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 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 51 48
Rank change year-on-year -25 -3 +16
Contract jobs citing Firewall 1,218 1,230 1,721
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.28% 3.86% 4.08%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 31.24% 30.07% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 786 740 1,128
10th Percentile £313 £313 £313
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.08% -0.71% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £627
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -1.52% -1.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 23 49
10th Percentile £29.00 £20.00 £40.63
25th Percentile £34.00 £20.72 £62.50
Median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +19.83% -46.95% +106.19%
75th Percentile £77.13 £41.50 £76.25
90th Percentile £89.63 £57.50 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £35.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +60.00% -46.95% +77.06%

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 3,899 4,090 5,753
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.51% 12.85% 13.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,557 2,397 3,542
10th Percentile £205 £213 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £687 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -4.26% -1.05% +3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 137 328
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.13 £17.74
25th Percentile £18.94 £21.25 £23.07
Median hourly rate £34.00 £32.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% -42.47% +125.96%
75th Percentile £65.00 £52.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.08 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.94% -48.20% +172.73%

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 15 January 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 15 January 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 15 January 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 -20 1,028 £513 -2.38% 464
UK excluding London -24 670 £488 -1.52% 436
London -30 395 £534 -2.95% 117
Work from Home -6 384 £500 -4.76% 193
South East +10 191 £500 - 162
North of England -18 187 £500 +5.26% 96
Midlands -19 120 £463 -9.36% 45
West Midlands +1 112 £463 +4.23% 36
North West -21 101 £519 +9.16% 51
Yorkshire -13 82 £463 +8.82% 32
Scotland -8 62 £425 -15.00% 29
South West -41 54 £550 +15.79% 56
East of England -24 39 £475 -9.52% 47
Wales -23 10 £293 -19.86% 11
North East -11 7 £550 - 15
East Midlands -54 7 £440 -32.36% 9
Northern Ireland - 7 £500 - 5

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 45 (3.69%) Microsoft Exchange
2 42 (3.45%) Confluence
3 30 (2.46%) SharePoint
4 13 (1.07%) Apache
5 12 (0.99%) nginx
6 9 (0.74%) OpenStack
7 7 (0.57%) IIS
8 6 (0.49%) SAS
8 6 (0.49%) Tomcat
9 3 (0.25%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.16%) CICS
10 2 (0.16%) JBoss
10 2 (0.16%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.16%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.082%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.082%) CMS
11 1 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2010
11 1 (0.082%) Exchange Server 2013
11 1 (0.082%) Mattermost
11 1 (0.082%) Traefik
Applications
1 35 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (1.72%) MS Visio
3 19 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (1.40%) Microsoft Excel
5 9 (0.74%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.082%) Finacle
3 1 (0.082%) ION MarketView
3 1 (0.082%) Pegasus Opera
3 1 (0.082%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 421 (34.56%) Azure
2 349 (28.65%) AWS
3 149 (12.23%) GCP
4 116 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
5 84 (6.90%) Entra ID
6 76 (6.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 62 (5.09%) Amazon EC2
8 52 (4.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 52 (4.27%) GitHub
9 50 (4.11%) Amazon S3
10 46 (3.78%) Azure Sentinel
11 41 (3.37%) IaaS
12 39 (3.20%) Amazon ELB
12 39 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
13 37 (3.04%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (2.71%) PaaS
15 32 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
16 30 (2.46%) AWS CloudFormation
17 28 (2.30%) Serverless
18 26 (2.13%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 294 (24.14%) Network Security
2 292 (23.97%) VPN
3 248 (20.36%) WAN
4 233 (19.13%) DNS
5 170 (13.96%) LAN
6 150 (12.32%) TCP/IP
7 146 (11.99%) BGP
8 121 (9.93%) OSPF
9 114 (9.36%) VLAN
9 114 (9.36%) Wireless
10 110 (9.03%) SD-WAN
11 90 (7.39%) DHCP
12 87 (7.14%) Wi-Fi
13 80 (6.57%) SSL
14 74 (6.08%) MPLS
15 61 (5.01%) IPsec
16 51 (4.19%) Cisco Nexus
16 51 (4.19%) HTTP
17 50 (4.11%) Cisco ASA
18 46 (3.78%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (2.96%) SQL Server
2 34 (2.79%) Amazon RDS
3 29 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (0.74%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (0.66%) MongoDB
5 8 (0.66%) Oracle Database
6 7 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
8 5 (0.41%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.33%) Data Lake
9 4 (0.33%) Redis
9 4 (0.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.25%) Amazon QuickSight
10 3 (0.25%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.25%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.25%) Oracle Exadata
11 2 (0.16%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.16%) Data Vault
11 2 (0.16%) DB2
11 2 (0.16%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 95 (7.80%) Jenkins
2 83 (6.81%) Git
3 77 (6.32%) JIRA
4 63 (5.17%) GitLab
5 23 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 15 (1.23%) Vagrant
7 14 (1.15%) Burp Suite
7 14 (1.15%) Metasploit
8 13 (1.07%) Bitbucket
9 7 (0.57%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.49%) Jaeger
11 4 (0.33%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.25%) Postman
13 2 (0.16%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.16%) MSI
14 1 (0.082%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 1 (0.082%) Chocolatey
14 1 (0.082%) Eclipse
14 1 (0.082%) Maven
14 1 (0.082%) Subversion
General
1 340 (27.91%) Social Skills
2 142 (11.66%) Analytical Skills
3 118 (9.69%) Public Sector
4 113 (9.28%) Finance
5 75 (6.16%) Documentation Skills
6 59 (4.84%) Banking
7 52 (4.27%) Telecoms
8 33 (2.71%) Legal
9 31 (2.55%) Manufacturing
10 28 (2.30%) Presentation Skills
11 15 (1.23%) Military
12 13 (1.07%) Local Government
13 12 (0.99%) Retail
14 11 (0.90%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (0.82%) Law
16 8 (0.66%) Aerospace
16 8 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
17 7 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
17 7 (0.57%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 305 (25.04%) Network Engineer
2 190 (15.60%) Architect
3 121 (9.93%) Senior
4 112 (9.20%) Security Engineer
5 86 (7.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 64 (5.25%) Network Architect
7 59 (4.84%) Security Architect
8 58 (4.76%) DevOps Engineer
9 53 (4.35%) Analyst
9 53 (4.35%) Platform Engineer
10 50 (4.11%) Consultant
10 50 (4.11%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 41 (3.37%) Azure Engineer
12 40 (3.28%) Solutions Architect
13 39 (3.20%) Network Security Engineer
14 34 (2.79%) Lead
15 33 (2.71%) Support Engineer
16 32 (2.63%) Cloud Engineer
17 29 (2.38%) Senior Network Engineer
18 28 (2.30%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (3.20%) 802.1X
2 33 (2.71%) LDAP
3 30 (2.46%) SAML
4 24 (1.97%) Middleware
5 20 (1.64%) OpenID
6 17 (1.40%) OAuth
7 16 (1.31%) Node.js
7 16 (1.31%) OAuth2
8 15 (1.23%) JSON
9 13 (1.07%) REST
10 12 (0.99%) Kafka
11 11 (0.90%) ARM Templates
11 11 (0.90%) Elastic Stack
12 10 (0.82%) XML
13 9 (0.74%) RFC 2544
14 8 (0.66%) YAML
15 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
15 7 (0.57%) Spring Boot
16 6 (0.49%) OpenTelemetry
17 5 (0.41%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 217 (17.82%) Data Centre
2 85 (6.98%) Security Posture
3 58 (4.76%) PKI
4 48 (3.94%) Hybrid Cloud
5 46 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 45 (3.69%) Onboarding
6 45 (3.69%) Operational Technology
7 39 (3.20%) Replication
8 29 (2.38%) Public Cloud
9 26 (2.13%) Management Information System
10 25 (2.05%) Cyber Threat
11 24 (1.97%) Security Operations Centre
12 21 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
13 19 (1.56%) Private Cloud
13 19 (1.56%) SCADA
14 14 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
14 14 (1.15%) Fat Client
14 14 (1.15%) Thin Client
15 13 (1.07%) Product Ownership
16 12 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 312 (25.62%) Windows
2 216 (17.73%) Linux
3 123 (10.10%) Windows Server
4 38 (3.12%) VMS
5 35 (2.87%) Unix
6 29 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 18 (1.48%) Amazon Linux
8 16 (1.31%) Ubuntu
9 13 (1.07%) Windows 10
9 13 (1.07%) Windows Server 2019
10 11 (0.90%) Windows 7
11 8 (0.66%) Mac OS
11 8 (0.66%) Windows Server 2016
12 5 (0.41%) CentOS
12 5 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
12 5 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.33%) Android
13 4 (0.33%) CatOS
14 3 (0.25%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.25%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (19.87%) Cybersecurity
2 205 (16.83%) DevOps
3 192 (15.76%) Problem-Solving
4 187 (15.35%) CI/CD
5 175 (14.37%) Infrastructure as Code
6 155 (12.73%) SIEM
7 145 (11.90%) Cloud Security
8 143 (11.74%) Incident Response
9 138 (11.33%) Migration
10 135 (11.08%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 129 (10.59%) Agile
12 119 (9.77%) ITIL
13 113 (9.28%) High Availability
14 109 (8.95%) Load Balancing
15 104 (8.54%) Stakeholder Management
16 97 (7.96%) Change Management
17 93 (7.64%) Zero Trust
18 89 (7.31%) Mentoring
19 82 (6.73%) Network Design
20 80 (6.57%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 240 (19.70%) Python
2 190 (15.60%) PowerShell
3 108 (8.87%) Bash
4 66 (5.42%) SQL
5 44 (3.61%) Java
6 38 (3.12%) Perl
7 20 (1.64%) Bicep
8 16 (1.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 15 (1.23%) Groovy
10 12 (0.99%) Ruby
11 9 (0.74%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.57%) Rust
13 6 (0.49%) JavaScript
14 4 (0.33%) C#
14 4 (0.33%) Go
14 4 (0.33%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.16%) C++
16 1 (0.082%) C
16 1 (0.082%) Korn
16 1 (0.082%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 424 (34.81%) Security Cleared
2 298 (24.47%) SC Cleared
3 217 (17.82%) Cisco Certification
4 175 (14.37%) CCNP
5 114 (9.36%) Degree
6 98 (8.05%) DV Cleared
7 94 (7.72%) CISSP
8 84 (6.90%) CCNA
9 63 (5.17%) Azure Certification
10 52 (4.27%) AWS Certification
10 52 (4.27%) CISM
11 49 (4.02%) Microsoft Certification
12 47 (3.86%) CCIE
13 28 (2.30%) CompTIA Security+
14 20 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
15 18 (1.48%) CEH
15 18 (1.48%) JNCIP
16 17 (1.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 16 (1.31%) CREST Certified
18 15 (1.23%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (9.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 98 (8.05%) NIST
3 70 (5.75%) GDPR
4 43 (3.53%) PCI DSS
5 27 (2.22%) SLA
6 23 (1.89%) NCSC
7 22 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
8 18 (1.48%) QA
9 14 (1.15%) PMO
10 12 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 10 (0.82%) GRC
12 7 (0.57%) COBIT
12 7 (0.57%) HIPAA
13 6 (0.49%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 5 (0.41%) PSD2
14 5 (0.41%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 4 (0.33%) NIST 800
System Software
1 217 (17.82%) Active Directory
2 156 (12.81%) VMware Infrastructure
3 138 (11.33%) Docker
4 47 (3.86%) Hyper-V
4 47 (3.86%) VMware NSX
5 32 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
6 27 (2.22%) vSphere
7 20 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
8 18 (1.48%) DFS Replication
9 14 (1.15%) Squid
10 13 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
11 9 (0.74%) Dovecot
11 9 (0.74%) Firmware
11 9 (0.74%) Postfix
12 8 (0.66%) KVM
12 8 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
13 6 (0.49%) Snort
14 5 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.41%) NDS
14 5 (0.41%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 206 (16.91%) Terraform
2 166 (13.63%) Ansible
3 109 (8.95%) Kubernetes
4 69 (5.67%) FortiGate
5 55 (4.52%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (3.12%) Grafana
7 36 (2.96%) Single Sign-On
8 35 (2.87%) Prometheus
9 33 (2.71%) SCCM
10 26 (2.13%) vCenter Server
11 22 (1.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 19 (1.56%) Nessus
13 17 (1.40%) Nmap
14 16 (1.31%) CSIRT
15 14 (1.15%) Nagios
16 13 (1.07%) Fluentd
17 12 (0.99%) CASB
17 12 (0.99%) QRadar
17 12 (0.99%) WMI
18 10 (0.82%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 398 (32.68%) Cisco
2 283 (23.23%) Microsoft
3 267 (21.92%) Palo Alto
4 192 (15.76%) VMware
5 152 (12.48%) F5
6 139 (11.41%) CheckPoint
7 120 (9.85%) Fortinet
8 92 (7.55%) Juniper
9 91 (7.47%) Splunk
10 69 (5.67%) Aruba
11 62 (5.09%) Meraki
12 59 (4.84%) Oracle
13 58 (4.76%) Google
14 57 (4.68%) SolarWinds
15 54 (4.43%) ServiceNow
16 51 (4.19%) Zscaler
17 42 (3.45%) Citrix
18 25 (2.05%) Dell
19 22 (1.81%) Red Hat
20 21 (1.72%) Tenable