3rd Line Support Contracts in the UK excluding London

Third Line Support
UK > UK excluding London

The median Third Line Support daily rate in the UK excluding London is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 June 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
22 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 324 318 365
Rank change year-on-year -6 +47 +22
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 31 80 73
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.23% 0.37% 0.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.40% 0.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 66 38
10th Percentile £190 £258 £223
25th Percentile £300 £281 £270
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £375 £325
Median % change year-on-year +53.33% +15.38% -1.52%
75th Percentile £600 £400 £388
90th Percentile £623 £411 £525
UK median daily rate £420 £375 £375
% change year-on-year +12.00% - +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £31.00 -
UK median hourly rate - £31.00 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 12,351 19,848 21,518
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.38% 92.45% 94.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,722 11,791 14,900
10th Percentile £220 £213 £230
25th Percentile £363 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 960 2,571 1,111
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.70 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.84 £16.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -1.23% +102.50%
75th Percentile £58.70 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.37 £75.50
UK median hourly rate £27.35 £37.50 £44.00
% change year-on-year -27.07% -14.77% +76.00%

3rd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Support
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 22 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Support
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for 3rd Line Support in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Support
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 excluding London region over the 6 months to 22 June 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 +58 18 £588 +56.67% 20
Wales - 5 £200 - 9
South West +41 3 £300 +16.50% 9
Scotland -4 3 £390 +20.00% 5
West Midlands -25 1 £286 -23.73% 10
Midlands -26 1 £286 -23.73% 22
Northern Ireland - 1 - -
3rd Line Support
UK

3rd Line Support Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 22 June 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 UK excluding London region featuring 3rd Line Support in the job title.

1 29 (93.55%) Microsoft
2 24 (77.42%) Active Directory
3 21 (67.74%) Windows
4 17 (54.84%) Firewall
5 16 (51.61%) DHCP
5 16 (51.61%) DNS
6 15 (48.39%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (48.39%) Azure
7 14 (45.16%) Security Cleared
7 14 (45.16%) VPN
7 14 (45.16%) VMware
7 14 (45.16%) VMware Infrastructure
8 13 (41.94%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (38.71%) IaaS
9 12 (38.71%) PaaS
9 12 (38.71%) DevOps
9 12 (38.71%) PowerShell
9 12 (38.71%) DV Cleared
9 12 (38.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 11 (35.48%) ITIL
11 10 (32.26%) Hyper-V
11 10 (32.26%) SAN
11 10 (32.26%) Degree
11 10 (32.26%) Public Sector
12 9 (29.03%) Artificial Intelligence
12 9 (29.03%) Citrix
12 9 (29.03%) Microsoft Intune
12 9 (29.03%) Cybersecurity
12 9 (29.03%) Entra ID
13 8 (25.81%) BitLocker

3rd Line Support Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 15 (48.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (22.58%) SharePoint
3 4 (12.90%) Exchange Server 2003
3 4 (12.90%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (12.90%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (12.90%) Exchange Server 2013
3 4 (12.90%) Office Communications Server
3 4 (12.90%) SharePoint Server
3 4 (12.90%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 8 (25.81%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 15 (48.39%) Azure
2 13 (41.94%) Microsoft 365
3 12 (38.71%) IaaS
3 12 (38.71%) PaaS
4 9 (29.03%) Entra ID
5 8 (25.81%) AWS
5 8 (25.81%) GCP
5 8 (25.81%) OpenShift
6 1 (3.23%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 17 (54.84%) Firewall
2 16 (51.61%) DHCP
2 16 (51.61%) DNS
3 14 (45.16%) VPN
4 10 (32.26%) SAN
5 8 (25.81%) SMTP
6 7 (22.58%) LAN
6 7 (22.58%) WAN
7 4 (12.90%) DDNS
7 4 (12.90%) Fibre Channel
8 2 (6.45%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (25.81%) Amazon RDS
1 8 (25.81%) Big Data
1 8 (25.81%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (3.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
General
1 10 (32.26%) Public Sector
2 4 (12.90%) Social Skills
3 2 (6.45%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (6.45%) Legal
4 1 (3.23%) Finance
Miscellaneous
1 8 (25.81%) Clustering
1 8 (25.81%) Data Centre
1 8 (25.81%) PKI
2 4 (12.90%) Replication
3 1 (3.23%) Blockchain
3 1 (3.23%) CMDB
3 1 (3.23%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 21 (67.74%) Windows
2 8 (25.81%) Linux
2 8 (25.81%) Windows Server
3 7 (22.58%) Windows Server 2003
4 2 (6.45%) Android
4 2 (6.45%) Apple iOS
4 2 (6.45%) Windows 10
5 1 (3.23%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (38.71%) DevOps
1 12 (38.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 11 (35.48%) ITIL
3 9 (29.03%) Artificial Intelligence
3 9 (29.03%) Cybersecurity
4 8 (25.81%) Machine Learning
4 8 (25.81%) Software Deployment
5 6 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
6 4 (12.90%) Architectural Design
6 4 (12.90%) Business Intelligence
6 4 (12.90%) Content Management
6 4 (12.90%) Enterprise Content Management
6 4 (12.90%) Enterprise Search
6 4 (12.90%) High Availability
6 4 (12.90%) Infrastructure as Code
6 4 (12.90%) Security Patching
7 2 (6.45%) Application Packaging
7 2 (6.45%) Migration
7 2 (6.45%) Patch Management
7 2 (6.45%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 12 (38.71%) PowerShell
2 2 (6.45%) SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (45.16%) Security Cleared
2 12 (38.71%) DV Cleared
3 10 (32.26%) Degree
4 5 (16.13%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (6.45%) Azure Certification
5 2 (6.45%) MCSE
5 2 (6.45%) SC Cleared
6 1 (3.23%) HNC
6 1 (3.23%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (16.13%) SLA
System Software
1 24 (77.42%) Active Directory
2 14 (45.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (32.26%) Hyper-V
4 8 (25.81%) BitLocker
4 8 (25.81%) Docker
4 8 (25.81%) Microsoft App-V
4 8 (25.81%) Terminal Services
4 8 (25.81%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (12.90%) Brightmail
5 4 (12.90%) DFS Replication
5 4 (12.90%) ISA Server
5 4 (12.90%) vSphere
6 1 (3.23%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (29.03%) Microsoft Intune
2 8 (25.81%) Ansible
2 8 (25.81%) Kubernetes
2 8 (25.81%) Nagios
2 8 (25.81%) Puppet
2 8 (25.81%) vCenter Server
2 8 (25.81%) vMotion
3 4 (12.90%) Microsoft Clustering
4 1 (3.23%) SCCM
4 1 (3.23%) Terraform
Vendors
1 29 (93.55%) Microsoft
2 14 (45.16%) VMware
3 9 (29.03%) Citrix
4 8 (25.81%) Google
4 8 (25.81%) HP
4 8 (25.81%) Symantec
5 5 (16.13%) Cisco
5 5 (16.13%) Sophos
6 2 (6.45%) Veeam
7 1 (3.23%) ServiceNow
7 1 (3.23%) Zscaler