3rd Line Support Contracts in England

Third Line Support
UK > England

The median Third Line Support daily rate in England is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 August 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
6 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 480 449 482
Rank change year-on-year -31 +33 +131
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 39 75 134
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.14% 0.22% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.15% 0.24% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 57 86
10th Percentile £287 £263 £256
25th Percentile £388 £344 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £375 £353
Median % change year-on-year +46.67% +6.31% +0.79%
75th Percentile £600 £400 £409
90th Percentile £608 £460 £475
UK median daily rate £450 £375 £375
% change year-on-year +20.00% - +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
10th Percentile - £24.71 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £25.51 -
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.59 -
Median % change year-on-year +8.74% - -
75th Percentile £31.00 £30.42 -
90th Percentile - £31.67 -
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.59 -
% change year-on-year +8.74% - -

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 25,342 31,079 43,055
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.69% 92.90% 94.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,441 20,449 30,337
10th Percentile £285 £300 £307
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £656
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,310 1,833 1,343
10th Percentile £13.55 £14.16 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.66 £45.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -42.98% +5.88% +66.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -41.51% +1.18% +65.50%

3rd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Support in England

3rd Line Support
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Daily rate trend for 3rd Line Support in England

3rd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Support in England over the 6 months to 6 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Support in England

3rd Line Support
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Hourly rate trend for 3rd Line Support in England

3rd 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 3rd Line Support within the England region over the 6 months to 6 August 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
South East +32 18 £600 +78.31% 20
London -5 13 £413 +8.20% 5
West Midlands -36 6 £425 +13.33% 8
Midlands -37 6 £425 +13.33% 8
South West +26 1 £350 +16.67% 8
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 August 2025, 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 across the England region featuring 3rd Line Support in the job title.

1 24 (61.54%) Microsoft
2 23 (58.97%) Windows
3 22 (56.41%) Security Cleared
4 19 (48.72%) Active Directory
5 18 (46.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (46.15%) DHCP
5 18 (46.15%) VPN
5 18 (46.15%) DNS
6 14 (35.90%) VMware
6 14 (35.90%) DV Cleared
7 13 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
7 13 (33.33%) PKI
7 13 (33.33%) Firewall
8 12 (30.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 11 (28.21%) PaaS
9 11 (28.21%) IaaS
9 11 (28.21%) DevOps
10 10 (25.64%) Software Deployment
10 10 (25.64%) Hyper-V
10 10 (25.64%) PowerShell
10 10 (25.64%) ITIL
10 10 (25.64%) Public Sector
10 10 (25.64%) Windows Server
11 9 (23.08%) vCenter Server
11 9 (23.08%) BitLocker
11 9 (23.08%) Data Centre
11 9 (23.08%) HP
11 9 (23.08%) Citrix
11 9 (23.08%) SMTP
11 9 (23.08%) SAN

3rd 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 18 (46.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (17.95%) SharePoint
3 5 (12.82%) Exchange Server 2003
3 5 (12.82%) Exchange Server 2007
3 5 (12.82%) Exchange Server 2010
3 5 (12.82%) Exchange Server 2013
3 5 (12.82%) Office Communications Server
3 5 (12.82%) SharePoint Server
3 5 (12.82%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (17.95%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 11 (28.21%) IaaS
1 11 (28.21%) PaaS
2 9 (23.08%) Azure
2 9 (23.08%) GCP
3 8 (20.51%) AWS
3 8 (20.51%) OpenShift
4 7 (17.95%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (12.82%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.56%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 18 (46.15%) DHCP
1 18 (46.15%) DNS
1 18 (46.15%) VPN
2 13 (33.33%) Firewall
3 9 (23.08%) SAN
3 9 (23.08%) SMTP
4 7 (17.95%) WAN
5 5 (12.82%) DDNS
6 4 (10.26%) BGP
6 4 (10.26%) IPsec
6 4 (10.26%) MPLS
7 3 (7.69%) Fibre Channel
7 3 (7.69%) Junos
8 1 (2.56%) LAN
8 1 (2.56%) SD-WAN
8 1 (2.56%) TCP/IP
8 1 (2.56%) Unified Communications
8 1 (2.56%) VLAN
8 1 (2.56%) WebEx
8 1 (2.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (20.51%) Amazon RDS
1 8 (20.51%) Big Data
1 8 (20.51%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (2.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
General
1 10 (25.64%) Public Sector
2 2 (5.13%) Banking
2 2 (5.13%) Finance
2 2 (5.13%) Social Skills
3 1 (2.56%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (2.56%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.56%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 13 (33.33%) PKI
2 9 (23.08%) Clustering
2 9 (23.08%) Data Centre
3 5 (12.82%) Replication
4 2 (5.13%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (2.56%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (2.56%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 23 (58.97%) Windows
2 10 (25.64%) Windows Server
3 9 (23.08%) Windows Server 2003
4 8 (20.51%) Linux
5 6 (15.38%) Mac OS
6 1 (2.56%) Android
6 1 (2.56%) Apple iOS
6 1 (2.56%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (30.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 11 (28.21%) DevOps
3 10 (25.64%) ITIL
3 10 (25.64%) Software Deployment
4 8 (20.51%) Artificial Intelligence
4 8 (20.51%) Machine Learning
5 6 (15.38%) Cybersecurity
6 5 (12.82%) Architectural Design
6 5 (12.82%) Business Intelligence
6 5 (12.82%) Content Management
6 5 (12.82%) Enterprise Content Management
6 5 (12.82%) Enterprise Search
6 5 (12.82%) High Availability
7 4 (10.26%) Load Balancing
7 4 (10.26%) Migration
8 3 (7.69%) Application Packaging
8 3 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
8 3 (7.69%) Network Design
8 3 (7.69%) Patch Management
8 3 (7.69%) Security Patching
Programming Languages
1 10 (25.64%) PowerShell
2 2 (5.13%) Bash
3 1 (2.56%) SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (56.41%) Security Cleared
2 14 (35.90%) DV Cleared
3 8 (20.51%) Degree
4 7 (17.95%) SC Cleared
5 2 (5.13%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (2.56%) Azure Certification
6 1 (2.56%) CCNA
6 1 (2.56%) CESG Certified Professional
6 1 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (2.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (2.56%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (15.38%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (48.72%) Active Directory
2 13 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (25.64%) Hyper-V
4 9 (23.08%) BitLocker
4 9 (23.08%) Microsoft App-V
4 9 (23.08%) Terminal Services
4 9 (23.08%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (20.51%) Docker
6 5 (12.82%) Brightmail
6 5 (12.82%) ISA Server
7 3 (7.69%) DFS Replication
7 3 (7.69%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (23.08%) vCenter Server
1 9 (23.08%) vMotion
2 8 (20.51%) Ansible
2 8 (20.51%) Kubernetes
2 8 (20.51%) Nagios
2 8 (20.51%) Puppet
3 5 (12.82%) Microsoft Clustering
3 5 (12.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (7.69%) AirWatch
4 3 (7.69%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (2.56%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (2.56%) FortiGate
5 1 (2.56%) SCCM
5 1 (2.56%) Terraform
Vendors
1 24 (61.54%) Microsoft
2 14 (35.90%) VMware
3 9 (23.08%) Citrix
3 9 (23.08%) Google
3 9 (23.08%) HP
4 8 (20.51%) Symantec
5 4 (10.26%) Apple
5 4 (10.26%) Juniper
6 3 (7.69%) Cisco
7 2 (5.13%) Adobe
8 1 (2.56%) Fortinet
8 1 (2.56%) Palo Alto