
11 55 (3.94%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 51 (3.65%) DevOps Engineer
13 50 (3.58%) Lead
13 50 (3.58%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 47 (3.37%) Security Architect
15 43 (3.08%) Cisco Engineer
16 42 (3.01%) Platform Engineer
17 41 (2.94%) Cisco Network Engineer
18 37 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 296 (21.20%) Terraform
2 45 (3.22%) 802.1X
3 33 (2.36%) Middleware
4 29 (2.08%) SAML
5 27 (1.93%) ARM Templates
6 18 (1.29%) OpenID
7 17 (1.22%) REST
8 14 (1.00%) LDAP
8 14 (1.00%) OAuth
9 11 (0.79%) Kafka
9 11 (0.79%) OAuth2
10 10 (0.72%) React
11 9 (0.64%) YAML
12 7 (0.50%) .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%) gRPC
13 5 (0.36%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 293 (20.99%) Data Centre
2 101 (7.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 79 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 79 (5.66%) PKI
4 61 (4.37%) Onboarding
5 53 (3.80%) Management Information System
6 50 (3.58%) Security Posture
7 49 (3.51%) Operational Technology
8 31 (2.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 30 (2.15%) IoT
9 30 (2.15%) Public Cloud
10 27 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
11 24 (1.72%) Driving Licence
11 24 (1.72%) Replication
11 24 (1.72%) SCADA
11 24 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
13 21 (1.50%) Clustering
13 21 (1.50%) Linux Command Line
14 19 (1.36%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 348 (24.93%) Windows
2 222 (15.90%) Linux
3 148 (10.60%) Windows Server
4 47 (3.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (2.01%) Unix
6 25 (1.79%) Ubuntu
7 22 (1.58%) VMS
8 15 (1.07%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.93%) CentOS
9 13 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.57%) Amazon Linux
10 8 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.50%) Rocky
11 7 (0.50%) Windows 10
11 7 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.43%) Android
13 5 (0.36%) Apple iOS
13 5 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.29%) SUSE
15 3 (0.21%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (18.12%) DevOps
2 252 (18.05%) Infrastructure as Code
3 231 (16.55%) CI/CD
4 228 (16.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 203 (14.54%) Migration
6 198 (14.18%) Cybersecurity
7 196 (14.04%) Load Balancing
8 191 (13.68%) Problem-Solving
9 187 (13.40%) ITIL
10 168 (12.03%) High Availability
11 163 (11.68%) Zero Trust
12 160 (11.46%) Agile
13 145 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
14 137 (9.81%) Project Delivery
15 135 (9.67%) Change Management
16 127 (9.10%) SIEM
17 119 (8.52%) Technical Leadership
18 117 (8.38%) Validation
19 110 (7.88%) Cloud Security
20 109 (7.81%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 277 (19.84%) Python
2 220 (15.76%) PowerShell
3 137 (9.81%) Bash
4 54 (3.87%) Bicep
5 50 (3.58%) SQL
6 40 (2.87%) Java
7 14 (1.00%) Groovy
8 11 (0.79%) Perl
9 10 (0.72%) ActionScript
10 9 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.57%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.43%) Go
12 6 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
13 4 (0.29%) JavaScript
13 4 (0.29%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.21%) C++
14 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.14%) COBOL
15 2 (0.14%) Jython
15 2 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 477 (34.17%) Security Cleared
2 338 (24.21%) SC Cleared
3 241 (17.26%) Cisco Certification
4 182 (13.04%) CCNP
5 122 (8.74%) DV Cleared
6 114 (8.17%) Degree
7 96 (6.88%) CCNA
8 75 (5.37%) CISSP
9 71 (5.09%) Azure Certification
10 52 (3.72%) AWS Certification
11 37 (2.65%) CCIE
12 35 (2.51%) Microsoft Certification
13 33 (2.36%) CISM
14 28 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
15 19 (1.36%) PMP
16 18 (1.29%) PMI Certification
17 17 (1.22%) CEH
17 17 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 15 (1.07%) JNCIS
18 15 (1.07%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (5.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (4.37%) NIST
3 41 (2.94%) GDPR
4 27 (1.93%) NCSC
5 25 (1.79%) QA
6 22 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
6 22 (1.58%) PCI DSS
7 20 (1.43%) SLA
8 10 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 9 (0.64%) Data Quality
9 9 (0.64%) JSP 440
9 9 (0.64%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.50%) GxP
12 6 (0.43%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.36%) COBIT
14 4 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
15 3 (0.21%) PMO
15 3 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 235 (16.83%) Active Directory
2 184 (13.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 77 (5.52%) Docker
4 73 (5.23%) Hyper-V
5 57 (4.08%) VMware NSX
6 49 (3.51%) vSphere
7 45 (3.22%) VMware ESXi
8 44 (3.15%) Virtual Machines
9 27 (1.93%) Firmware
10 14 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
11 10 (0.72%) Squid
12 9 (0.64%) BitLocker
13 6 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.43%) NFS
14 5 (0.36%) Dovecot
14 5 (0.36%) Postfix
14 5 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
15 4 (0.29%) Terminal Services
16 3 (0.21%) EMC RecoverPoint
16 3 (0.21%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 216 (15.47%) Ansible
2 131 (9.38%) Kubernetes
3 91 (6.52%) FortiGate
4 69 (4.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 59 (4.23%) Grafana
6 55 (3.94%) Prometheus
7 41 (2.94%) SCCM
8 35 (2.51%) Single Sign-On
9 28 (2.01%) Progress Chef
10 25 (1.79%) vCenter Server
11 17 (1.22%) VxRail
12 15 (1.07%) Puppet
13 14 (1.00%) Cisco Prime
14 13 (0.93%) CASB
15 10 (0.72%) Argo
15 10 (0.72%) Packer
16 9 (0.64%) vMotion
16 9 (0.64%) WSUS
17 8 (0.57%) Istio
17 8 (0.57%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 516 (36.96%) Cisco
2 341 (24.43%) Microsoft
3 313 (22.42%) Palo Alto
4 228 (16.33%) VMware
5 199 (14.26%) Fortinet
6 179 (12.82%) F5
7 126 (9.03%) Juniper
8 124 (8.88%) CheckPoint
9 67 (4.80%) ServiceNow
10 65 (4.66%) Splunk
11 62 (4.44%) Google
12 61 (4.37%) Arista
12 61 (4.37%) Aruba
13 60 (4.30%) Zscaler
14 54 (3.87%) SolarWinds
15 53 (3.80%) Meraki
16 40 (2.87%) Citrix
17 37 (2.65%) Red Hat
18 29 (2.08%) Infoblox
19 27 (1.93%) Dynatrace