2nd Line Engineer Contract Job Trends

Second Line Engineer
UK

The median Second Line Engineer daily rate in the UK is £235, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 June 2026.

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

 6 months to
9 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 579 420 464
Rank change year-on-year -159 +44 -6
Contract jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 64 104 135
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.13% 0.36% 0.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.14% 0.38% 0.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 76 101
10th Percentile £185 £150 £143
25th Percentile £195 £179 £163
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £235 £211 £200
Median % change year-on-year +11.24% +5.63% -4.76%
75th Percentile £303 £255 £238
90th Percentile £318 £322 £288
UK excluding London median daily rate £225 £200 £200
% change year-on-year +12.50% - -2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 10 6
10th Percentile - £18.10 £16.86
25th Percentile £15.24 £19.94 £18.92
Median hourly rate £24.75 £24.66 £22.54
Median % change year-on-year +0.36% +9.41% -4.09%
75th Percentile £55.00 £27.29 £22.96
90th Percentile - £28.58 £23.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £24.66 £22.50
% change year-on-year -8.76% +9.60% +2.27%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 45,859 27,036 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.35% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,926 17,399 25,887
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,063 1,119 2,897
10th Percentile £15.15 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.84 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.61 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.73% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.47 £61.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

2nd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

2nd Line Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 2nd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 9 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for 2nd Line Engineer in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 2nd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 9 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for 2nd Line Engineer in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 2nd Line Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 9 June 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
England -167 60 £235 +11.24% 49
UK excluding London -129 45 £225 +12.50% 46
London -83 19 £235 -1.05% 10
North of England -82 17 £190 +22.58% 14
North West -32 10 £245 +34.25% 8
West Midlands -63 8 £210 -23.64% 2
South East -68 8 £229 +6.40% 13
Midlands -69 8 £210 -23.64% 2
Work from Home -60 6 £300 +20.00% 12
South West -25 5 £270 +31.71% 4
Yorkshire -67 5 £190 +26.67% 2
Wales - 4 £250 -
East of England -35 3 £240 +12.94% 8
North East -30 2 £280 +43.59% 4

2nd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 June 2026, 2nd 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 featuring 2nd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 49 (76.56%) Windows
2 38 (59.38%) Microsoft 365
3 31 (48.44%) Active Directory
4 27 (42.19%) Windows 10
5 24 (37.50%) Microsoft
6 14 (21.88%) SCCM
7 10 (15.63%) Customer Service
7 10 (15.63%) LAN
7 10 (15.63%) WAN
7 10 (15.63%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (12.50%) Apple iOS
8 8 (12.50%) Entra ID
8 8 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (10.94%) Android
9 7 (10.94%) DNS
9 7 (10.94%) ITSM
9 7 (10.94%) Mac OS
9 7 (10.94%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (10.94%) SC Cleared
9 7 (10.94%) Security Cleared
10 6 (9.38%) Azure
10 6 (9.38%) Cisco
10 6 (9.38%) ITIL
10 6 (9.38%) Microsoft Exchange
10 6 (9.38%) VPN
10 6 (9.38%) Windows Server
11 5 (7.81%) CCNA
11 5 (7.81%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (7.81%) DHCP
11 5 (7.81%) Service Management

2nd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (9.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (7.81%) SharePoint
3 2 (3.13%) IIS
Applications
1 4 (6.25%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.13%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 38 (59.38%) Microsoft 365
2 8 (12.50%) Entra ID
3 6 (9.38%) Azure
4 1 (1.56%) AWS
4 1 (1.56%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 10 (15.63%) LAN
1 10 (15.63%) WAN
1 10 (15.63%) Wi-Fi
2 7 (10.94%) DNS
3 6 (9.38%) VPN
4 5 (7.81%) DHCP
4 5 (7.81%) TCP/IP
5 2 (3.13%) BGP
5 2 (3.13%) Internet
5 2 (3.13%) IPsec
5 2 (3.13%) MPLS
5 2 (3.13%) Skype
6 1 (1.56%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (1.56%) SAN
6 1 (1.56%) VLAN
6 1 (1.56%) WebEx
6 1 (1.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.56%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (4.69%) JIRA
General
1 26 (40.63%) Social Skills
2 12 (18.75%) Finance
3 7 (10.94%) Manufacturing
4 4 (6.25%) Banking
4 4 (6.25%) Public Sector
4 4 (6.25%) Retail
5 3 (4.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.13%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.13%) Software Packaging
2 1 (1.56%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 4 (6.25%) CCTV
1 4 (6.25%) iPhone
1 4 (6.25%) Onboarding
2 2 (3.13%) PKI
2 2 (3.13%) Smartphone
3 1 (1.56%) Data Centre
3 1 (1.56%) Driving Licence
3 1 (1.56%) iPad
3 1 (1.56%) Operational Technology
3 1 (1.56%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 49 (76.56%) Windows
2 27 (42.19%) Windows 10
3 8 (12.50%) Apple iOS
4 7 (10.94%) Android
4 7 (10.94%) Mac OS
5 6 (9.38%) Windows Server
6 3 (4.69%) Linux
7 2 (3.13%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (1.56%) Ubuntu
8 1 (1.56%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (15.63%) Customer Service
2 8 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
3 7 (10.94%) ITSM
4 6 (9.38%) ITIL
5 5 (7.81%) Service Management
5 5 (7.81%) User Experience
6 4 (6.25%) Incident Management
6 4 (6.25%) Migration
6 4 (6.25%) Service Delivery
7 3 (4.69%) Asset Management
7 3 (4.69%) Decision-Making
7 3 (4.69%) Patch Management
7 3 (4.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 2 (3.13%) Break/Fix
8 2 (3.13%) Identity Access Management
8 2 (3.13%) Kalman Filter
8 2 (3.13%) Line Management
8 2 (3.13%) Problem Management
8 2 (3.13%) Software Deployment
8 2 (3.13%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 3 (4.69%) PowerShell
2 2 (3.13%) SQL
3 1 (1.56%) Python
Qualifications
1 7 (10.94%) SC Cleared
1 7 (10.94%) Security Cleared
2 5 (7.81%) CCNA
2 5 (7.81%) Cisco Certification
3 3 (4.69%) Degree
4 2 (3.13%) DBS Check
4 2 (3.13%) DV Cleared
4 2 (3.13%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (1.56%) CCNP
5 1 (1.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (7.81%) SLA
2 2 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.56%) JSP 440
3 1 (1.56%) NCSC
System Software
1 31 (48.44%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (1.56%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 14 (21.88%) SCCM
2 7 (10.94%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (3.13%) AirWatch
3 2 (3.13%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (1.56%) Cisco CUCM
4 1 (1.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 24 (37.50%) Microsoft
2 6 (9.38%) Cisco
3 4 (6.25%) HP
4 3 (4.69%) Freshdesk
4 3 (4.69%) ServiceNow
5 2 (3.13%) Apple
5 2 (3.13%) Bloomberg
5 2 (3.13%) Juniper
5 2 (3.13%) Meraki
5 2 (3.13%) Remedy
6 1 (1.56%) Altiris
6 1 (1.56%) Citrix
6 1 (1.56%) McAfee
6 1 (1.56%) Snow
6 1 (1.56%) Tanium
6 1 (1.56%) VMware
54 2nd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide