NGFW Contracts

Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring NGFW skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NGFW over the 6 months leading up to 17 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 462 560 602
Rank change year-on-year +98 +42 +161
Contract jobs citing NGFW 60 16 82
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.20% 0.038% 0.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.59% 0.30% 1.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 10 56
10th Percentile £388 £392 £410
25th Percentile £429 £415 £447
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £570
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -16.67% +5.75%
75th Percentile £611 £600 £658
90th Percentile £637 - £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £533 £460 £500
% change year-on-year +15.76% -8.00% -7.41%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

NGFW 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 3,771 5,388 7,085
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.81% 12.66% 12.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,296 3,213 4,577
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £362 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £490 £520
Median % change year-on-year -0.51% -5.68% +3.90%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £694 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 417 464
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.50 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £16.30 £10.63
Median hourly rate £29.00 £40.00 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.50% +116.22% -34.88%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £59.85
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.40 £45.88 £17.75
% change year-on-year -46.81% +158.48% -17.44%

NGFW
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for NGFW in the UK

NGFW
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for NGFW in the UK

NGFW
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NGFW over the 6 months to 17 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NGFW in the UK

NGFW
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for NGFW in the UK

NGFW
Top 11 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NGFW within the UK over the 6 months to 17 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 +108 57 £496 +16.71% 30
London +63 29 £450 +4.65% 9
Work from Home +68 27 £496 +19.52% 18
UK excluding London +63 20 £533 +15.76% 25
South East +53 10 £615 +33.70% 6
North of England - 7 £489 - 12
Yorkshire - 6 £485 - 7
South West +44 2 £470 -21.67% 3
Midlands +19 2 £210 -20.00%
West Midlands +8 2 £210 -20.00%
North West - 1 £500 - 4

NGFW
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 2 (3.33%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 31 (51.67%) Azure
2 16 (26.67%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 12 (20.00%) AWS
4 7 (11.67%) GCP
5 5 (8.33%) Entra ID
5 5 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (8.33%) SaaS
6 4 (6.67%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (5.00%) IaaS
8 2 (3.33%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (3.33%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (83.33%) Firewall
2 29 (48.33%) VPN
3 22 (36.67%) Network Security
4 21 (35.00%) DNS
5 12 (20.00%) WAN
6 10 (16.67%) BGP
7 9 (15.00%) MPLS
7 9 (15.00%) OSPF
8 7 (11.67%) Cisco ASA
8 7 (11.67%) Cisco Nexus
8 7 (11.67%) SSL
9 6 (10.00%) SD-WAN
9 6 (10.00%) TCP/IP
10 5 (8.33%) Cisco Firepower
10 5 (8.33%) Cisco ISE
10 5 (8.33%) IPsec
10 5 (8.33%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (8.33%) Wireless
11 4 (6.67%) LAN
11 4 (6.67%) VLAN
General
1 11 (18.33%) Finance
1 11 (18.33%) Social Skills
2 7 (11.67%) Public Sector
3 6 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (3.33%) Back Office
4 2 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
5 1 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.67%) Law
5 1 (1.67%) Legal
5 1 (1.67%) Retail
Job Titles
1 34 (56.67%) Network Engineer
2 16 (26.67%) Architect
2 16 (26.67%) Azure Engineer
2 16 (26.67%) Network Support
2 16 (26.67%) Network Support Engineer
2 16 (26.67%) Support Engineer
3 9 (15.00%) Security Architect
4 6 (10.00%) Consultant
4 6 (10.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 6 (10.00%) Senior
5 5 (8.33%) Security Consultant
6 4 (6.67%) Cisco Engineer
6 4 (6.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 4 (6.67%) Technical Architect
7 3 (5.00%) Cloud Architect
7 3 (5.00%) Cloud Security Architect
7 3 (5.00%) Firewall Architect
7 3 (5.00%) Security Engineer
7 3 (5.00%) Senior Architect
7 3 (5.00%) Senior Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (26.67%) ADO
2 5 (8.33%) SAML
3 1 (1.67%) LDAP
3 1 (1.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (28.33%) Anti-Spyware
2 7 (11.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 7 (11.67%) Public Cloud
3 5 (8.33%) Data Centre
3 5 (8.33%) PKI
4 4 (6.67%) Security Posture
5 3 (5.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 2 (3.33%) Cloud Native
6 2 (3.33%) Management Information System
6 2 (3.33%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.67%) CMDB
7 1 (1.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 6 (10.00%) Windows
2 4 (6.67%) Linux
3 3 (5.00%) Windows Server
4 2 (3.33%) Debian
5 1 (1.67%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (38.33%) Migration
2 21 (35.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 19 (31.67%) Agile
3 19 (31.67%) Kalman Filter
4 10 (16.67%) TOGAF
5 9 (15.00%) Cloud Security
5 9 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
6 8 (13.33%) Network Load Balancing
6 8 (13.33%) Security Architecture
6 8 (13.33%) SIEM
7 7 (11.67%) Application Security
7 7 (11.67%) Microservices
8 6 (10.00%) Information Security
8 6 (10.00%) Network Monitoring
9 5 (8.33%) Data Security
9 5 (8.33%) DevOps
9 5 (8.33%) DevSecOps
10 4 (6.67%) Roadmaps
10 4 (6.67%) Technical Leadership
10 4 (6.67%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 4 (6.67%) Python
Qualifications
1 18 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 17 (28.33%) SC Cleared
3 11 (18.33%) Cisco Certification
4 6 (10.00%) CCNP
4 6 (10.00%) Degree
5 5 (8.33%) CCNA
5 5 (8.33%) CISM
5 5 (8.33%) CISSP
6 4 (6.67%) Azure Certification
7 3 (5.00%) MCSE
7 3 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (5.00%) TOGAF Certification
7 3 (5.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (3.33%) DV Cleared
8 2 (3.33%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (6.67%) Cyber Essentials
1 4 (6.67%) NCSC
1 4 (6.67%) NIST
2 1 (1.67%) QA
System Software
1 8 (13.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (11.67%) VMware NSX
3 6 (10.00%) Active Directory
4 3 (5.00%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (3.33%) Hyper-V
6 1 (1.67%) Firmware
6 1 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 22 (36.67%) Terraform
2 5 (8.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 5 (8.33%) FortiGate
3 4 (6.67%) Ansible
4 2 (3.33%) CASB
4 2 (3.33%) Kubernetes
4 2 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.67%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.67%) SolarWinds Orion
5 1 (1.67%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 42 (70.00%) Palo Alto
2 20 (33.33%) CheckPoint
3 19 (31.67%) Cisco
4 16 (26.67%) Infoblox
5 15 (25.00%) Microsoft
6 10 (16.67%) VMware
7 9 (15.00%) Zscaler
8 8 (13.33%) Aruba
9 7 (11.67%) F5
9 7 (11.67%) Fortinet
10 5 (8.33%) Juniper
11 3 (5.00%) Arista
11 3 (5.00%) Meraki
11 3 (5.00%) ServiceNow
11 3 (5.00%) SolarWinds
11 3 (5.00%) Splunk
12 2 (3.33%) BMC
12 2 (3.33%) Extreme Networks
12 2 (3.33%) NetScout
13 1 (1.67%) Forcepoint