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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 48 42
Rank change year-on-year -22 -6 +33
Permanent jobs citing Firewall 118 181 299
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 2.28% 4.46% 5.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.34% 38.35% 35.14%
Number of salaries quoted 92 112 268
10th Percentile £27,350 £30,000 £29,850
25th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £34,000 £46,500 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year -26.88% -5.10% +11.36%
75th Percentile £49,063 £65,829 £57,500
90th Percentile £62,500 £76,125 £70,000
England median annual salary £46,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -14.81% +8.00% -4.76%

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 580 472 851
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 11.19% 11.62% 16.19%
Number of salaries quoted 329 268 657
10th Percentile £25,087 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £33,000 £51,029 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -35.33% +7.43% +1.06%
75th Percentile £48,750 £71,250 £57,500
90th Percentile £68,750 £82,875 £70,000
England median annual salary £40,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -27.27% +10.00% -4.76%

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 20 January 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 20 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Bristol -11 32 £42,500 +7.59% 10
Cornwall - 32 £32,500 -
Wiltshire -20 16 £34,000 -28.42% 13
Gloucestershire +14 15 £47,500 -15.56% 6
Somerset -26 12 £33,500 -38.33% 4
Devon -8 6 £36,250 -10.50% 10
Dorset -6 4 £30,500 -33.15% 5
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 45 (38.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 38 (32.20%) SharePoint
3 11 (9.32%) IIS
4 1 (0.85%) JBoss
Applications
1 16 (13.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (5.93%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.85%) AutoCAD
Cloud Services
1 65 (55.08%) Microsoft 365
2 42 (35.59%) Azure
3 19 (16.10%) Entra ID
4 14 (11.86%) AWS
5 4 (3.39%) OpenShift
6 3 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (2.54%) Azure Sentinel
6 3 (2.54%) OneDrive
7 2 (1.69%) Azure AKS
7 2 (1.69%) Azure Key Vault
7 2 (1.69%) GCP
7 2 (1.69%) Mimecast
7 2 (1.69%) OCI
7 2 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.85%) Azure Storage
8 1 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.85%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (0.85%) Pulumi
8 1 (0.85%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 35 (29.66%) DNS
2 28 (23.73%) VPN
3 26 (22.03%) DHCP
4 19 (16.10%) WAN
5 18 (15.25%) Network Security
6 16 (13.56%) LAN
7 14 (11.86%) TCP/IP
7 14 (11.86%) VLAN
8 10 (8.47%) BGP
8 10 (8.47%) Remote Desktop
9 9 (7.63%) DKIM
9 9 (7.63%) DMARC
9 9 (7.63%) Internet
10 8 (6.78%) Kerberos
10 8 (6.78%) OSPF
11 6 (5.08%) IPsec
11 6 (5.08%) Wireless
12 5 (4.24%) Cisco ASA
12 5 (4.24%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (3.39%) VSAT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.24%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (3.39%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.85%) DB2
3 1 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.85%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (2.54%) GitLab
2 2 (1.69%) Jenkins
General
1 64 (54.24%) Social Skills
2 9 (7.63%) Finance
2 9 (7.63%) Law
2 9 (7.63%) Legal
3 7 (5.93%) Manufacturing
4 6 (5.08%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (5.08%) Telecoms
5 5 (4.24%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.39%) Electronics
6 4 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (2.54%) Marketing
8 2 (1.69%) Police
8 2 (1.69%) Retail
9 1 (0.85%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 38 (32.20%) Support Engineer
2 31 (26.27%) 2nd Line Support
3 29 (24.58%) IT Support
4 24 (20.34%) 2nd Line Engineer
5 21 (17.80%) IT Engineer
6 16 (13.56%) 1st Line Engineer
6 16 (13.56%) 1st Line Support
6 16 (13.56%) 1st Line Support Engineer
6 16 (13.56%) Analyst
6 16 (13.56%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
7 15 (12.71%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 14 (11.86%) IT Support Engineer
8 14 (11.86%) Technical Engineer
9 13 (11.02%) Support Analyst
10 12 (10.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (10.17%) Network Engineer
11 11 (9.32%) Technical Support
12 7 (5.93%) Senior
13 6 (5.08%) Field Engineer
13 6 (5.08%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (6.78%) LDAP
2 3 (2.54%) REST
3 2 (1.69%) Apache NiFi
4 1 (0.85%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.85%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.85%) EJB
4 1 (0.85%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.85%) OAuth
4 1 (0.85%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.85%) OpenAPI
4 1 (0.85%) OpenID
4 1 (0.85%) React
4 1 (0.85%) SAML
4 1 (0.85%) Spring
4 1 (0.85%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.85%) Svelte
4 1 (0.85%) SvelteKit
Miscellaneous
1 48 (40.68%) Driving Licence
2 9 (7.63%) PKI
3 6 (5.08%) Data Centre
4 4 (3.39%) CMDB
4 4 (3.39%) Security Posture
5 3 (2.54%) CCTV
5 3 (2.54%) Clustering
5 3 (2.54%) Digital Signage
6 2 (1.69%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (1.69%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.69%) Replication
6 2 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.69%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.85%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.85%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 1 (0.85%) Derivative
7 1 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.85%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 70 (59.32%) Windows
2 48 (40.68%) Windows Server
3 12 (10.17%) Linux
3 12 (10.17%) Windows Server 2019
4 9 (7.63%) Windows 10
4 9 (7.63%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (2.54%) Mac OS
6 2 (1.69%) Debian
6 2 (1.69%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.85%) Android
7 1 (0.85%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.85%) CentOS
7 1 (0.85%) OpenWrt
7 1 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.85%) Unix
7 1 (0.85%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (30.51%) Problem-Solving
2 23 (19.49%) Customer Service
3 19 (16.10%) Remote Monitoring and Management
4 18 (15.25%) ITIL
5 16 (13.56%) Cybersecurity
5 16 (13.56%) Mentoring
6 15 (12.71%) Cloud Security
7 14 (11.86%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (10.17%) Disaster Recovery
8 12 (10.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 11 (9.32%) Data Loss Prevention
10 9 (7.63%) Migration
11 8 (6.78%) Containerisation
11 8 (6.78%) RBAC
11 8 (6.78%) SIEM
12 7 (5.93%) High Availability
12 7 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
12 7 (5.93%) Mobile Device Management
12 7 (5.93%) Service Management
13 6 (5.08%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 31 (26.27%) PowerShell
2 11 (9.32%) Python
3 8 (6.78%) Bash
3 8 (6.78%) VB
4 1 (0.85%) Bicep
4 1 (0.85%) Go
4 1 (0.85%) Java
4 1 (0.85%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (0.85%) Shell Script
4 1 (0.85%) SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (22.03%) Security Cleared
2 18 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 14 (11.86%) Cisco Certification
4 13 (11.02%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (10.17%) Degree
5 12 (10.17%) DV Cleared
6 8 (6.78%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (5.08%) CCNA
8 5 (4.24%) Azure Certification
9 4 (3.39%) CCIE
9 4 (3.39%) CCNP
9 4 (3.39%) JNCIA
9 4 (3.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (2.54%) ACMT
10 3 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (2.54%) Master's Degree
10 3 (2.54%) MCP
11 2 (1.69%) CEH
11 2 (1.69%) CompTIA Security+
12 1 (0.85%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (8.47%) Cyber Essentials
1 10 (8.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (6.78%) GDPR
2 8 (6.78%) SLA
3 5 (4.24%) NIST
3 5 (4.24%) PCI DSS
4 3 (2.54%) NCSC
5 2 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.85%) COBIT
6 1 (0.85%) GRC
6 1 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 1 (0.85%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.85%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.85%) SOC 2
System Software
1 61 (51.69%) Active Directory
2 19 (16.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (6.78%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (5.93%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (5.08%) Docker
5 6 (5.08%) Hyper-V
6 3 (2.54%) VMware NSX
6 3 (2.54%) vSphere
7 1 (0.85%) iptables
Systems Management
1 25 (21.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 10 (8.47%) WSUS
3 9 (7.63%) Kubernetes
3 9 (7.63%) Terraform
4 8 (6.78%) Ansible
5 6 (5.08%) vCenter Server
6 4 (3.39%) Nagios
7 3 (2.54%) Autotask
8 2 (1.69%) PaperCut
8 2 (1.69%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.85%) CASB
9 1 (0.85%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.85%) Grafana
9 1 (0.85%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.85%) Puppet
Vendors
1 82 (69.49%) Microsoft
2 26 (22.03%) Cisco
3 20 (16.95%) VMware
4 19 (16.10%) Apple
5 16 (13.56%) Sophos
6 13 (11.02%) ConnectWise
7 12 (10.17%) Progress
8 11 (9.32%) Fortinet
9 9 (7.63%) CheckPoint
9 9 (7.63%) Palo Alto
10 7 (5.93%) Datto
10 7 (5.93%) F5
11 5 (4.24%) SolarWinds
11 5 (4.24%) Veeam
12 4 (3.39%) Oracle
13 3 (2.54%) Dell
13 3 (2.54%) Infoblox
13 3 (2.54%) Meraki
13 3 (2.54%) Riverbed
13 3 (2.54%) SAP