Firewall Job Trends in the South West

Firewall
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Firewall skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 36 67
Rank change year-on-year -66 +31 +10
Permanent jobs citing Firewall 120 162 324
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.55% 6.02% 3.58%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.78% 44.26% 28.27%
Number of salaries quoted 82 134 280
10th Percentile £26,750 £29,750 £26,900
25th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £32,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £46,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.61% +2.22% +6.51%
75th Percentile £58,438 £57,057 £53,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £68,150 £65,050
England median annual salary £55,000 £51,500 £48,837
% change year-on-year +6.80% +5.45% -2.33%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South West

Firewall falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 551 366 1,146
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 7.13% 13.61% 12.66%
Number of salaries quoted 330 265 929
10th Percentile £26,250 £28,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,625 £30,750 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £46,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -18.48% -3.16% +5.56%
75th Percentile £55,000 £58,597 £57,500
90th Percentile £70,000 £73,750 £71,250
England median annual salary £47,000 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -6.00% +5.26% -5.00%

Firewall
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Firewall relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Firewall job vacancy trend in the South West

Firewall
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Firewall

Firewall
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Firewall in the South West over the 6 months to 21 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Firewall in the South West

Firewall
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Firewall within the South West region over the 6 months to 21 May 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Gloucestershire -5 33 £42,500 -22.73% 4
Wiltshire -1 32 £57,500 +42.86% 10
Bristol -36 20 £55,000 - 12
Devon -29 15 £32,500 +3.17% 7
Somerset -47 8 £30,750 -23.13% 6
Cornwall -11 7 £25,400 -18.06% 1
Firewall
England

Firewall
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 21 (17.50%) Microsoft Exchange
1 21 (17.50%) SharePoint
2 6 (5.00%) Confluence
3 2 (1.67%) IIS
Applications
1 13 (10.83%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (5.83%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.83%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 60 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
2 54 (45.00%) Azure
3 33 (27.50%) AWS
4 25 (20.83%) Entra ID
5 8 (6.67%) IaaS
5 8 (6.67%) PaaS
6 6 (5.00%) GCP
7 4 (3.33%) Google Workspace
7 4 (3.33%) Serverless
8 3 (2.50%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (2.50%) Microsoft Purview
8 3 (2.50%) OCI
9 2 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
9 2 (1.67%) Mimecast
9 2 (1.67%) OneDrive
9 2 (1.67%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.67%) Rubrik
9 2 (1.67%) Stripe
Communications & Networking
1 39 (32.50%) VPN
2 38 (31.67%) WAN
3 32 (26.67%) LAN
4 29 (24.17%) DNS
5 27 (22.50%) Network Security
6 26 (21.67%) VLAN
7 20 (16.67%) DHCP
8 15 (12.50%) TCP/IP
8 15 (12.50%) Wi-Fi
9 11 (9.17%) Cisco ASA
9 11 (9.17%) Unified Communications
10 10 (8.33%) Cisco Firepower
10 10 (8.33%) WebEx
11 9 (7.50%) BGP
12 7 (5.83%) SD-WAN
13 4 (3.33%) NAS
13 4 (3.33%) SAN
13 4 (3.33%) WLAN
14 3 (2.50%) DMZ
14 3 (2.50%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.50%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.83%) RDBMS
2 1 (0.83%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 4 (3.33%) JIRA
2 2 (1.67%) GitLab
2 2 (1.67%) Jenkins
General
1 42 (35.00%) Social Skills
2 23 (19.17%) Public Sector
3 12 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (10.00%) Finance
3 12 (10.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 12 (10.00%) Retail
4 9 (7.50%) Banking
4 9 (7.50%) Marketing
4 9 (7.50%) Telecoms
5 3 (2.50%) Aerospace
6 2 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.67%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.67%) Police
7 1 (0.83%) Advertising
7 1 (0.83%) Fire and Rescue
7 1 (0.83%) Law
7 1 (0.83%) Legal
7 1 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (24.17%) IT Engineer
2 25 (20.83%) IT Support
3 23 (19.17%) Support Engineer
4 22 (18.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 19 (15.83%) IT Support Engineer
6 18 (15.00%) Network Engineer
7 12 (10.00%) Analyst
7 12 (10.00%) Infrastructure Support
8 11 (9.17%) Support Analyst
9 10 (8.33%) Senior
10 9 (7.50%) 1st Line Support
11 8 (6.67%) Infrastructure Analyst
11 8 (6.67%) Infrastructure Support Analyst
11 8 (6.67%) Security Engineer
12 7 (5.83%) 1st Line Engineer
12 7 (5.83%) 1st Line Support Engineer
12 7 (5.83%) Collaboration Engineer
13 6 (5.00%) 2nd Line Support
13 6 (5.00%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
13 6 (5.00%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (8.33%) XMPP
2 3 (2.50%) Apache NiFi
3 2 (1.67%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.67%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.67%) Node.js
4 1 (0.83%) OAuth
4 1 (0.83%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.83%) OpenID
4 1 (0.83%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (11.67%) Data Centre
1 14 (11.67%) Driving Licence
2 13 (10.83%) Replication
3 11 (9.17%) Onboarding
4 10 (8.33%) FlexPod
4 10 (8.33%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (8.33%) Video Conferencing
5 6 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (4.17%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 5 (4.17%) Fibre Optics
6 5 (4.17%) Security Posture
7 4 (3.33%) Digital Signage
7 4 (3.33%) Educational Technology
7 4 (3.33%) IoT
7 4 (3.33%) Mobile App
7 4 (3.33%) Video\Live Streaming
8 2 (1.67%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.67%) CMDB
8 2 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.67%) YubiKey
Operating Systems
1 44 (36.67%) Windows
2 37 (30.83%) Windows Server
3 19 (15.83%) Linux
4 9 (7.50%) Windows 10
5 4 (3.33%) Mac OS
6 3 (2.50%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.67%) Unix
7 2 (1.67%) VMS
8 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (30.83%) Cybersecurity
2 31 (25.83%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 20 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 19 (15.83%) ITIL
5 18 (15.00%) Risk Management
6 17 (14.17%) Cloud Security
7 15 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
8 14 (11.67%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (11.67%) SIEM
9 13 (10.83%) Vulnerability Management
10 12 (10.00%) Collaborative Culture
10 12 (10.00%) Customer Service
10 12 (10.00%) Data Management
10 12 (10.00%) Incident Response
10 12 (10.00%) Mentoring
11 11 (9.17%) Performance Management
11 11 (9.17%) Security Operations
12 10 (8.33%) Project Delivery
13 9 (7.50%) Business Intelligence
14 8 (6.67%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 17 (14.17%) Python
2 11 (9.17%) PowerShell
3 7 (5.83%) Bash
4 3 (2.50%) SQL
5 2 (1.67%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.83%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.83%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (28.33%) Security Cleared
2 19 (15.83%) DV Cleared
3 14 (11.67%) Degree
3 14 (11.67%) SC Cleared
4 12 (10.00%) Cisco Certification
5 8 (6.67%) CISSP
5 8 (6.67%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
5 8 (6.67%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (4.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 5 (4.17%) Azure Certification
6 5 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (4.17%) CCNP
6 5 (4.17%) CISM
7 4 (3.33%) CCNA
7 4 (3.33%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (2.50%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 2 (1.67%) CCIE
9 2 (1.67%) CompTIA CySA+
9 2 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.67%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (30.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (22.50%) Cyber Essentials
3 19 (15.83%) GDPR
4 18 (15.00%) NIST
5 10 (8.33%) GRC
5 10 (8.33%) PCI DSS
6 5 (4.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (4.17%) ISO 9001
6 5 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 5 (4.17%) JSP 440
7 3 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (1.67%) COBIT
8 2 (1.67%) SLA
8 2 (1.67%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.83%) NCSC
System Software
1 42 (35.00%) Active Directory
2 23 (19.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (13.33%) Hyper-V
4 9 (7.50%) vSphere
5 6 (5.00%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 6 (5.00%) Virtual Servers
5 6 (5.00%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (4.17%) VMware NSX
7 2 (1.67%) Docker
7 2 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 24 (20.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (12.50%) Ansible
3 14 (11.67%) Grafana
4 13 (10.83%) Terraform
5 10 (8.33%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (5.00%) FortiGate
7 4 (3.33%) Kubernetes
7 4 (3.33%) Prometheus
8 3 (2.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (1.67%) CASB
9 2 (1.67%) Nagios
9 2 (1.67%) Puppet
9 2 (1.67%) SCCM
9 2 (1.67%) WSUS
10 1 (0.83%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.83%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.83%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.83%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 62 (51.67%) Microsoft
2 31 (25.83%) VMware
3 27 (22.50%) Cisco
4 20 (16.67%) Fortinet
5 16 (13.33%) Palo Alto
6 11 (9.17%) Apple
7 10 (8.33%) Splunk
8 8 (6.67%) NetApp
8 8 (6.67%) Veeam
9 6 (5.00%) Dell
10 5 (4.17%) F5
11 4 (3.33%) CheckPoint
11 4 (3.33%) Google
11 4 (3.33%) Tenable
12 3 (2.50%) Aruba
12 3 (2.50%) CrowdStrike
12 3 (2.50%) Infoblox
12 3 (2.50%) Meraki
12 3 (2.50%) Oracle
12 3 (2.50%) Progress