3rd Line Support Contracts

Third Line Support
UK

The median Third Line Support daily rate in the UK is £375 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 4 May 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

 6 months to
4 May 2024		 Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 494 592 665
Rank change year-on-year +98 +73 -102
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 97 127 189
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.22% 0.21% 0.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.23% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 80 147
10th Percentile £270 £261 £220
25th Percentile £300 £313 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £378 £330
Median % change year-on-year -0.66% +14.39% +4.76%
75th Percentile £400 £466 £397
90th Percentile £420 £525 £450
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £375 £293
% change year-on-year - +28.21% -6.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 1
Median hourly rate - £34.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year - +70.00% -16.67%
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £20.00
% change year-on-year - - -16.67%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 40,021 55,966 84,699
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.75% 94.62% 95.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,056 39,104 59,482
10th Percentile £280 £313 £313
25th Percentile £409 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +10.53%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,666 1,571 2,084
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.30 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.63
Median hourly rate £36.50 £45.00 £23.81
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +89.04% +5.80%
75th Percentile £61.29 £65.75 £49.19
90th Percentile £72.50 £76.00 £63.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.26 £19.52
% change year-on-year -5.35% +116.50% +2.74%

3rd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured 3rd Line Support in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Support.

Daily rate trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Support over the 6 months to 4 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Support.

Hourly rate trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Support within the UK over the 6 months to 4 May 2024. 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 +74 83 £375 -0.66% 67
UK excluding London +72 81 £375 - 62
West Midlands +41 34 £375 +7.14% 6
Midlands +35 34 £375 +50.00% 8
North of England +34 16 £300 -7.69% 18
South East +14 12 £475 -5.00% 21
London +68 11 £345 -10.97% 11
Scotland +47 10 £325 - 5
Yorkshire +26 10 £300 -3.23% 5
Work from Home +97 9 £325 -22.62% 25
South West +23 7 £258 -49.76% 5
North West +22 5 £375 +7.14% 7
East of England +4 2 £300 -36.84% 4
North East +19 1 - - 6

3rd Line Support Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 May 2024, 3rd Line Support contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring 3rd Line Support in the job title.

1 39 (40.21%) Security Cleared
2 36 (37.11%) Windows
3 35 (36.08%) VPN
4 34 (35.05%) Active Directory
5 30 (30.93%) Juniper
5 30 (30.93%) WAN
5 30 (30.93%) PKI
6 29 (29.90%) Windows Server
7 28 (28.87%) IPsec
7 28 (28.87%) BGP
8 27 (27.84%) Microsoft
8 27 (27.84%) Junos
9 26 (26.80%) MPLS
10 25 (25.77%) Load Balancing
11 21 (21.65%) Microsoft 365
12 20 (20.62%) Network Design
13 19 (19.59%) VMware
14 17 (17.53%) Public Sector
15 15 (15.46%) VMware Infrastructure
16 13 (13.40%) Firewall
16 13 (13.40%) Linux
17 12 (12.37%) Customer Service
17 12 (12.37%) Azure
18 11 (11.34%) Social Skills
18 11 (11.34%) SharePoint
18 11 (11.34%) Microsoft Exchange
18 11 (11.34%) SC Cleared
19 10 (10.31%) Data Analysis
19 10 (10.31%) Dell
19 10 (10.31%) Red Hat

3rd Line Support Skill Set
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 11 (11.34%) Microsoft Exchange
1 11 (11.34%) SharePoint
2 6 (6.19%) IIS
Applications
1 2 (2.06%) Acrobat
1 2 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (2.06%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 21 (21.65%) Microsoft 365
2 12 (12.37%) Azure
3 6 (6.19%) Entra ID
4 3 (3.09%) AWS
4 3 (3.09%) OneDrive
5 2 (2.06%) GCP
5 2 (2.06%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (1.03%) Azure Stack
6 1 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.03%) IaaS
6 1 (1.03%) Mimecast
6 1 (1.03%) PowerApps
6 1 (1.03%) WhatsApp
6 1 (1.03%) Yammer
Communications & Networking
1 35 (36.08%) VPN
2 30 (30.93%) WAN
3 28 (28.87%) BGP
3 28 (28.87%) IPsec
4 27 (27.84%) Junos
5 26 (26.80%) MPLS
6 13 (13.40%) Firewall
7 6 (6.19%) SAN
8 5 (5.15%) DHCP
8 5 (5.15%) DNS
9 4 (4.12%) Cisco Firepower
9 4 (4.12%) LAN
9 4 (4.12%) VLAN
10 3 (3.09%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (3.09%) NAS
10 3 (3.09%) OSPF
10 3 (3.09%) TCP/IP
11 2 (2.06%) Cisco ISE
11 2 (2.06%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (2.06%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.12%) MySQL
1 4 (4.12%) SQL Server
2 3 (3.09%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (1.03%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.03%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.03%) JIRA
General
1 17 (17.53%) Public Sector
2 11 (11.34%) Social Skills
3 1 (1.03%) Finance
3 1 (1.03%) Health Technology
3 1 (1.03%) Law
3 1 (1.03%) Legal
3 1 (1.03%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.06%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.03%) .NET
2 1 (1.03%) .NET Core
2 1 (1.03%) Apache NiFi
2 1 (1.03%) JSON
2 1 (1.03%) Kafka
2 1 (1.03%) Middleware
2 1 (1.03%) Software Packaging
2 1 (1.03%) Spring
2 1 (1.03%) Spring Boot
2 1 (1.03%) Web Services
2 1 (1.03%) XML
2 1 (1.03%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 30 (30.93%) PKI
2 10 (10.31%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.09%) Fat Client
3 3 (3.09%) Thin Client
4 1 (1.03%) Clustering
4 1 (1.03%) Housing Association
4 1 (1.03%) Legacy Applications
4 1 (1.03%) Mobile App
4 1 (1.03%) Public Cloud
4 1 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 36 (37.11%) Windows
2 29 (29.90%) Windows Server
3 13 (13.40%) Linux
4 7 (7.22%) Windows 10
4 7 (7.22%) Windows Server 2008
4 7 (7.22%) Windows Server 2012
4 7 (7.22%) Windows Server 2016
5 6 (6.19%) CentOS
5 6 (6.19%) Debian
6 4 (4.12%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (3.09%) Ubuntu
8 2 (2.06%) Apple iOS
9 1 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (1.03%) Solaris
9 1 (1.03%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (25.77%) Load Balancing
2 20 (20.62%) Network Design
3 12 (12.37%) Customer Service
4 10 (10.31%) Data Analysis
5 9 (9.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 7 (7.22%) Mentoring
6 7 (7.22%) Server Virtualisation
7 5 (5.15%) Patch Management
8 4 (4.12%) ITIL
9 3 (3.09%) High Availability
9 3 (3.09%) Migration
9 3 (3.09%) Problem-Solving
10 2 (2.06%) Cybersecurity
10 2 (2.06%) Network Management
10 2 (2.06%) Network Monitoring
10 2 (2.06%) Network Virtualisation
10 2 (2.06%) Performance Monitoring
10 2 (2.06%) Runbook
10 2 (2.06%) Software Deployment
10 2 (2.06%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (5.15%) PowerShell
2 2 (2.06%) Java
2 2 (2.06%) SQL
3 1 (1.03%) C#
3 1 (1.03%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 39 (40.21%) Security Cleared
2 11 (11.34%) SC Cleared
3 9 (9.28%) Microsoft Certification
4 8 (8.25%) MCSA
5 6 (6.19%) MCSE
5 6 (6.19%) RHCT
6 5 (5.15%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (5.15%) DV Cleared
7 3 (3.09%) CCNA
7 3 (3.09%) CCNP
8 2 (2.06%) A+ Certification
8 2 (2.06%) CCENT
9 1 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.03%) Degree
9 1 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (1.03%) JNCIA
9 1 (1.03%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.09%) SLA
2 1 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.03%) IASME
System Software
1 34 (35.05%) Active Directory
2 15 (15.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (8.25%) Hyper-V
4 7 (7.22%) KVM
5 3 (3.09%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (1.03%) Docker
6 1 (1.03%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 7 (7.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (5.15%) WSUS
3 4 (4.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 3 (3.09%) Ansible
4 3 (3.09%) Nessus
4 3 (3.09%) Red Hat Satellite
4 3 (3.09%) SCCM
4 3 (3.09%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.09%) ZABBIX
5 1 (1.03%) Grafana
5 1 (1.03%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 30 (30.93%) Juniper
2 27 (27.84%) Microsoft
3 19 (19.59%) VMware
4 10 (10.31%) Dell
4 10 (10.31%) Red Hat
5 9 (9.28%) Citrix
6 7 (7.22%) Cisco
7 4 (4.12%) Veeam
8 3 (3.09%) Oracle
9 2 (2.06%) Adobe
9 2 (2.06%) Apple
9 2 (2.06%) F5
9 2 (2.06%) Google
9 2 (2.06%) Siemens
9 2 (2.06%) SolarWinds
10 1 (1.03%) Brio
10 1 (1.03%) Fortinet
10 1 (1.03%) Okta
10 1 (1.03%) Proofpoint
10 1 (1.03%) Zscaler
75 3rd Line Support jobs Nationwide