Firmware Contracts

Firmware
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Firmware skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Firmware over the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 442 374 503
Rank change year-on-year -68 +129 +168
Contract jobs citing Firmware 83 216 186
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.29% 0.50% 0.33%
As % of the System Software category 2.31% 4.63% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 120 96
10th Percentile £200 £205 £200
25th Percentile £310 £272 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £488
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -17.95% -2.50%
75th Percentile £525 £543 £538
90th Percentile £633 £575 £583
UK excluding London median daily rate £439 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -7.63% +5.56% -0.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 65 28
10th Percentile £38.88 £24.18 £35.50
25th Percentile £52.14 £50.75 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.00 £62.50 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% +11.11% +12.50%
75th Percentile £87.56 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £89.35 £90.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £58.75
% change year-on-year - +6.38% +20.54%

All System Software Skills
UK

Firmware falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 3,587 4,669 7,336
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.45% 10.90% 13.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,414 3,254 5,180
10th Percentile £219 £200 £201
25th Percentile £393 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £607 £638
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £479
% change year-on-year - -0.84% +6.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 226 251
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.06 £15.25
25th Percentile £15.44 £14.74 £18.38
Median hourly rate £28.41 £23.80 £54.83
Median % change year-on-year +19.37% -56.59% +188.58%
75th Percentile £63.50 £60.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £80.00 £75.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.32 £22.25 £48.40
% change year-on-year +45.27% -54.03% +176.57%

Firmware
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Firmware as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Firmware in the UK

Firmware
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Firmware.

Daily rate trend for Firmware in the UK

Firmware
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Firmware over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Firmware in the UK

Firmware
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Firmware.

Hourly rate trend for Firmware in the UK

Firmware
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Firmware over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Firmware in the UK

Firmware
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Firmware within the UK over the 6 months to 29 May 2025. 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 -49 73 £433 +8.13% 859
UK excluding London -26 56 £439 -7.63% 922
London +18 25 £400 +6.67% 88
Work from Home +25 18 £465 +18.10% 389
South East -15 18 £488 +5.41% 243
East of England +32 13 £550 +22.22% 191
North of England -7 8 £450 -10.36% 145
Midlands +14 7 £300 -4.00% 111
North West -11 7 £488 -3.27% 58
Scotland +2 6 £413 +6.45% 107
West Midlands +19 5 £300 -45.45% 61
South West +31 2 £295 - 127
Wales +5 2 £363 - 33
East Midlands +5 2 - - 45
North East -1 1 £200 -52.94% 28

Firmware
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (3.61%) Confluence
2 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.20%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (7.23%) Simulink
2 2 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 12 (14.46%) AWS
2 6 (7.23%) Azure
3 3 (3.61%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (2.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 1 (1.20%) Asana
5 1 (1.20%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.20%) IaaS
5 1 (1.20%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 12 (14.46%) Firewall
2 11 (13.25%) VPN
3 10 (12.05%) BGP
4 9 (10.84%) OSPF
5 8 (9.64%) LAN
5 8 (9.64%) WAN
6 7 (8.43%) ATM
6 7 (8.43%) Ethernet
6 7 (8.43%) SAN
6 7 (8.43%) Wireless
7 6 (7.23%) DNS
7 6 (7.23%) Network Security
7 6 (7.23%) Software-Defined Radio
7 6 (7.23%) VLAN
8 5 (6.02%) Cisco ISE
8 5 (6.02%) DHCP
8 5 (6.02%) SD-WAN
8 5 (6.02%) SNMP
8 5 (6.02%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (6.02%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.20%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 11 (13.25%) Git
2 7 (8.43%) JIRA
3 5 (6.02%) Robot Framework
4 4 (4.82%) GoogleTest
4 4 (4.82%) Jenkins
5 3 (3.61%) Bitbucket
5 3 (3.61%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (2.41%) Eclipse
General
1 22 (26.51%) Social Skills
2 9 (10.84%) Electronics
3 7 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (7.23%) Public Sector
5 5 (6.02%) Finance
5 5 (6.02%) Games
6 4 (4.82%) Telecoms
7 3 (3.61%) Multimedia
8 2 (2.41%) Aerospace
8 2 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (2.41%) Manufacturing
8 2 (2.41%) Marketing
9 1 (1.20%) Automotive
9 1 (1.20%) Banking
9 1 (1.20%) Military
9 1 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (15.66%) Network Engineer
2 11 (13.25%) Firmware Engineer
3 9 (10.84%) FPGA Engineer
3 9 (10.84%) Senior
4 7 (8.43%) EPoS Engineer
5 6 (7.23%) IT Engineer
5 6 (7.23%) Storage Engineer
6 5 (6.02%) Architect
6 5 (6.02%) Cisco Engineer
6 5 (6.02%) Developer
7 4 (4.82%) Analyst
7 4 (4.82%) Server Engineer
7 4 (4.82%) Software Test Engineer
7 4 (4.82%) Test Engineer
7 4 (4.82%) Virtualisation Engineer
8 3 (3.61%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 3 (3.61%) Consultant
8 3 (3.61%) Principal Engineer
8 3 (3.61%) Senior Architect
8 3 (3.61%) Senior Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (6.02%) HTML
2 4 (4.82%) CSS
3 2 (2.41%) Node.js
3 2 (2.41%) REST
4 1 (1.20%) 802.1X
4 1 (1.20%) Laravel
4 1 (1.20%) Redfish
4 1 (1.20%) RESTful
4 1 (1.20%) Ruby on Rails
4 1 (1.20%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 16 (19.28%) FPGA
2 14 (16.87%) Verilog
3 13 (15.66%) Algorithms
4 12 (14.46%) VHDL
5 7 (8.43%) EPoS
5 7 (8.43%) PCIe
5 7 (8.43%) Smartphone
6 6 (7.23%) IoT
7 5 (6.02%) Device Driver
7 5 (6.02%) Embedded Systems
8 3 (3.61%) Digital Signage
9 2 (2.41%) Cloud Native
9 2 (2.41%) Clustering
9 2 (2.41%) Data Centre
9 2 (2.41%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (2.41%) NHS
10 1 (1.20%) Driving Licence
10 1 (1.20%) EMV
10 1 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (1.20%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 13 (15.66%) Linux
2 9 (10.84%) Windows
3 4 (4.82%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (1.20%) CentOS
5 1 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.20%) Rocky
5 1 (1.20%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.20%) Unix
5 1 (1.20%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (15.66%) Agile
2 12 (14.46%) Migration
3 11 (13.25%) Signal Processing
4 10 (12.05%) Artificial Intelligence
4 10 (12.05%) Problem-Solving
5 9 (10.84%) UVM
6 8 (9.64%) Change Management
7 7 (8.43%) Cryptography
7 7 (8.43%) Patch Management
7 7 (8.43%) Software Testing
8 6 (7.23%) Disaster Recovery
8 6 (7.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 6 (7.23%) Network Monitoring
8 6 (7.23%) Validation
9 5 (6.02%) Computer Science
9 5 (6.02%) Physics
9 5 (6.02%) Problem Management
9 5 (6.02%) Project Management
9 5 (6.02%) Scrum
9 5 (6.02%) UML
Programming Languages
1 15 (18.07%) Python
2 11 (13.25%) SystemVerilog
3 9 (10.84%) C++
4 7 (8.43%) C
5 6 (7.23%) MATLAB
5 6 (7.23%) Tcl
6 5 (6.02%) Embedded C
7 3 (3.61%) Java
7 3 (3.61%) JavaScript
8 2 (2.41%) SQL
9 1 (1.20%) Bash
9 1 (1.20%) C-shell
9 1 (1.20%) PHP
9 1 (1.20%) Ruby
9 1 (1.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 26 (31.33%) Security Cleared
2 20 (24.10%) SC Cleared
3 11 (13.25%) Degree
4 10 (12.05%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (8.43%) CCNP
6 6 (7.23%) HNC
6 6 (7.23%) HND
7 5 (6.02%) CCNA
8 4 (4.82%) CCSA
9 3 (3.61%) DV Cleared
9 3 (3.61%) Master's Degree
9 3 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (3.61%) PhD
10 1 (1.20%) JNCIA
10 1 (1.20%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.23%) DO-254
2 2 (2.41%) SLA
3 1 (1.20%) JSP 440
3 1 (1.20%) NCSC
3 1 (1.20%) NIST
3 1 (1.20%) NIST 800
3 1 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 4 (4.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (3.61%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.61%) Embedded Firmware
2 3 (3.61%) VMware ESXi
3 2 (2.41%) BitLocker
3 2 (2.41%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.20%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.20%) KVM
4 1 (1.20%) QEMU
4 1 (1.20%) VMware Workstation
4 1 (1.20%) Xen
Systems Management
1 10 (12.05%) Ansible
2 4 (4.82%) vCenter Server
3 3 (3.61%) CA Spectrum
3 3 (3.61%) Cisco UCCE
3 3 (3.61%) FortiGate
3 3 (3.61%) NetBackup
3 3 (3.61%) SCCM
4 2 (2.41%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (2.41%) EMC NetWorker
4 2 (2.41%) HP Data Protector
4 2 (2.41%) vMotion
5 1 (1.20%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (1.20%) HAProxy
5 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.20%) Nagios
5 1 (1.20%) Plesk
5 1 (1.20%) PowerCLI
5 1 (1.20%) Puppet
5 1 (1.20%) Terraform
Vendors
1 23 (27.71%) Cisco
2 11 (13.25%) Xilinx
3 9 (10.84%) Intel
4 8 (9.64%) Microsoft
5 7 (8.43%) Microsemi
5 7 (8.43%) VMware
6 6 (7.23%) Altera
6 6 (7.23%) CheckPoint
6 6 (7.23%) HP
7 5 (6.02%) Actel
7 5 (6.02%) Meraki
7 5 (6.02%) SolarWinds
8 4 (4.82%) F5
8 4 (4.82%) Juniper
9 3 (3.61%) Algorithmics
9 3 (3.61%) Atlassian
9 3 (3.61%) Brocade
9 3 (3.61%) EMC
9 3 (3.61%) ServiceNow
10 2 (2.41%) Google