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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 52 55
Rank change year-on-year -38 +3 -6
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,358 1,221 1,515
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.77% 4.22% 3.53%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.46% 33.59% 28.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 882 724 947
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £648 £688 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 21 46
10th Percentile £19.90 - £16.00
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 £70.50 £41.25 £85.65
90th Percentile £78.88 £45.00 £87.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.36 £30.00 £83.50
% change year-on-year +74.53% -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 4,771 3,635 5,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.72% 12.56% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,920 2,249 3,208
10th Percentile £263 £214 £206
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -3.03% -3.41%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 163 415
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.96 £16.30
Median hourly rate £28.96 £41.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.22% +3.75% +119.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £59.44 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.93 £80.81 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.86 £31.79 £45.88
% change year-on-year +6.51% -30.71% +154.89%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -39 1,139 £500 - 570
UK excluding London -27 762 £500 +3.09% 485
London -57 424 £513 -1.44% 156
Work from Home -31 399 £520 +4.00% 236
North of England -13 258 £500 +3.09% 116
South East -10 224 £500 - 173
North West 0 165 £540 +13.68% 65
Yorkshire -31 78 £425 -13.62% 35
Midlands -53 76 £425 -19.05% 67
East of England -12 66 £503 +0.60% 40
West Midlands -46 64 £420 -16.00% 44
Scotland +17 62 £450 +2.86% 23
South West -46 57 £523 +4.50% 58
Wales -21 26 £425 +21.43% 13
North East -9 21 £625 +25.00% 17
East Midlands -44 8 £488 -12.16% 23
Northern Ireland 0 2 £385 - 6

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 38 (2.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (2.21%) Confluence
3 21 (1.55%) SharePoint
4 16 (1.18%) nginx
5 11 (0.81%) Apache
6 10 (0.74%) CICS
7 6 (0.44%) IIS
8 5 (0.37%) SAS
8 5 (0.37%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
10 2 (0.15%) CloudStack
10 2 (0.15%) CMS
10 2 (0.15%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.15%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.15%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.15%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.074%) MTS
Applications
1 25 (1.84%) MS Visio
2 23 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.074%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (0.074%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.074%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.074%) Primavera
1 1 (0.074%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.074%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.074%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
1 1 (0.074%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 452 (33.28%) Azure
2 299 (22.02%) AWS
3 118 (8.69%) GCP
4 112 (8.25%) Entra ID
5 107 (7.88%) Microsoft 365
6 72 (5.30%) GitHub
7 64 (4.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 59 (4.34%) IaaS
9 52 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
10 43 (3.17%) PaaS
11 42 (3.09%) SaaS
12 39 (2.87%) GitHub Actions
13 36 (2.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 34 (2.50%) OCI
15 33 (2.43%) Azure Sentinel
16 30 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
16 30 (2.21%) Serverless
17 27 (1.99%) Amazon EC2
17 27 (1.99%) Amazon EKS
18 25 (1.84%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 381 (28.06%) Network Security
2 370 (27.25%) WAN
3 354 (26.07%) VPN
4 289 (21.28%) DNS
5 280 (20.62%) LAN
6 238 (17.53%) BGP
7 211 (15.54%) OSPF
8 175 (12.89%) VLAN
9 153 (11.27%) TCP/IP
10 151 (11.12%) DHCP
11 149 (10.97%) SD-WAN
12 134 (9.87%) Wireless
13 111 (8.17%) Wi-Fi
14 95 (7.00%) VXLAN
15 94 (6.92%) BIG-IP
16 92 (6.77%) MPLS
17 86 (6.33%) IPsec
18 80 (5.89%) Ethernet VPN
19 73 (5.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
20 72 (5.30%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (1.77%) SQL Server
2 19 (1.40%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (1.10%) Power BI
5 10 (0.74%) DataStage
6 9 (0.66%) Oracle Database
7 8 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
7 8 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (0.59%) MySQL
8 7 (0.52%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.44%) MongoDB
9 6 (0.44%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.29%) Amazon Athena
10 4 (0.29%) Amazon QuickSight
10 4 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (0.29%) Metadata
10 4 (0.29%) NoSQL
10 4 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.22%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 89 (6.55%) JIRA
2 62 (4.57%) Jenkins
3 47 (3.46%) GitLab
4 42 (3.09%) Git
5 15 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (0.74%) Burp Suite
7 9 (0.66%) Artifactory
7 9 (0.66%) Bitbucket
7 9 (0.66%) Chocolatey
7 9 (0.66%) Jaeger
7 9 (0.66%) Metasploit
8 8 (0.59%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.37%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.22%) CircleCI
11 2 (0.15%) Introscope
11 2 (0.15%) Postman
11 2 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.074%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.074%) LoadRunner
12 1 (0.074%) PVCS
General
1 294 (21.65%) Social Skills
2 170 (12.52%) Finance
3 118 (8.69%) Analytical Skills
4 110 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 81 (5.96%) Documentation Skills
6 58 (4.27%) Banking
7 38 (2.80%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.43%) Legal
9 25 (1.84%) Financial Institution
10 22 (1.62%) Manufacturing
11 20 (1.47%) Military
12 16 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
13 15 (1.10%) Law
14 12 (0.88%) Retail
15 11 (0.81%) Investment Banking
16 10 (0.74%) Front Office
17 9 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 9 (0.66%) Local Government
18 8 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
18 8 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 424 (31.22%) Network Engineer
2 212 (15.61%) Architect
3 170 (12.52%) Senior
4 121 (8.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 113 (8.32%) Security Engineer
6 76 (5.60%) Network Architect
7 71 (5.23%) Senior Network Engineer
8 62 (4.57%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 61 (4.49%) Cloud Engineer
10 56 (4.12%) Azure Engineer
11 48 (3.53%) Network Security Engineer
12 46 (3.39%) Technical Architect
13 41 (3.02%) Cisco Engineer
13 41 (3.02%) Lead
14 40 (2.95%) DevOps Engineer
15 38 (2.80%) Security Architect
16 37 (2.72%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 37 (2.72%) Consultant
17 34 (2.50%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
18 32 (2.36%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (5.08%) 802.1X
2 42 (3.09%) Middleware
3 36 (2.65%) LDAP
4 24 (1.77%) SAML
5 22 (1.62%) OpenID
6 18 (1.33%) Kafka
7 11 (0.81%) OAuth
7 11 (0.81%) OpenTelemetry
8 10 (0.74%) OAuth2
8 10 (0.74%) REST
8 10 (0.74%) Spring Boot
9 9 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
10 8 (0.59%) YAML
11 6 (0.44%) .NET
11 6 (0.44%) ARM Templates
11 6 (0.44%) HTML
11 6 (0.44%) LangChain
11 6 (0.44%) PyTorch
11 6 (0.44%) scikit-learn
12 5 (0.37%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 342 (25.18%) Data Centre
2 85 (6.26%) Cloud Native
3 75 (5.52%) Security Posture
4 66 (4.86%) PKI
5 64 (4.71%) Hybrid Cloud
6 55 (4.05%) Onboarding
7 45 (3.31%) Management Information System
8 41 (3.02%) Clustering
9 36 (2.65%) Operational Technology
10 33 (2.43%) Public Cloud
11 27 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
12 25 (1.84%) IoT
13 24 (1.77%) Enterprise Storage
14 23 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
15 19 (1.40%) SCADA
16 18 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
17 17 (1.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
18 16 (1.18%) Driving Licence
18 16 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
19 15 (1.10%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 306 (22.53%) Windows
2 187 (13.77%) Linux
3 117 (8.62%) Windows Server
4 36 (2.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 30 (2.21%) Unix
6 26 (1.91%) VMS
7 12 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.81%) Solaris
9 10 (0.74%) AIX
9 10 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
10 9 (0.66%) Windows Server 2003
11 8 (0.59%) Ubuntu
12 7 (0.52%) Windows 10
12 7 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.44%) Mac OS
14 5 (0.37%) CentOS
15 4 (0.29%) Android
15 4 (0.29%) SUSE
16 3 (0.22%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.22%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 236 (17.38%) DevOps
2 208 (15.32%) CI/CD
3 188 (13.84%) Infrastructure as Code
4 183 (13.48%) Load Balancing
5 181 (13.33%) Cybersecurity
6 175 (12.89%) High Availability
7 172 (12.67%) Migration
8 163 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
9 162 (11.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 156 (11.49%) ITIL
11 146 (10.75%) Zero Trust
12 144 (10.60%) Agile
13 109 (8.03%) Project Delivery
13 109 (8.03%) SIEM
14 105 (7.73%) Cloud Security
15 104 (7.66%) Observability
16 103 (7.58%) Change Management
17 101 (7.44%) Network Segmentation
18 93 (6.85%) Technical Leadership
19 91 (6.70%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 206 (15.17%) Python
2 143 (10.53%) PowerShell
3 80 (5.89%) Bash
4 52 (3.83%) SQL
5 39 (2.87%) Bicep
6 38 (2.80%) Java
7 10 (0.74%) COBOL
7 10 (0.74%) Perl
8 9 (0.66%) ActionScript
8 9 (0.66%) JavaScript
9 8 (0.59%) Rust
10 7 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.44%) Go
11 6 (0.44%) Groovy
12 5 (0.37%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.37%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.22%) C++
14 2 (0.15%) C
14 2 (0.15%) Jython
14 2 (0.15%) PHP
Qualifications
1 483 (35.57%) Security Cleared
2 360 (26.51%) SC Cleared
3 282 (20.77%) Cisco Certification
4 213 (15.68%) CCNP
5 114 (8.39%) CCNA
6 112 (8.25%) Degree
7 103 (7.58%) DV Cleared
8 67 (4.93%) CISSP
9 64 (4.71%) Azure Certification
10 42 (3.09%) AWS Certification
11 37 (2.72%) CCIE
12 34 (2.50%) CISM
13 29 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
14 25 (1.84%) Network+ Certification
15 23 (1.69%) JNCIS
16 20 (1.47%) JNCIA
17 19 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
18 18 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
19 17 (1.25%) Server+ Certification
20 16 (1.18%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (5.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (4.12%) NIST
3 46 (3.39%) GDPR
4 32 (2.36%) PCI DSS
4 32 (2.36%) SLA
5 30 (2.21%) NCSC
6 24 (1.77%) QA
7 22 (1.62%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (0.81%) PMO
9 8 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
10 7 (0.52%) Data Quality
11 6 (0.44%) GRC
11 6 (0.44%) RMADS
12 5 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.37%) JSP 440
12 5 (0.37%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.37%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.29%) GxP
13 4 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 208 (15.32%) Active Directory
2 157 (11.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 61 (4.49%) Docker
4 59 (4.34%) VMware NSX
5 39 (2.87%) Hyper-V
6 38 (2.80%) vSphere
7 33 (2.43%) Virtual Machines
8 32 (2.36%) VMware ESXi
9 24 (1.77%) Firmware
10 21 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
11 16 (1.18%) Squid
12 13 (0.96%) BitLocker
13 10 (0.74%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.22%) DFS Replication
14 3 (0.22%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.22%) Postfix
14 3 (0.22%) Terminal Services
15 2 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
15 2 (0.15%) EMC RecoverPoint
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 226 (16.64%) Terraform
2 176 (12.96%) Ansible
3 111 (8.17%) Kubernetes
4 103 (7.58%) FortiGate
5 64 (4.71%) Grafana
6 55 (4.05%) Prometheus
7 54 (3.98%) Microsoft Intune
8 32 (2.36%) SCCM
9 30 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
10 25 (1.84%) vCenter Server
11 16 (1.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (1.18%) Progress Chef
12 15 (1.10%) Puppet
13 13 (0.96%) CASB
13 13 (0.96%) Nagios
13 13 (0.96%) QRadar
14 12 (0.88%) Cisco Prime
15 11 (0.81%) Consul
15 11 (0.81%) Nmap
15 11 (0.81%) VxRail
Vendors
1 493 (36.30%) Cisco
2 302 (22.24%) Palo Alto
3 265 (19.51%) Microsoft
4 200 (14.73%) VMware
5 193 (14.21%) Fortinet
6 187 (13.77%) F5
7 154 (11.34%) Juniper
8 129 (9.50%) CheckPoint
9 91 (6.70%) Aruba
10 81 (5.96%) Splunk
11 74 (5.45%) ServiceNow
12 69 (5.08%) Arista
13 68 (5.01%) SolarWinds
14 61 (4.49%) Google
15 41 (3.02%) Red Hat
15 41 (3.02%) Zscaler
16 39 (2.87%) Citrix
17 36 (2.65%) Meraki
18 28 (2.06%) Extreme Networks
19 26 (1.91%) Oracle