2nd Line Support Contracts in England

Second Line Support
UK > England

The median Second Line Support daily rate in England is £225, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 May 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 340 327 324
Rank change year-on-year -13 -3 -6
Contract jobs requiring a 2nd Line Support 145 222 375
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.60% 0.60% 0.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.64% 0.64% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 165 262
10th Percentile £160 £142 £163
25th Percentile £188 £175 £185
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £225 £200 £223
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -10.11% +17.11%
75th Percentile £269 £246 £275
90th Percentile £313 £300 £349
UK median daily rate £221 £200 £210
% change year-on-year +10.38% -4.76% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 18 27
10th Percentile £18.34 £14.27 £17.00
25th Percentile £24.25 £17.25 £17.50
Median hourly rate £28.00 £17.72 £20.42
Median % change year-on-year +58.01% -13.22% +2.10%
75th Percentile £29.00 £20.01 £25.86
90th Percentile £30.94 £23.29 £32.10
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £17.72 £20.21
% change year-on-year +55.19% -12.32% +2.69%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 22,549 34,488 47,741
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 92.73% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,007 22,894 33,903
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £643 £663
90th Percentile £750 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 2,432 1,409
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.00 £14.35
25th Percentile £18.51 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £76.60
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

2nd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured 2nd Line Support in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for 2nd Line Support in England

2nd Line Support
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing 2nd Line Support in England.

Daily rate trend for 2nd Line Support 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 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 2nd Line Support in England

2nd Line Support
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing 2nd Line Support in England.

Hourly rate trend for 2nd Line Support 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 1 May 2025.

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 1 May 2025. 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 +12 43 £250 +25.13% 20
South East +52 36 £216 +8.13% 35
Midlands -10 29 £200 - 12
North of England +12 26 £195 +2.63% 13
West Midlands -12 20 £210 +5.00% 7
North West +14 13 £210 +11.26% 7
Yorkshire +3 10 £161 -15.53% 5
East Midlands +4 9 £200 -4.76% 5
East of England +30 7 £225 -3.23% 4
South West +28 4 £225 +18.42% 19
North East +1 3 £195 - 2
2nd Line Support
UK

2nd Line Support Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, 2nd 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 across the England region featuring 2nd Line Support in the job title.

1 87 (60.00%) Windows
2 81 (55.86%) Active Directory
3 74 (51.03%) Microsoft
4 71 (48.97%) Microsoft 365
5 45 (31.03%) Windows 10
6 41 (28.28%) Social Skills
7 39 (26.90%) Problem-Solving
8 37 (25.52%) ITIL
9 33 (22.76%) VPN
9 33 (22.76%) Customer Service
10 32 (22.07%) Azure
11 31 (21.38%) Microsoft Office
12 27 (18.62%) Finance
13 26 (17.93%) Security Cleared
14 24 (16.55%) Service Management
15 22 (15.17%) Microsoft Exchange
15 22 (15.17%) Citrix
16 21 (14.48%) ITSM
16 21 (14.48%) SC Cleared
17 20 (13.79%) Microsoft Intune
17 20 (13.79%) Analytical Skills
18 19 (13.10%) ServiceNow
19 18 (12.41%) SCCM
20 17 (11.72%) Asset Management
21 16 (11.03%) Service Delivery
21 16 (11.03%) Mobile Device Management
22 13 (8.97%) Firewall
22 13 (8.97%) SLA
22 13 (8.97%) WAN
22 13 (8.97%) SharePoint

2nd Line Support Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 22 (15.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (8.97%) SharePoint
Applications
1 31 (21.38%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (4.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (3.45%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.38%) Alphatax
2 1 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 71 (48.97%) Microsoft 365
2 32 (22.07%) Azure
3 13 (8.97%) Entra ID
4 10 (6.90%) OneDrive
5 4 (2.76%) Asana
5 4 (2.76%) Slack
6 3 (2.07%) Yammer
7 1 (0.69%) AWS
7 1 (0.69%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 33 (22.76%) VPN
2 13 (8.97%) Firewall
2 13 (8.97%) WAN
3 11 (7.59%) Remote Desktop
3 11 (7.59%) WebEx
4 9 (6.21%) BGP
4 9 (6.21%) IPsec
4 9 (6.21%) LAN
4 9 (6.21%) MPLS
5 7 (4.83%) DHCP
5 7 (4.83%) DNS
5 7 (4.83%) TCP/IP
6 6 (4.14%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.76%) Wireless
8 3 (2.07%) Softphone
8 3 (2.07%) VLAN
8 3 (2.07%) VoIP
9 2 (1.38%) Cisco Firepower
9 2 (1.38%) NetScaler
10 1 (0.69%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.45%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 6 (4.14%) JIRA
General
1 41 (28.28%) Social Skills
2 27 (18.62%) Finance
3 20 (13.79%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (6.90%) Public Sector
5 9 (6.21%) Banking
6 6 (4.14%) Legal
7 5 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.45%) Manufacturing
7 5 (3.45%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (2.07%) Local Government
10 2 (1.38%) Law
11 1 (0.69%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.69%) Back Office
11 1 (0.69%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.69%) Military
11 1 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.69%) Telecoms
Miscellaneous
1 9 (6.21%) PKI
2 8 (5.52%) Management Information System
3 7 (4.83%) Driving Licence
4 6 (4.14%) iPhone
4 6 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 6 (4.14%) Video Conferencing
5 4 (2.76%) Smartphone
6 2 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.69%) BYOD
7 1 (0.69%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.69%) Hedge funds
7 1 (0.69%) Housing Association
7 1 (0.69%) iPad
7 1 (0.69%) NHS
7 1 (0.69%) W3C
Operating Systems
1 87 (60.00%) Windows
2 45 (31.03%) Windows 10
3 13 (8.97%) Apple iOS
4 11 (7.59%) Windows Server
5 6 (4.14%) Android
5 6 (4.14%) Windows Server 2008
5 6 (4.14%) Windows Server 2012
5 6 (4.14%) Windows Server 2016
6 5 (3.45%) Mac OS
6 5 (3.45%) Windows 8
6 5 (3.45%) Windows Server 2003
6 5 (3.45%) Windows XP
7 3 (2.07%) Windows 7
8 2 (1.38%) Mac OS X
8 2 (1.38%) VMS
9 1 (0.69%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (26.90%) Problem-Solving
2 37 (25.52%) ITIL
3 33 (22.76%) Customer Service
4 24 (16.55%) Service Management
5 21 (14.48%) ITSM
6 17 (11.72%) Asset Management
7 16 (11.03%) Mobile Device Management
7 16 (11.03%) Service Delivery
8 9 (6.21%) Patch Management
8 9 (6.21%) Time Management
9 8 (5.52%) Incident Management
10 6 (4.14%) Break/Fix
10 6 (4.14%) Coaching
10 6 (4.14%) Mentoring
10 6 (4.14%) Proactive Maintenance
11 5 (3.45%) Business Case
11 5 (3.45%) Infrastructure Monitoring
11 5 (3.45%) Project Delivery
11 5 (3.45%) Technical Analysis
11 5 (3.45%) Ticket Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.07%) PowerShell
2 2 (1.38%) SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (17.93%) Security Cleared
2 21 (14.48%) SC Cleared
3 12 (8.28%) Microsoft Certification
4 11 (7.59%) Degree
5 5 (3.45%) A+ Certification
6 4 (2.76%) DBS Check
6 4 (2.76%) ITIL Certification
7 3 (2.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 3 (2.07%) MCP
8 2 (1.38%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.69%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.69%) IBM Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.97%) SLA
2 2 (1.38%) QA
3 1 (0.69%) Accessibility
System Software
1 81 (55.86%) Active Directory
2 6 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (2.76%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (2.76%) vSphere
4 2 (1.38%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 20 (13.79%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (12.41%) SCCM
3 1 (0.69%) AppManager
3 1 (0.69%) PaperCut
3 1 (0.69%) WSUS
Vendors
1 74 (51.03%) Microsoft
2 22 (15.17%) Citrix
3 19 (13.10%) ServiceNow
4 10 (6.90%) Juniper
5 8 (5.52%) Apple
5 8 (5.52%) Sage
5 8 (5.52%) VMware
6 5 (3.45%) Canon
6 5 (3.45%) Zscaler
7 4 (2.76%) Cisco
7 4 (2.76%) Palo Alto
8 3 (2.07%) Google
9 2 (1.38%) CrowdStrike
9 2 (1.38%) Dell
10 1 (0.69%) HP
10 1 (0.69%) IBM
10 1 (0.69%) Remedy
10 1 (0.69%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.69%) SAP
10 1 (0.69%) Toshiba
99 2nd Line Support jobs Nationwide