2nd Line Support Contract Job Trends in England

Second Line Support
UK > England

The median Second Line Support daily rate in England is £200, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 466 333 346
Rank change year-on-year -133 +13 -17
Contract jobs requiring a 2nd Line Support 134 142 200
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.32% 0.59% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.64% 0.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 103 155
10th Percentile £170 £154 £150
25th Percentile £185 £188 £178
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £200 £225 £200
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -2.48%
75th Percentile £238 £269 £242
90th Percentile £304 £288 £300
UK median daily rate £208 £222 £200
% change year-on-year -6.32% +10.75% -1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 18 16
10th Percentile £12.83 £18.38 £14.27
25th Percentile £13.37 £24.06 £17.19
Median hourly rate £15.24 £27.23 £17.61
Median % change year-on-year -44.02% +54.60% -13.76%
75th Percentile £20.25 £28.00 £21.05
90th Percentile £23.01 £31.13 £23.99
UK median hourly rate £16.50 £27.50 £17.72
% change year-on-year -40.00% +55.19% -12.32%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 38,613 22,095 34,042
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.34% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,880 14,635 22,555
10th Percentile £322 £294 £285
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% -1.00% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,705 913 2,522
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.80% -22.48% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £27.99 £37.18
% change year-on-year +51.84% -24.72% -17.38%

2nd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring '2nd Line Support' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

2nd Line Support job vacancy trend in England

2nd Line Support
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Support job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Support job vacancies in England

2nd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 2nd Line Support in England over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for 2nd Line Support in England

2nd Line Support
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Support job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Support job vacancies in England

2nd Line Support
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 2nd Line Support in England over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for 2nd Line Support in England

2nd Line Support
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 2nd Line Support within the England region over the 6 months to 29 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -74 42 £220 -12.00% 13
North of England -62 32 £190 -2.56% 11
South East -65 29 £204 -15.54% 24
Yorkshire -41 20 £190 +50.79% 5
Midlands -62 20 £230 -8.00% 3
North West -32 11 £175 -16.67% 5
West Midlands -65 11 £230 -14.42%
East Midlands -25 9 - - 3
South West -28 7 - - 3
East of England -31 4 £240 +6.67% 12
North East -30 1 £290 +48.72% 1
2nd Line Support
UK

2nd Line Support Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 29 May 2026, 2nd Line Support 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 England region featuring 2nd Line Support in the job title.

1 95 (70.90%) Windows
2 72 (53.73%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (38.81%) Active Directory
3 52 (38.81%) Microsoft
4 47 (35.07%) Customer Service
5 37 (27.61%) Windows 10
6 31 (23.13%) Problem-Solving
7 28 (20.90%) Azure
7 28 (20.90%) Microsoft Intune
8 25 (18.66%) Android
9 23 (17.16%) ITIL
10 19 (14.18%) Apple iOS
10 19 (14.18%) Entra ID
11 18 (13.43%) Service Delivery
12 16 (11.94%) ITSM
12 16 (11.94%) Microsoft Office
12 16 (11.94%) SCCM
12 16 (11.94%) Service Management
12 16 (11.94%) SharePoint
13 15 (11.19%) ServiceNow
14 14 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
14 14 (10.45%) JIRA
14 14 (10.45%) SQL
14 14 (10.45%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (8.96%) Customer Experience
15 12 (8.96%) DNS
15 12 (8.96%) Microsoft Exchange
16 11 (8.21%) DHCP
17 10 (7.46%) AWS
17 10 (7.46%) LAN

2nd Line Support Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 16 (11.94%) SharePoint
2 12 (8.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.49%) Confluence
3 2 (1.49%) IIS
Applications
1 16 (11.94%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (5.22%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 72 (53.73%) Microsoft 365
2 28 (20.90%) Azure
3 19 (14.18%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.46%) AWS
4 10 (7.46%) OneDrive
5 7 (5.22%) GCP
6 2 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 2 (1.49%) Amazon S3
6 2 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.49%) Serverless
7 1 (0.75%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 14 (10.45%) Wi-Fi
2 12 (8.96%) DNS
3 11 (8.21%) DHCP
4 10 (7.46%) LAN
4 10 (7.46%) WAN
5 8 (5.97%) VPN
6 4 (2.99%) TCP/IP
7 2 (1.49%) BGP
7 2 (1.49%) Internet
7 2 (1.49%) IPsec
7 2 (1.49%) MPLS
7 2 (1.49%) Skype
7 2 (1.49%) VLAN
8 1 (0.75%) Firewall
8 1 (0.75%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.75%) SAN
8 1 (0.75%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.97%) SQL Server
2 7 (5.22%) MySQL
3 2 (1.49%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 14 (10.45%) JIRA
General
1 67 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 25 (18.66%) Finance
3 21 (15.67%) Retail
4 18 (13.43%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (8.21%) Public Sector
6 10 (7.46%) French Language
6 10 (7.46%) Manufacturing
6 10 (7.46%) Organisational Skills
6 10 (7.46%) Spanish Language
7 6 (4.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (3.73%) Banking
9 3 (2.24%) Legal
10 2 (1.49%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.75%) Military
11 1 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.49%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 18 (13.43%) Onboarding
2 7 (5.22%) Mobile Payment
3 6 (4.48%) Driving Licence
3 6 (4.48%) NHS
3 6 (4.48%) Smartphone
4 4 (2.99%) CCTV
5 3 (2.24%) iPhone
5 3 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (2.24%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (1.49%) PKI
7 1 (0.75%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.75%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 95 (70.90%) Windows
2 37 (27.61%) Windows 10
3 25 (18.66%) Android
4 19 (14.18%) Apple iOS
5 8 (5.97%) Mac OS
6 7 (5.22%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.49%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.75%) Linux
8 1 (0.75%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (35.07%) Customer Service
2 31 (23.13%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (17.16%) ITIL
4 18 (13.43%) Service Delivery
5 16 (11.94%) ITSM
5 16 (11.94%) Service Management
6 14 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
7 12 (8.96%) Customer Experience
8 10 (7.46%) User Experience
9 8 (5.97%) Mobile Device Management
9 8 (5.97%) Problem Management
10 7 (5.22%) Asset Management
11 6 (4.48%) Migration
11 6 (4.48%) Process Improvement
12 5 (3.73%) AI
13 4 (2.99%) Generative AI
13 4 (2.99%) Incident Management
14 3 (2.24%) Patch Management
14 3 (2.24%) Platform Engineering
14 3 (2.24%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 14 (10.45%) SQL
2 1 (0.75%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (4.48%) Degree
2 5 (3.73%) SC Cleared
2 5 (3.73%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (1.49%) CCNA
4 2 (1.49%) Cisco Certification
4 2 (1.49%) DBS Check
4 2 (1.49%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.48%) SLA
2 2 (1.49%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.75%) GDPR
System Software
1 52 (38.81%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.75%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 28 (20.90%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (11.94%) SCCM
3 4 (2.99%) Jamf Pro
4 2 (1.49%) AirWatch
5 1 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.75%) WSUS
Vendors
1 52 (38.81%) Microsoft
2 15 (11.19%) ServiceNow
3 8 (5.97%) Google
4 7 (5.22%) Remedy
5 5 (3.73%) Apple
5 5 (3.73%) HP
6 4 (2.99%) Cisco
7 3 (2.24%) Bloomberg
7 3 (2.24%) Freshdesk
8 2 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
8 2 (1.49%) Dell
8 2 (1.49%) Juniper
8 2 (1.49%) Meraki
8 2 (1.49%) Zscaler
9 1 (0.75%) Charles River
9 1 (0.75%) Citrix
9 1 (0.75%) Tanium
9 1 (0.75%) VMware