2nd Line Support Contract Job Trends

Second Line Support
UK

The median Second Line Support daily rate in the UK is £210, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 May 2026.

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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 487 363 364
Rank change year-on-year -124 +1 -23
Contract jobs requiring a 2nd Line Support 142 160 211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.56% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.60% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 111 163
10th Percentile £163 £158 £150
25th Percentile £185 £188 £176
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £210 £220 £200
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +10.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £240 £269 £238
90th Percentile £304 £288 £299
UK excluding London median daily rate £200 £213 £200
% change year-on-year -5.88% +6.25% -1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 25 17
10th Percentile £12.88 £17.34 £14.27
25th Percentile £13.51 £24.00 £17.25
Median hourly rate £16.50 £27.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -40.00% +55.19% -11.40%
75th Percentile £20.25 £29.07 £20.37
90th Percentile £21.83 £39.11 £23.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £15.24 £28.00 £17.50
% change year-on-year -45.57% +60.00% -12.50%

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 44,687 26,578 39,544
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.29% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,302 17,300 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £618 £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 2,943 1,012 2,737
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.13 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.90% -34.16% -5.88%

2nd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend

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.

2nd Line Support job vacancy trend in the UK

2nd Line Support
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

2nd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 2nd Line Support over the 6 months to 25 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for 2nd Line Support in the UK

2nd Line Support
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

2nd Line Support
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 2nd Line Support over the 6 months to 25 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for 2nd Line Support in the UK

2nd Line Support
Top 16 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 Support within the UK over the 6 months to 25 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
England -129 130 £208 -6.32% 54
UK excluding London -123 101 £200 -5.88% 48
London -75 40 £230 -8.00% 12
North of England -71 31 £190 -2.56% 9
South East -72 30 £204 -15.54% 18
Work from Home -27 23 £205 -13.68% 15
Yorkshire -51 17 £190 +50.79% 4
Midlands -68 17 £250 +25.00% 8
North West -40 13 £175 -14.63% 4
West Midlands -67 10 £250 -9.09% 4
East Midlands -26 7 - - 4
South West -28 7 - - 3
Scotland -1 6 - -
Wales -12 5 £250 +1.52%
East of England -34 5 £240 +6.67% 10
North East -28 1 £290 +48.72% 1

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

For the 6 months to 25 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 featuring 2nd Line Support in the job title.

1 93 (65.49%) Windows
2 70 (49.30%) Microsoft 365
3 58 (40.85%) Microsoft
4 49 (34.51%) Customer Service
5 48 (33.80%) Active Directory
6 38 (26.76%) Windows 10
7 30 (21.13%) Problem-Solving
8 28 (19.72%) Azure
9 27 (19.01%) Microsoft Intune
10 25 (17.61%) Android
11 21 (14.79%) ITIL
12 20 (14.08%) Apple iOS
12 20 (14.08%) ITSM
12 20 (14.08%) Microsoft Office
13 18 (12.68%) Service Delivery
14 16 (11.27%) ServiceNow
15 15 (10.56%) Entra ID
15 15 (10.56%) SCCM
16 14 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
16 14 (9.86%) JIRA
16 14 (9.86%) Wi-Fi
17 13 (9.15%) Service Management
17 13 (9.15%) SQL
18 12 (8.45%) Customer Experience
18 12 (8.45%) DNS
18 12 (8.45%) Microsoft Exchange
19 11 (7.75%) DHCP
19 11 (7.75%) SharePoint
20 10 (7.04%) AWS
20 10 (7.04%) LAN

2nd Line Support 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 12 (8.45%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (7.75%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.41%) Confluence
3 2 (1.41%) IIS
Applications
1 20 (14.08%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 8 (5.63%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (49.30%) Microsoft 365
2 28 (19.72%) Azure
3 15 (10.56%) Entra ID
4 10 (7.04%) AWS
5 6 (4.23%) GCP
5 6 (4.23%) OneDrive
6 2 (1.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 2 (1.41%) Amazon S3
6 2 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.41%) Serverless
7 1 (0.70%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 14 (9.86%) Wi-Fi
2 12 (8.45%) DNS
3 11 (7.75%) DHCP
4 10 (7.04%) LAN
4 10 (7.04%) WAN
5 8 (5.63%) VPN
6 4 (2.82%) TCP/IP
7 2 (1.41%) BGP
7 2 (1.41%) Internet
7 2 (1.41%) IPsec
7 2 (1.41%) MPLS
7 2 (1.41%) Skype
7 2 (1.41%) VLAN
8 1 (0.70%) Firewall
8 1 (0.70%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.70%) SAN
8 1 (0.70%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.93%) SQL Server
2 6 (4.23%) MySQL
3 2 (1.41%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 14 (9.86%) JIRA
General
1 67 (47.18%) Social Skills
2 22 (15.49%) Finance
3 19 (13.38%) Retail
4 16 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (7.75%) Public Sector
6 10 (7.04%) French Language
6 10 (7.04%) Manufacturing
6 10 (7.04%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (6.34%) Spanish Language
8 6 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (4.23%) Law
9 5 (3.52%) Banking
10 4 (2.82%) Legal
11 2 (1.41%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.70%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.70%) Military
12 1 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.70%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.41%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 17 (11.97%) Onboarding
2 6 (4.23%) Driving Licence
2 6 (4.23%) Mobile Payment
2 6 (4.23%) NHS
2 6 (4.23%) Smartphone
3 4 (2.82%) CCTV
4 3 (2.11%) iPhone
4 3 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.41%) PKI
5 2 (1.41%) Video Conferencing
6 1 (0.70%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.70%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 93 (65.49%) Windows
2 38 (26.76%) Windows 10
3 25 (17.61%) Android
4 20 (14.08%) Apple iOS
5 8 (5.63%) Windows Server
6 7 (4.93%) Mac OS
7 2 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.70%) Linux
8 1 (0.70%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (34.51%) Customer Service
2 30 (21.13%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (14.79%) ITIL
4 20 (14.08%) ITSM
5 18 (12.68%) Service Delivery
6 14 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
7 13 (9.15%) Service Management
8 12 (8.45%) Customer Experience
9 10 (7.04%) User Experience
10 8 (5.63%) Problem Management
11 7 (4.93%) Asset Management
11 7 (4.93%) Mobile Device Management
12 6 (4.23%) Migration
13 5 (3.52%) AI
13 5 (3.52%) Process Improvement
14 4 (2.82%) BCP
14 4 (2.82%) Generative AI
14 4 (2.82%) Incident Management
15 3 (2.11%) Patch Management
15 3 (2.11%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 13 (9.15%) SQL
2 1 (0.70%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 5 (3.52%) Degree
1 5 (3.52%) SC Cleared
1 5 (3.52%) Security Cleared
2 3 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (2.11%) ITIL Certification
3 2 (1.41%) CCNA
3 2 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (1.41%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.52%) SLA
2 2 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (0.70%) GDPR
System Software
1 48 (33.80%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.70%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 27 (19.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (10.56%) SCCM
3 3 (2.11%) Jamf Pro
4 2 (1.41%) AirWatch
5 1 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.70%) WSUS
Vendors
1 58 (40.85%) Microsoft
2 16 (11.27%) ServiceNow
3 8 (5.63%) Remedy
4 7 (4.93%) Google
5 5 (3.52%) Apple
5 5 (3.52%) HP
6 3 (2.11%) Bloomberg
6 3 (2.11%) Cisco
6 3 (2.11%) Dell
6 3 (2.11%) Freshdesk
7 2 (1.41%) Citrix
7 2 (1.41%) Juniper
7 2 (1.41%) Meraki
8 1 (0.70%) Charles River
8 1 (0.70%) CrowdStrike
8 1 (0.70%) Tanium
8 1 (0.70%) VMware
8 1 (0.70%) Zscaler