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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 55 58
Rank change year-on-year -38 +3 -10
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,447 1,405 1,376
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.71% 4.27% 3.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.97% 35.45% 28.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 910 834 870
10th Percentile £350 £325 £312
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £595 £600 £614
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £525
% change year-on-year +2.56% -7.14% +9.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 26 35
10th Percentile £29.00 £14.20 £20.06
25th Percentile £38.80 £15.18 £23.92
Median hourly rate £65.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.67% +9.09% -56.35%
75th Percentile £78.75 £40.63 £85.65
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.63 £87.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.23 £30.00 £73.50
% change year-on-year +117.42% -59.18% +16.66%

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 4,995 3,963 4,799
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.37% 12.05% 12.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,973 2,421 2,922
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £595 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 195 335
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £18.15
Median hourly rate £26.69 £50.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -46.62% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.60 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -40.62% -18.00% -3.58%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -44 1,254 £502 +0.35% 526
UK excluding London -33 814 £500 +2.56% 428
London -57 486 £500 - 166
Work from Home -37 399 £520 +4.00% 203
North of England -11 288 £500 +5.26% 91
South East -30 225 £520 +4.00% 154
North West -6 186 £525 +10.53% 46
Yorkshire -35 86 £450 -7.22% 36
South West -38 76 £550 +11.39% 51
Midlands -72 76 £459 -3.37% 62
East of England -5 73 £525 -2.78% 29
Scotland +8 66 £413 -13.16% 20
West Midlands -75 60 £450 -5.26% 36
North East -18 22 £625 - 13
Wales -14 17 £425 +17.24% 18
East Midlands -24 13 £488 -0.91% 26
Northern Ireland -9 1 - - 12

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 44 (3.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (1.94%) Confluence
2 28 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 14 (0.97%) Apache
4 13 (0.90%) nginx
5 9 (0.62%) CICS
6 6 (0.41%) SAS
7 4 (0.28%) FactoryTalk
7 4 (0.28%) Tomcat
8 3 (0.21%) CloudStack
8 3 (0.21%) IIS
8 3 (0.21%) Skype for Business
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 (0.069%) MTS
Applications
1 23 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (1.52%) MS Visio
3 20 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 8 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.069%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 3 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.14%) Dynamics GP
2 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.069%) Bloomberg TOMS
3 1 (0.069%) Eikon
3 1 (0.069%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.069%) Primavera
3 1 (0.069%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 522 (36.07%) Azure
2 328 (22.67%) AWS
3 153 (10.57%) Entra ID
4 124 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
5 122 (8.43%) GCP
6 76 (5.25%) GitHub
7 66 (4.56%) IaaS
8 62 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (4.08%) SaaS
10 57 (3.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 47 (3.25%) Azure Monitor
12 46 (3.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 44 (3.04%) PaaS
14 41 (2.83%) Azure Sentinel
15 37 (2.56%) OCI
15 37 (2.56%) Serverless
16 33 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (2.14%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 27 (1.87%) AWS CloudFormation
19 25 (1.73%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 428 (29.58%) VPN
2 397 (27.44%) WAN
3 396 (27.37%) Network Security
4 367 (25.36%) DNS
5 296 (20.46%) LAN
6 270 (18.66%) BGP
7 216 (14.93%) OSPF
8 212 (14.65%) TCP/IP
9 209 (14.44%) DHCP
10 207 (14.31%) VLAN
11 167 (11.54%) Wireless
12 146 (10.09%) SD-WAN
13 126 (8.71%) Wi-Fi
14 94 (6.50%) BIG-IP
14 94 (6.50%) MPLS
15 93 (6.43%) IPsec
16 85 (5.87%) VXLAN
17 81 (5.60%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 80 (5.53%) SSL
19 76 (5.25%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (2.35%) SQL Server
2 19 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (1.17%) Power BI
4 13 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
5 12 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
6 10 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (0.62%) Data Lake
7 9 (0.62%) DataStage
7 9 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 9 (0.62%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.55%) MySQL
9 5 (0.35%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.28%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.28%) Db2
10 4 (0.28%) NoSQL
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (0.21%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.21%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 93 (6.43%) JIRA
2 58 (4.01%) Jenkins
3 45 (3.11%) Git
4 44 (3.04%) GitLab
5 14 (0.97%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (0.62%) Artifactory
6 9 (0.62%) Bitbucket
6 9 (0.62%) Chocolatey
7 6 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
8 5 (0.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.35%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.28%) Burp Suite
10 3 (0.21%) MSI
11 2 (0.14%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.14%) Gatling
11 2 (0.14%) Gradle
11 2 (0.14%) Introscope
11 2 (0.14%) Metasploit
11 2 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 304 (21.01%) Social Skills
2 184 (12.72%) Finance
3 136 (9.40%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 81 (5.60%) Banking
6 67 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (3.46%) Telecoms
8 25 (1.73%) Legal
8 25 (1.73%) Manufacturing
9 22 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
10 21 (1.45%) Financial Institution
10 21 (1.45%) Military
11 20 (1.38%) Local Government
12 16 (1.11%) Retail
13 13 (0.90%) Law
13 13 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
14 12 (0.83%) Police
15 11 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 10 (0.69%) Investment Banking
17 9 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 471 (32.55%) Network Engineer
2 213 (14.72%) Senior
3 204 (14.10%) Architect
4 146 (10.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 120 (8.29%) Security Engineer
6 94 (6.50%) Senior Network Engineer
7 77 (5.32%) Cloud Engineer
8 71 (4.91%) Network Architect
9 62 (4.28%) Consultant
10 59 (4.08%) Azure Engineer
11 57 (3.94%) Network Security Engineer
12 49 (3.39%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 48 (3.32%) Security Architect
14 47 (3.25%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 46 (3.18%) Technical Architect
16 45 (3.11%) DevOps Engineer
17 44 (3.04%) Lead
18 39 (2.70%) Cisco Engineer
19 37 (2.56%) Analyst
19 37 (2.56%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (4.91%) 802.1X
2 42 (2.90%) Middleware
3 29 (2.00%) SAML
4 22 (1.52%) ARM Templates
4 22 (1.52%) LDAP
5 18 (1.24%) OpenID
6 13 (0.90%) OAuth
7 11 (0.76%) OAuth2
8 10 (0.69%) Kafka
8 10 (0.69%) React
9 9 (0.62%) LangChain
9 9 (0.62%) PyTorch
9 9 (0.62%) REST
9 9 (0.62%) scikit-learn
10 8 (0.55%) .NET
10 8 (0.55%) YAML
11 7 (0.48%) Elastic Stack
11 7 (0.48%) OpenTelemetry
11 7 (0.48%) SailPoint
12 5 (0.35%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 333 (23.01%) Data Centre
2 96 (6.63%) Cloud Native
3 90 (6.22%) Hybrid Cloud
4 89 (6.15%) PKI
5 68 (4.70%) Security Posture
6 58 (4.01%) Management Information System
7 54 (3.73%) Onboarding
8 50 (3.46%) Operational Technology
9 42 (2.90%) Clustering
10 30 (2.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 29 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
12 27 (1.87%) IoT
12 27 (1.87%) Public Cloud
13 24 (1.66%) Enterprise Storage
13 24 (1.66%) SCADA
14 22 (1.52%) Driving Licence
15 21 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
16 20 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
17 19 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
17 19 (1.31%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 356 (24.60%) Windows
2 220 (15.20%) Linux
3 135 (9.33%) Windows Server
4 52 (3.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 35 (2.42%) Unix
6 23 (1.59%) VMS
7 20 (1.38%) Ubuntu
8 13 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.76%) CentOS
10 10 (0.69%) Mac OS
10 10 (0.69%) Solaris
10 10 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
11 9 (0.62%) AIX
12 7 (0.48%) Rocky
12 7 (0.48%) Windows 10
13 6 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
14 4 (0.28%) Android
14 4 (0.28%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 244 (16.86%) DevOps
2 230 (15.89%) CI/CD
3 227 (15.69%) Infrastructure as Code
4 206 (14.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 203 (14.03%) Load Balancing
6 196 (13.55%) Problem-Solving
7 188 (12.99%) Cybersecurity
8 185 (12.79%) ITIL
9 184 (12.72%) Migration
10 180 (12.44%) High Availability
11 159 (10.99%) Zero Trust
12 154 (10.64%) Agile
13 140 (9.68%) SIEM
14 130 (8.98%) Project Delivery
15 128 (8.85%) Change Management
16 121 (8.36%) Observability
17 118 (8.15%) Validation
18 115 (7.95%) Stakeholder Management
19 107 (7.39%) Cloud Security
20 102 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 268 (18.52%) Python
2 187 (12.92%) PowerShell
3 128 (8.85%) Bash
4 50 (3.46%) Bicep
5 44 (3.04%) SQL
6 34 (2.35%) Java
7 11 (0.76%) ActionScript
7 11 (0.76%) Perl
8 9 (0.62%) COBOL
9 7 (0.48%) Groovy
9 7 (0.48%) JavaScript
10 6 (0.41%) Go
10 6 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
11 5 (0.35%) C++
12 3 (0.21%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.21%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.21%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.14%) Jython
13 2 (0.14%) PHP
13 2 (0.14%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 492 (34.00%) Security Cleared
2 342 (23.64%) SC Cleared
3 280 (19.35%) Cisco Certification
4 210 (14.51%) CCNP
5 131 (9.05%) DV Cleared
6 117 (8.09%) CCNA
6 117 (8.09%) Degree
7 74 (5.11%) CISSP
8 62 (4.28%) Azure Certification
9 46 (3.18%) AWS Certification
10 41 (2.83%) CCIE
11 35 (2.42%) Microsoft Certification
12 32 (2.21%) CISM
13 28 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
15 22 (1.52%) JNCIS
16 18 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
16 18 (1.24%) JNCIP
17 17 (1.17%) Server+ Certification
18 16 (1.11%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (5.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 60 (4.15%) NIST
3 43 (2.97%) GDPR
4 32 (2.21%) NCSC
5 24 (1.66%) SLA
6 23 (1.59%) PCI DSS
7 21 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
7 21 (1.45%) QA
8 9 (0.62%) Data Quality
8 9 (0.62%) NIST 800
9 8 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 8 (0.55%) GxP
10 7 (0.48%) JSP 440
11 6 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 6 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.28%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 4 (0.28%) PMO
13 4 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 235 (16.24%) Active Directory
2 170 (11.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 67 (4.63%) Docker
4 61 (4.22%) VMware NSX
5 58 (4.01%) Hyper-V
6 43 (2.97%) vSphere
7 41 (2.83%) Virtual Machines
8 39 (2.70%) VMware ESXi
9 26 (1.80%) Firmware
10 14 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
11 11 (0.76%) BitLocker
11 11 (0.76%) Squid
12 8 (0.55%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.41%) NFS
14 4 (0.28%) Terminal Services
15 3 (0.21%) Dovecot
15 3 (0.21%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 3 (0.21%) Postfix
15 3 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
16 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 282 (19.49%) Terraform
2 197 (13.61%) Ansible
3 119 (8.22%) Kubernetes
4 110 (7.60%) FortiGate
5 68 (4.70%) Microsoft Intune
6 54 (3.73%) Grafana
7 51 (3.52%) Prometheus
8 40 (2.76%) SCCM
9 32 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
10 24 (1.66%) vCenter Server
11 21 (1.45%) Progress Chef
12 18 (1.24%) Puppet
13 17 (1.17%) CASB
13 17 (1.17%) VxRail
14 14 (0.97%) Cisco Prime
15 11 (0.76%) QRadar
16 10 (0.69%) Packer
17 9 (0.62%) Argo
18 8 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
18 8 (0.55%) vMotion
Vendors
1 526 (36.35%) Cisco
2 326 (22.53%) Microsoft
3 310 (21.42%) Palo Alto
4 225 (15.55%) VMware
5 208 (14.37%) Fortinet
6 198 (13.68%) F5
7 162 (11.20%) Juniper
8 125 (8.64%) CheckPoint
9 87 (6.01%) Splunk
10 76 (5.25%) ServiceNow
11 75 (5.18%) Aruba
12 74 (5.11%) Google
13 72 (4.98%) Arista
14 70 (4.84%) SolarWinds
15 67 (4.63%) Zscaler
16 47 (3.25%) Citrix
17 45 (3.11%) Red Hat
18 44 (3.04%) Meraki
19 32 (2.21%) Dynatrace
19 32 (2.21%) Infoblox