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 9 December 2025.

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

 6 months to
9 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 499 492 454
Rank change year-on-year -7 -38 +125
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 83 51 155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.14% 0.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.15% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 39 73
10th Percentile £325 £255 £258
25th Percentile £400 £358 £288
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £400 £325
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +23.08% -13.33%
75th Percentile - £447 £394
90th Percentile £550 £520 £485
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £375 £325
% change year-on-year +33.33% +15.38% -13.33%
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 32,988 33,120 42,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.74% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,924 20,243 28,641
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £403 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,136 1,517
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%
75th Percentile £56.81 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.66 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 9 December 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 9 December 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 9 December 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 -1 81 £500 +27.39% 89
UK excluding London -8 63 £500 +33.33% 89
South East +18 38 £500 +25.00% 34
London -2 18 £425 +1.19% 15
West Midlands -15 17 £400 +45.45% 2
Midlands -21 17 £400 +45.45% 5
Work from Home -4 13 £300 -25.47% 26
South West -16 4 £350 -6.67% 6
Scotland +4 1 - -
Wales 0 1 £200 -45.21% 10
East of England -15 1 £350 -17.65% 11
North West -16 1 - - 7
North of England -43 1 - - 24

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

For the 6 months to 9 December 2025, 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 62 (74.70%) Security Cleared
2 38 (45.78%) Active Directory
2 38 (45.78%) DV Cleared
2 38 (45.78%) Windows
3 35 (42.17%) Juniper
4 28 (33.73%) Cisco
5 27 (32.53%) ITSM
5 27 (32.53%) Junos
5 27 (32.53%) Windows Server
6 26 (31.33%) vCenter Server
7 24 (28.92%) SC Cleared
8 22 (26.51%) Microsoft
8 22 (26.51%) SolarWinds
8 22 (26.51%) VMware NSX
9 21 (25.30%) Cisco Firepower
9 21 (25.30%) Cisco IOS
9 21 (25.30%) Cisco ISE
9 21 (25.30%) VPN
10 19 (22.89%) Service Management
11 18 (21.69%) Azure
11 18 (21.69%) WAN
12 17 (20.48%) Microsoft 365
13 16 (19.28%) Microsoft Intune
13 16 (19.28%) VMware
14 15 (18.07%) Load Balancing
14 15 (18.07%) Microsoft Exchange
14 15 (18.07%) PowerShell
15 14 (16.87%) BGP
15 14 (16.87%) Firewall
15 14 (16.87%) IPsec

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 15 (18.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (7.23%) SharePoint
3 4 (4.82%) SharePoint Server
4 3 (3.61%) Exchange Server 2003
4 3 (3.61%) Exchange Server 2007
4 3 (3.61%) Exchange Server 2010
4 3 (3.61%) Exchange Server 2013
4 3 (3.61%) Office Communications Server
4 3 (3.61%) Skype for Business
5 2 (2.41%) Apache
Applications
1 5 (6.02%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.20%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 18 (21.69%) Azure
2 17 (20.48%) Microsoft 365
3 12 (14.46%) Entra ID
4 4 (4.82%) AWS
5 2 (2.41%) Microsoft Purview
5 2 (2.41%) Nutanix
5 2 (2.41%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.20%) GCP
6 1 (1.20%) Google Workspace
6 1 (1.20%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.20%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (32.53%) Junos
2 21 (25.30%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (25.30%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (25.30%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (25.30%) VPN
3 18 (21.69%) WAN
4 14 (16.87%) BGP
4 14 (16.87%) Firewall
4 14 (16.87%) IPsec
4 14 (16.87%) MPLS
5 12 (14.46%) DNS
6 8 (9.64%) DHCP
7 5 (6.02%) NX-OS
7 5 (6.02%) SAN
8 4 (4.82%) TCP/IP
9 3 (3.61%) DDNS
10 2 (2.41%) LAN
10 2 (2.41%) Wi-Fi
11 1 (1.20%) SSL
11 1 (1.20%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.82%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.20%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (2.41%) MSI
1 2 (2.41%) Robot Framework
1 2 (2.41%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.20%) JIRA
General
1 12 (14.46%) Social Skills
2 11 (13.25%) Public Sector
3 5 (6.02%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.82%) Local Government
5 3 (3.61%) Finance
6 2 (2.41%) Banking
7 1 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.41%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 27 (32.53%) PKI
2 5 (6.02%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (3.61%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.61%) Onboarding
3 3 (3.61%) Replication
4 2 (2.41%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.20%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 38 (45.78%) Windows
2 27 (32.53%) Windows Server
3 7 (8.43%) Linux
4 6 (7.23%) Mac OS
4 6 (7.23%) Windows 10
5 4 (4.82%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (3.61%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (2.41%) CentOS
7 2 (2.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (2.41%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (32.53%) ITSM
2 19 (22.89%) Service Management
3 15 (18.07%) Load Balancing
4 13 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
5 11 (13.25%) Network Design
6 10 (12.05%) ITIL
7 9 (10.84%) Change Management
8 8 (9.64%) Agile
9 6 (7.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 6 (7.23%) Project Delivery
10 5 (6.02%) Mentoring
10 5 (6.02%) Migration
10 5 (6.02%) Root Cause Analysis
11 4 (4.82%) Business Intelligence
11 4 (4.82%) Customer Service
11 4 (4.82%) Cybersecurity
11 4 (4.82%) Network Virtualisation
11 4 (4.82%) Workflow
11 4 (4.82%) Zero Trust
12 3 (3.61%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 15 (18.07%) PowerShell
2 4 (4.82%) Bash
3 2 (2.41%) PHP
3 2 (2.41%) Python
4 1 (1.20%) SQL
4 1 (1.20%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 62 (74.70%) Security Cleared
2 38 (45.78%) DV Cleared
3 24 (28.92%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (2.41%) Degree
5 2 (2.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (1.20%) A+ Certification
6 1 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.61%) GDPR
1 3 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (2.41%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.20%) SLA
System Software
1 38 (45.78%) Active Directory
2 22 (26.51%) VMware NSX
3 10 (12.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (6.02%) Hyper-V
5 4 (4.82%) Firmware
6 3 (3.61%) Brightmail
6 3 (3.61%) ISA Server
7 2 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (2.41%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (2.41%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 26 (31.33%) vCenter Server
2 16 (19.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (10.84%) SCCM
4 5 (6.02%) Jamf Pro
4 5 (6.02%) SCOM
5 3 (3.61%) AirWatch
5 3 (3.61%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (2.41%) Ansible
6 2 (2.41%) FortiGate
6 2 (2.41%) Terraform
6 2 (2.41%) WMI
7 1 (1.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (1.20%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 35 (42.17%) Juniper
2 28 (33.73%) Cisco
3 22 (26.51%) Microsoft
3 22 (26.51%) SolarWinds
4 16 (19.28%) VMware
5 5 (6.02%) Apple
5 5 (6.02%) Broadcom
6 3 (3.61%) CheckPoint
6 3 (3.61%) HP
6 3 (3.61%) Palo Alto
7 2 (2.41%) Adobe
7 2 (2.41%) Proofpoint
8 1 (1.20%) Canon
8 1 (1.20%) McAfee
8 1 (1.20%) QNAP
8 1 (1.20%) Red Hat
8 1 (1.20%) ServiceNow
8 1 (1.20%) Sophos
8 1 (1.20%) Veeam
8 1 (1.20%) Veritas
99 3rd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide