3rd Line Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Third Line Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Third Line Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 November 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 123 118 141
Rank change year-on-year -5 +23 +49
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 3 3 8
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.17% 0.14% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.15% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 1 2
10th Percentile - - £492
25th Percentile £413 £375 £498
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £400 £531
Median % change year-on-year +6.25% -24.71% +41.67%
75th Percentile £488 £425 £558
90th Percentile £518 - £561
Central London median daily rate £425 £400 £531
% change year-on-year +6.25% -24.71% +51.79%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. 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 City of London with a recognized job title 1,649 1,949 2,586
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.64% 93.34% 94.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,155 1,196 1,820
10th Percentile £325 £363 £350
25th Percentile £413 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -
75th Percentile £675 £686 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 14 14
10th Percentile £16.90 £15.95 £17.00
25th Percentile £20.18 £28.06 £19.51
Median hourly rate £27.75 £67.50 £37.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.89% +82.43% -11.90%
75th Percentile £44.63 £112.00 £51.56
90th Percentile £64.30 £137.50 £72.25
Central London median hourly rate £26.57 £35.00 £36.00
% change year-on-year -24.09% -2.78% -11.11%

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

3rd Line Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

3rd Line Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

3rd Line Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 18 November 2025, 3rd Line Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the City of London region featuring 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 3 (100.00%) Firewall
1 3 (100.00%) ITSM
2 2 (66.67%) Active Directory
2 2 (66.67%) Azure
2 2 (66.67%) Change Control
2 2 (66.67%) Change Management
2 2 (66.67%) Customer Service
2 2 (66.67%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (66.67%) DHCP
2 2 (66.67%) DNS
2 2 (66.67%) Entra ID
2 2 (66.67%) GDPR
2 2 (66.67%) Identity Management
2 2 (66.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (66.67%) ITIL
2 2 (66.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
2 2 (66.67%) Mentoring
2 2 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 2 (66.67%) Microsoft 365
2 2 (66.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (66.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (66.67%) Performance Improvement
2 2 (66.67%) Performance Metrics
2 2 (66.67%) PowerShell
2 2 (66.67%) Process Improvement
2 2 (66.67%) Root Cause Analysis
2 2 (66.67%) Service Delivery
2 2 (66.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 2 (66.67%) Virtual Machines
2 2 (66.67%) VPN

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 2 (66.67%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 2 (66.67%) Azure
1 2 (66.67%) Entra ID
1 2 (66.67%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 3 (100.00%) Firewall
2 2 (66.67%) DHCP
2 2 (66.67%) DNS
2 2 (66.67%) VPN
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco Firepower
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (33.33%) Junos
3 1 (33.33%) NX-OS
General
1 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
2 1 (33.33%) Public Sector
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (100.00%) ITSM
2 2 (66.67%) Change Control
2 2 (66.67%) Change Management
2 2 (66.67%) Customer Service
2 2 (66.67%) Identity Management
2 2 (66.67%) ITIL
2 2 (66.67%) Mentoring
2 2 (66.67%) Performance Improvement
2 2 (66.67%) Performance Metrics
2 2 (66.67%) Process Improvement
2 2 (66.67%) Root Cause Analysis
2 2 (66.67%) Service Delivery
2 2 (66.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 2 (66.67%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 2 (66.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
2 1 (33.33%) DV Cleared
2 1 (33.33%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (66.67%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (66.67%) GDPR
1 2 (66.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (66.67%) Active Directory
1 2 (66.67%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (33.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 2 (66.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (33.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 2 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 1 (33.33%) Broadcom
2 1 (33.33%) Cisco
2 1 (33.33%) Juniper
2 1 (33.33%) SolarWinds