3rd Line Engineer Contract Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 611 480 480
Rank change year-on-year -131 0 -40
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 75 77 82
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.23% 0.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.15% 0.26% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 64 63 50
10th Percentile £225 £263 £255
25th Percentile £275 £369 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £385
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +29.87% +9.92%
75th Percentile £509 £588 £459
90th Percentile £556 £600 £538
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £500 £375
% change year-on-year -5.50% +33.33% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 3
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 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 50,223 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,737 18,953 22,040
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,829 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

3rd Line Engineer job vacancy trend 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 18 September 2026.

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
Top 15 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 18 September 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 -101 74 £475 -5.00% 93
UK excluding London -110 62 £473 -5.50% 76
South East -57 38 £475 -17.39% 22
London -74 13 £625 +38.89% 18
North of England -56 11 £318 - 15
North West -45 7 £363 - 10
Midlands -54 7 £300 -25.00% 16
Work from Home -75 5 £300 +9.09% 38
East Midlands - 4 £300 - 3
East of England -27 3 £223 -36.29% 13
South West -36 3 £425 +21.43% 7
North East - 3 £290 - 3
West Midlands -57 2 £250 -37.50% 13
Yorkshire - 2 £305 - 2
Scotland -22 1 £413 -

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 September 2026, 3rd 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 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 57 (76.00%) Windows
2 49 (65.33%) Windows Server
3 45 (60.00%) Microsoft
3 45 (60.00%) Security Cleared
4 42 (56.00%) Active Directory
5 39 (52.00%) VMware
6 35 (46.67%) VMware Infrastructure
7 34 (45.33%) DV Cleared
8 25 (33.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 20 (26.67%) vCenter Server
10 19 (25.33%) DNS
10 19 (25.33%) ITSM
11 18 (24.00%) SCOM
12 17 (22.67%) Problem-Solving
13 16 (21.33%) Hyper-V
13 16 (21.33%) Microsoft Exchange
13 16 (21.33%) PowerShell
14 15 (20.00%) Azure
14 15 (20.00%) Dell
15 14 (18.67%) Avamar
15 14 (18.67%) Thales
16 13 (17.33%) Change Management
16 13 (17.33%) Entra ID
16 13 (17.33%) Microsoft 365
17 11 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
17 11 (14.67%) DHCP
17 11 (14.67%) SC Cleared
18 9 (12.00%) Firewall
18 9 (12.00%) ITIL
18 9 (12.00%) Juniper

3rd 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 16 (21.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (12.00%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.67%) Confluence
4 1 (1.33%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 2 (2.67%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.33%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 15 (20.00%) Azure
2 13 (17.33%) Entra ID
2 13 (17.33%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (8.00%) AWS
4 5 (6.67%) IaaS
4 5 (6.67%) PaaS
5 3 (4.00%) GCP
5 3 (4.00%) OpenShift
5 3 (4.00%) Power Platform
6 2 (2.67%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (2.67%) OneDrive
7 1 (1.33%) Azure AI
7 1 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (1.33%) Microsoft Copilot
7 1 (1.33%) Mimecast
7 1 (1.33%) Power Automate
7 1 (1.33%) PowerApps
7 1 (1.33%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (25.33%) DNS
2 11 (14.67%) DHCP
3 9 (12.00%) Firewall
4 7 (9.33%) VPN
5 5 (6.67%) SMTP
6 4 (5.33%) TCP/IP
7 3 (4.00%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (2.67%) LAN
8 2 (2.67%) NetScaler
8 2 (2.67%) Skype
8 2 (2.67%) WAN
9 1 (1.33%) VLAN
9 1 (1.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.33%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (5.33%) Elasticsearch
1 4 (5.33%) SQL Server
2 3 (4.00%) Big Data
3 2 (2.67%) Data Mining
3 2 (2.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (2.67%) Git
1 2 (2.67%) JIRA
General
1 18 (24.00%) Social Skills
2 11 (14.67%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (9.33%) Marketing
4 4 (5.33%) Legal
5 3 (4.00%) Manufacturing
6 2 (2.67%) Advertising
6 2 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.67%) Military
6 2 (2.67%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.33%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 18 (24.00%) PKI
2 6 (8.00%) Clustering
3 5 (6.67%) Data Centre
4 3 (4.00%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.67%) NHS
5 2 (2.67%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.33%) Driving Licence
6 1 (1.33%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.33%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.33%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.33%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 57 (76.00%) Windows
2 49 (65.33%) Windows Server
3 9 (12.00%) Windows Server 2019
4 8 (10.67%) Windows 10
5 7 (9.33%) Linux
6 2 (2.67%) Windows 7
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2003
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2008
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (33.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 19 (25.33%) ITSM
3 17 (22.67%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (17.33%) Change Management
5 11 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 9 (12.00%) ITIL
7 8 (10.67%) Coaching
8 7 (9.33%) Privileged Access Management
9 5 (6.67%) AI
9 5 (6.67%) Customer Service
9 5 (6.67%) Infrastructure Monitoring
9 5 (6.67%) Vulnerability Remediation
10 4 (5.33%) DevOps
10 4 (5.33%) Incident Management
10 4 (5.33%) Service Delivery
11 3 (4.00%) Cybersecurity
11 3 (4.00%) Identity Access Management
11 3 (4.00%) Project Delivery
11 3 (4.00%) Server Management
11 3 (4.00%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 16 (21.33%) PowerShell
2 6 (8.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 45 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 34 (45.33%) DV Cleared
3 11 (14.67%) SC Cleared
4 5 (6.67%) Degree
5 3 (4.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.33%) CCNA
6 1 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.33%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.67%) SLA
2 1 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.33%) GxP
2 1 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.33%) NCSC
System Software
1 42 (56.00%) Active Directory
2 35 (46.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (21.33%) Hyper-V
4 6 (8.00%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (6.67%) BitLocker
5 5 (6.67%) vSphere
6 4 (5.33%) Docker
6 4 (5.33%) Microsoft App-V
7 3 (4.00%) Terminal Services
8 2 (2.67%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (1.33%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (26.67%) vCenter Server
2 18 (24.00%) SCOM
3 14 (18.67%) Avamar
4 9 (12.00%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (6.67%) Ansible
6 4 (5.33%) Kubernetes
6 4 (5.33%) Puppet
6 4 (5.33%) SCCM
6 4 (5.33%) vMotion
7 3 (4.00%) Nagios
8 2 (2.67%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (2.67%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (2.67%) SCSM
8 2 (2.67%) SysTrack
9 1 (1.33%) Backup Exec
9 1 (1.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 45 (60.00%) Microsoft
2 39 (52.00%) VMware
3 15 (20.00%) Dell
4 14 (18.67%) Thales
5 9 (12.00%) Juniper
6 8 (10.67%) Citrix
7 6 (8.00%) ServiceNow
8 4 (5.33%) HP
8 4 (5.33%) NetApp
9 3 (4.00%) Cisco
9 3 (4.00%) Google
9 3 (4.00%) Symantec
9 3 (4.00%) Veeam
10 2 (2.67%) Nexthink
10 2 (2.67%) Trend Micro
11 1 (1.33%) Meraki
11 1 (1.33%) Okta
11 1 (1.33%) Palo Alto
11 1 (1.33%) Proofpoint
11 1 (1.33%) SolarWinds