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 19 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 53 56
Rank change year-on-year -34 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,376 1,283 1,517
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.72% 4.30% 3.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.59% 34.54% 27.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 887 759 948
10th Percentile £350 £319 £299
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £615
90th Percentile £649 £688 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 21 46
10th Percentile £28.00 - £17.25
25th Percentile £37.25 £14.20 £23.92
Median hourly rate £56.00 £30.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +86.67% -50.00% -4.08%
75th Percentile £70.11 £41.25 £85.65
90th Percentile £78.50 £45.00 £87.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £30.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year +86.67% -64.07% +33.49%

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 4,813 3,715 5,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 12.46% 12.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,959 2,278 3,209
10th Percentile £250 £225 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £471 £488
% change year-on-year +1.91% -3.38% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 173 422
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.79 £18.82 £17.69
Median hourly rate £28.00 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% +10.00% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £79.00 £71.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £30.32 £47.50
% change year-on-year -7.65% -36.17% +150.46%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 -45 1,161 £500 - 452
UK excluding London -32 784 £500 +3.09% 414
London -59 434 £500 -4.76% 104
Work from Home -34 394 £520 +4.00% 179
North of England -16 275 £500 +5.26% 91
South East -25 212 £500 - 153
North West -1 175 £536 +13.44% 53
Yorkshire -40 84 £443 -9.60% 27
Midlands -60 77 £425 -13.62% 65
East of England -8 72 £505 -3.81% 40
Scotland +18 66 £450 +2.86% 14
West Midlands -54 65 £423 -19.52% 38
South West -38 63 £525 +8.25% 43
Wales -20 25 £425 +30.77% 6
North East -15 22 £625 +25.00% 12
East Midlands -36 9 £500 +1.63% 27
Northern Ireland -5 2 £385 - 10

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 37 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 31 (2.25%) Confluence
3 24 (1.74%) SharePoint
4 14 (1.02%) nginx
5 11 (0.80%) Apache
6 10 (0.73%) CICS
7 6 (0.44%) IIS
8 5 (0.36%) SAS
9 4 (0.29%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 2 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
11 2 (0.15%) CloudStack
11 2 (0.15%) CMS
11 2 (0.15%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.15%) Umbraco
11 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.15%) WebSphere Portal
12 1 (0.073%) MTS
Applications
1 24 (1.74%) MS Visio
2 22 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (1.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.073%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.073%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.073%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.073%) Primavera
1 1 (0.073%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.073%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.073%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 451 (32.78%) Azure
2 290 (21.08%) AWS
3 125 (9.08%) Entra ID
4 112 (8.14%) GCP
5 108 (7.85%) Microsoft 365
6 73 (5.31%) GitHub
7 63 (4.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 58 (4.22%) IaaS
9 53 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
10 47 (3.42%) SaaS
11 41 (2.98%) PaaS
12 38 (2.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 37 (2.69%) OCI
14 36 (2.62%) Azure Monitor
15 35 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
15 35 (2.54%) Serverless
16 34 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
18 28 (2.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
19 26 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 392 (28.49%) Network Security
2 378 (27.47%) WAN
3 351 (25.51%) VPN
4 292 (21.22%) DNS
5 278 (20.20%) LAN
6 243 (17.66%) BGP
7 204 (14.83%) OSPF
8 178 (12.94%) VLAN
9 154 (11.19%) SD-WAN
9 154 (11.19%) TCP/IP
10 147 (10.68%) DHCP
10 147 (10.68%) Wireless
11 115 (8.36%) Wi-Fi
12 99 (7.19%) BIG-IP
13 94 (6.83%) VXLAN
14 91 (6.61%) MPLS
15 86 (6.25%) IPsec
16 78 (5.67%) Ethernet VPN
16 78 (5.67%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 78 (5.67%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (1.53%) SQL Server
2 18 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
3 15 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (1.09%) Power BI
4 11 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (0.73%) DataStage
6 9 (0.65%) Oracle Database
7 8 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (0.58%) Data Lake
7 8 (0.58%) MySQL
8 6 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
9 4 (0.29%) Amazon QuickSight
9 4 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (0.29%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.29%) Metadata
9 4 (0.29%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 94 (6.83%) JIRA
2 60 (4.36%) Jenkins
3 43 (3.13%) GitLab
4 42 (3.05%) Git
5 14 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (0.73%) Artifactory
6 10 (0.73%) Burp Suite
7 9 (0.65%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.65%) Chocolatey
7 9 (0.65%) SonarQube
8 8 (0.58%) Metasploit
9 6 (0.44%) Jaeger
10 5 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.15%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.15%) Gatling
11 2 (0.15%) Gradle
11 2 (0.15%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.15%) MSI
11 2 (0.15%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 302 (21.95%) Social Skills
2 169 (12.28%) Finance
3 114 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (7.78%) Public Sector
5 79 (5.74%) Documentation Skills
6 59 (4.29%) Banking
7 36 (2.62%) Legal
7 36 (2.62%) Telecoms
8 22 (1.60%) Financial Institution
9 21 (1.53%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.38%) Military
11 16 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
12 13 (0.94%) Law
13 12 (0.87%) Retail
14 11 (0.80%) Investment Banking
14 11 (0.80%) Local Government
15 10 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
16 9 (0.65%) Front Office
16 9 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 442 (32.12%) Network Engineer
2 207 (15.04%) Architect
3 168 (12.21%) Senior
4 128 (9.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 114 (8.28%) Security Engineer
6 71 (5.16%) Senior Network Engineer
7 69 (5.01%) Cloud Engineer
7 69 (5.01%) Network Architect
8 58 (4.22%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 54 (3.92%) Azure Engineer
10 51 (3.71%) Network Security Engineer
11 48 (3.49%) Technical Architect
12 45 (3.27%) Consultant
13 44 (3.20%) Lead
14 43 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
15 42 (3.05%) Cisco Engineer
16 38 (2.76%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 38 (2.76%) Security Architect
17 35 (2.54%) Analyst
17 35 (2.54%) Cloud Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (5.45%) 802.1X
2 39 (2.83%) Middleware
3 34 (2.47%) LDAP
4 27 (1.96%) SAML
5 23 (1.67%) OpenID
6 13 (0.94%) Kafka
7 12 (0.87%) OAuth
8 11 (0.80%) OAuth2
8 11 (0.80%) REST
9 9 (0.65%) OpenTelemetry
10 8 (0.58%) .NET
10 8 (0.58%) ARM Templates
10 8 (0.58%) Spring Boot
11 7 (0.51%) LangChain
11 7 (0.51%) PyTorch
11 7 (0.51%) scikit-learn
11 7 (0.51%) YAML
12 6 (0.44%) React
12 6 (0.44%) SailPoint
13 5 (0.36%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 331 (24.06%) Data Centre
2 86 (6.25%) Cloud Native
3 82 (5.96%) Security Posture
4 68 (4.94%) Hybrid Cloud
5 59 (4.29%) Onboarding
5 59 (4.29%) PKI
6 45 (3.27%) Management Information System
7 42 (3.05%) Clustering
8 38 (2.76%) Operational Technology
9 30 (2.18%) Public Cloud
10 29 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.82%) IoT
12 24 (1.74%) Cyber Threat
12 24 (1.74%) Enterprise Storage
13 20 (1.45%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 19 (1.38%) SCADA
14 19 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
15 16 (1.16%) Driving Licence
15 16 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 306 (22.24%) Windows
2 182 (13.23%) Linux
3 110 (7.99%) Windows Server
4 41 (2.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 29 (2.11%) Unix
6 23 (1.67%) VMS
7 13 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.80%) Solaris
9 10 (0.73%) AIX
10 9 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.58%) Windows Server 2003
12 6 (0.44%) CentOS
12 6 (0.44%) Windows 10
13 5 (0.36%) Mac OS
13 5 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.29%) Android
14 4 (0.29%) SUSE
15 3 (0.22%) Amazon Linux
15 3 (0.22%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 239 (17.37%) DevOps
2 211 (15.33%) CI/CD
3 197 (14.32%) Infrastructure as Code
4 189 (13.74%) Migration
5 188 (13.66%) Load Balancing
6 175 (12.72%) High Availability
7 171 (12.43%) Cybersecurity
8 168 (12.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 162 (11.77%) Problem-Solving
10 159 (11.56%) ITIL
11 151 (10.97%) Agile
12 144 (10.47%) Zero Trust
13 113 (8.21%) SIEM
14 110 (7.99%) Change Management
15 107 (7.78%) Observability
16 106 (7.70%) Project Delivery
17 103 (7.49%) Validation
18 102 (7.41%) Cloud Security
19 98 (7.12%) Network Segmentation
20 97 (7.05%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 221 (16.06%) Python
2 138 (10.03%) PowerShell
3 80 (5.81%) Bash
4 45 (3.27%) SQL
5 39 (2.83%) Bicep
6 33 (2.40%) Java
7 11 (0.80%) ActionScript
8 10 (0.73%) COBOL
8 10 (0.73%) Perl
9 6 (0.44%) Groovy
9 6 (0.44%) JavaScript
9 6 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (0.36%) C++
10 5 (0.36%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.36%) Rust
11 4 (0.29%) Go
12 3 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.15%) C
13 2 (0.15%) Jython
13 2 (0.15%) PHP
Qualifications
1 457 (33.21%) Security Cleared
2 338 (24.56%) SC Cleared
3 283 (20.57%) Cisco Certification
4 209 (15.19%) CCNP
5 122 (8.87%) CCNA
6 114 (8.28%) Degree
7 98 (7.12%) DV Cleared
8 67 (4.87%) CISSP
9 57 (4.14%) Azure Certification
10 40 (2.91%) CCIE
11 38 (2.76%) AWS Certification
12 33 (2.40%) CISM
12 33 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
13 21 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
14 20 (1.45%) JNCIS
15 18 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
15 18 (1.31%) JNCIA
15 18 (1.31%) PMP
16 17 (1.24%) Server+ Certification
17 16 (1.16%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (4.07%) NIST
3 47 (3.42%) GDPR
4 31 (2.25%) PCI DSS
5 30 (2.18%) NCSC
6 29 (2.11%) SLA
7 26 (1.89%) QA
8 22 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 9 (0.65%) PMO
10 8 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
11 7 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.51%) Data Quality
12 6 (0.44%) GRC
12 6 (0.44%) NIST 800
12 6 (0.44%) RMADS
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 5 (0.36%) JSP 440
13 5 (0.36%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 208 (15.12%) Active Directory
2 151 (10.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 55 (4.00%) VMware NSX
4 53 (3.85%) Docker
5 38 (2.76%) vSphere
6 35 (2.54%) Hyper-V
6 35 (2.54%) VMware ESXi
7 34 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
8 25 (1.82%) Firmware
9 21 (1.53%) Virtual Desktop
10 16 (1.16%) Squid
11 14 (1.02%) BitLocker
12 10 (0.73%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.29%) Terminal Services
14 3 (0.22%) DFS Replication
14 3 (0.22%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.22%) Postfix
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
15 2 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
15 2 (0.15%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 233 (16.93%) Terraform
2 175 (12.72%) Ansible
3 112 (8.14%) FortiGate
4 106 (7.70%) Kubernetes
5 63 (4.58%) Grafana
6 57 (4.14%) Prometheus
7 53 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
8 33 (2.40%) Single Sign-On
9 30 (2.18%) SCCM
10 26 (1.89%) vCenter Server
11 20 (1.45%) Puppet
12 17 (1.24%) Progress Chef
13 14 (1.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 13 (0.94%) CASB
15 12 (0.87%) Cisco Prime
16 11 (0.80%) Consul
16 11 (0.80%) QRadar
17 10 (0.73%) Nmap
17 10 (0.73%) vMotion
17 10 (0.73%) VxRail
Vendors
1 493 (35.83%) Cisco
2 305 (22.17%) Palo Alto
3 272 (19.77%) Microsoft
4 196 (14.24%) Fortinet
5 191 (13.88%) F5
6 190 (13.81%) VMware
7 152 (11.05%) Juniper
8 124 (9.01%) CheckPoint
9 86 (6.25%) Aruba
10 80 (5.81%) Splunk
11 72 (5.23%) Arista
11 72 (5.23%) ServiceNow
12 67 (4.87%) SolarWinds
13 60 (4.36%) Google
14 50 (3.63%) Zscaler
15 43 (3.13%) Red Hat
16 40 (2.91%) Citrix
17 34 (2.47%) Meraki
18 28 (2.03%) Extreme Networks
19 27 (1.96%) Dynatrace