3rd Line Engineer Contract Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 September 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
14 Sep 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 474 479 467
Rank change year-on-year +5 -12 +112
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 80 84 194
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.24% 0.22% 0.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.27% 0.24% 0.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 52 104
10th Percentile £263 £255 £275
25th Percentile £375 £343 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £393 £353
Median % change year-on-year +27.39% +11.27% -8.97%
75th Percentile £588 £453 £423
90th Percentile £600 £538 £500
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £375 £350
% change year-on-year +33.33% +7.14% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 0
10th Percentile - £21.84 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.72 -
Median hourly rate £30.00 £24.18 -
Median % change year-on-year +24.07% - -
75th Percentile £60.32 £42.09 -
90th Percentile £77.90 £52.84 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £89.63 £23.34 -
% change year-on-year +284.02% - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 29,762 35,713 47,490
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.05% 93.01% 94.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,795 22,135 32,566
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,555 1,710 1,509
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.73 £14.56
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.50 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -1.71% +68.27%
75th Percentile £51.72 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% +8.43% +88.64%

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 14 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 14 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 14 September 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
England +7 74 £500 +27.39% 44
UK excluding London +5 65 £500 +33.33% 42
South East +35 35 £575 +53.33% 20
Work from Home +12 17 £275 -28.57% 15
Midlands -10 15 £400 +53.85% 5
West Midlands -14 15 £400 +53.85% 2
London +6 13 £450 +7.14% 5
Wales +8 5 £200 -45.21%
South West +19 4 £350 -6.67% 6
North West -17 4 - - 3
North of England -18 4 - - 8
East of England +5 1 £350 -17.65% 5
Scotland -1 1 - - 1

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 September 2025, 3rd Line Engineer 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 featuring 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 51 (63.75%) Active Directory
2 47 (58.75%) Security Cleared
3 45 (56.25%) Windows
4 44 (55.00%) Microsoft
5 32 (40.00%) Windows Server
6 31 (38.75%) DV Cleared
7 27 (33.75%) PKI
7 27 (33.75%) VMware
8 26 (32.50%) VPN
9 25 (31.25%) Cisco
9 25 (31.25%) Firewall
9 25 (31.25%) vCenter Server
9 25 (31.25%) Azure
10 21 (26.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 21 (26.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 21 (26.25%) VMware Infrastructure
11 20 (25.00%) DNS
12 19 (23.75%) Juniper
12 19 (23.75%) WAN
12 19 (23.75%) DHCP
12 19 (23.75%) Microsoft 365
13 18 (22.50%) PowerShell
14 17 (21.25%) SC Cleared
14 17 (21.25%) Linux
14 17 (21.25%) Microsoft Intune
15 15 (18.75%) Junos
15 15 (18.75%) Hyper-V
16 14 (17.50%) ITIL
16 14 (17.50%) DevOps
16 14 (17.50%) Entra ID

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 21 (26.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (11.25%) SharePoint
3 6 (7.50%) SharePoint Server
4 5 (6.25%) Exchange Server 2003
4 5 (6.25%) Exchange Server 2007
4 5 (6.25%) Exchange Server 2010
4 5 (6.25%) Exchange Server 2013
4 5 (6.25%) Office Communications Server
4 5 (6.25%) Skype for Business
5 4 (5.00%) Apache
Applications
1 7 (8.75%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.25%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 25 (31.25%) Azure
2 19 (23.75%) Microsoft 365
3 14 (17.50%) Entra ID
4 11 (13.75%) AWS
5 10 (12.50%) IaaS
5 10 (12.50%) PaaS
6 9 (11.25%) GCP
7 8 (10.00%) OpenShift
8 2 (2.50%) OneDrive
9 1 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (1.25%) Google Workspace
9 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (1.25%) Nutanix
9 1 (1.25%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 26 (32.50%) VPN
2 25 (31.25%) Firewall
3 20 (25.00%) DNS
4 19 (23.75%) DHCP
4 19 (23.75%) WAN
5 15 (18.75%) Junos
6 13 (16.25%) SAN
7 10 (12.50%) BGP
7 10 (12.50%) IPsec
7 10 (12.50%) MPLS
8 9 (11.25%) Cisco Firepower
8 9 (11.25%) Cisco IOS
8 9 (11.25%) Cisco ISE
8 9 (11.25%) LAN
8 9 (11.25%) SMTP
9 5 (6.25%) DDNS
10 4 (5.00%) Network Security
10 4 (5.00%) TCP/IP
11 3 (3.75%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (3.75%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (10.00%) Amazon RDS
1 8 (10.00%) Big Data
1 8 (10.00%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (3.75%) SQL Server
3 1 (1.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (5.00%) MSI
1 4 (5.00%) Robot Framework
1 4 (5.00%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.25%) JIRA
General
1 13 (16.25%) Public Sector
2 8 (10.00%) Social Skills
3 3 (3.75%) Finance
3 3 (3.75%) Local Government
4 2 (2.50%) Banking
4 2 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (1.25%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (1.25%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.50%) Middleware
2 1 (1.25%) ARM Templates
2 1 (1.25%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 27 (33.75%) PKI
2 11 (13.75%) Data Centre
3 9 (11.25%) Clustering
4 5 (6.25%) Replication
5 4 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (2.50%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (2.50%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.25%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.25%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.25%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 45 (56.25%) Windows
2 32 (40.00%) Windows Server
3 17 (21.25%) Linux
4 12 (15.00%) Windows Server 2003
5 7 (8.75%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (6.25%) Windows 10
7 4 (5.00%) CentOS
7 4 (5.00%) Mac OS
7 4 (5.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (1.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (26.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 14 (17.50%) DevOps
2 14 (17.50%) ITIL
3 13 (16.25%) Service Management
4 12 (15.00%) ITSM
5 10 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
5 10 (12.50%) Load Balancing
5 10 (12.50%) Software Deployment
6 8 (10.00%) Artificial Intelligence
6 8 (10.00%) Machine Learning
7 7 (8.75%) Migration
7 7 (8.75%) Network Design
7 7 (8.75%) Problem-Solving
8 6 (7.50%) Workflow
9 5 (6.25%) Architectural Design
9 5 (6.25%) Business Intelligence
9 5 (6.25%) Content Management
9 5 (6.25%) Enterprise Content Management
9 5 (6.25%) Enterprise Search
9 5 (6.25%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 18 (22.50%) PowerShell
2 4 (5.00%) PHP
2 4 (5.00%) Python
3 3 (3.75%) SQL
4 2 (2.50%) Bash
5 1 (1.25%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 47 (58.75%) Security Cleared
2 31 (38.75%) DV Cleared
3 17 (21.25%) SC Cleared
4 10 (12.50%) Degree
5 7 (8.75%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.25%) A+ Certification
6 1 (1.25%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.25%) DBS Check
6 1 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.00%) SLA
2 1 (1.25%) GDPR
System Software
1 51 (63.75%) Active Directory
2 21 (26.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (18.75%) Hyper-V
4 11 (13.75%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (12.50%) VMware NSX
6 9 (11.25%) BitLocker
6 9 (11.25%) Microsoft App-V
6 9 (11.25%) Terminal Services
7 8 (10.00%) Docker
8 5 (6.25%) Brightmail
8 5 (6.25%) ISA Server
9 4 (5.00%) vSphere
10 2 (2.50%) DFS Replication
11 1 (1.25%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 25 (31.25%) vCenter Server
2 17 (21.25%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (15.00%) Ansible
4 9 (11.25%) SCCM
4 9 (11.25%) vMotion
5 8 (10.00%) Kubernetes
5 8 (10.00%) Nagios
5 8 (10.00%) Puppet
6 5 (6.25%) Microsoft Clustering
6 5 (6.25%) Terraform
7 4 (5.00%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (5.00%) SCOM
7 4 (5.00%) WMI
8 3 (3.75%) AirWatch
8 3 (3.75%) Backup Exec
9 2 (2.50%) FortiGate
10 1 (1.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (1.25%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 44 (55.00%) Microsoft
2 27 (33.75%) VMware
3 25 (31.25%) Cisco
4 19 (23.75%) Juniper
5 12 (15.00%) SolarWinds
6 11 (13.75%) HP
6 11 (13.75%) Symantec
7 9 (11.25%) Citrix
8 8 (10.00%) Google
9 5 (6.25%) Sophos
9 5 (6.25%) Veeam
10 3 (3.75%) Apple
10 3 (3.75%) CheckPoint
10 3 (3.75%) Palo Alto
11 2 (2.50%) Adobe
11 2 (2.50%) McAfee
12 1 (1.25%) Fortinet
12 1 (1.25%) Proofpoint
12 1 (1.25%) Red Hat
12 1 (1.25%) Veritas
45 3rd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide