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 20 July 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 595 475 471
Rank change year-on-year -120 -4 +32
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 66 75 119
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.13% 0.23% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.14% 0.25% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 59 71
10th Percentile £225 £198 £263
25th Percentile £275 £328 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £375
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +40.00% -3.23%
75th Percentile £523 £594 £431
90th Percentile £571 £600 £500
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £559 £358
% change year-on-year -15.06% +56.43% +2.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 1
Median hourly rate - £57.15 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year - +136.33% -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £89.63 £24.18
% change year-on-year - +270.68% -

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 48,848 30,065 38,836
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.66% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,490 19,139 25,111
10th Percentile £325 £285 £291
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £737 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,297 1,430 2,509
10th Percentile £15.79 £13.75 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £17.80
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +78.93% -38.57% +3.51%

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 20 July 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 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 20 July 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 -106 66 £475 -13.64% 32
UK excluding London -118 50 £475 -15.06% 32
South East -65 35 £475 -19.15% 15
London -72 16 £625 +63.40% 6
Midlands -42 8 £300 -20.00% 2
Work from Home -53 7 £335 +11.67% 5
South West -32 5 £463 +32.14%
East Midlands - 5 £300 - 1
North of England -79 3 £250 -28.57% 8
North West -54 1 - - 6
West Midlands -67 1 £210 -43.96% 1
North East - 1 £290 - 1
Yorkshire - 1 £210 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 20 July 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 49 (74.24%) Windows
2 44 (66.67%) Security Cleared
3 39 (59.09%) Windows Server
4 37 (56.06%) Microsoft
5 36 (54.55%) Active Directory
6 35 (53.03%) DV Cleared
7 33 (50.00%) VMware
8 32 (48.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 31 (46.97%) VMware Infrastructure
10 20 (30.30%) vCenter Server
11 19 (28.79%) PowerShell
12 18 (27.27%) DNS
13 16 (24.24%) ITSM
13 16 (24.24%) SCOM
14 15 (22.73%) Microsoft Exchange
15 14 (21.21%) Hyper-V
16 13 (19.70%) Dell
17 12 (18.18%) Avamar
17 12 (18.18%) DHCP
17 12 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
17 12 (18.18%) Thales
18 11 (16.67%) Azure
19 10 (15.15%) Change Management
19 10 (15.15%) Firewall
19 10 (15.15%) Linux
19 10 (15.15%) NetApp
20 9 (13.64%) Ansible
20 9 (13.64%) BitLocker
20 9 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
20 9 (13.64%) Microsoft Intune

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 (22.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (10.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 11 (16.67%) Azure
2 8 (12.12%) Entra ID
3 7 (10.61%) AWS
3 7 (10.61%) IaaS
3 7 (10.61%) PaaS
4 6 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (6.06%) GCP
6 3 (4.55%) OpenShift
7 2 (3.03%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (1.52%) Mimecast
8 1 (1.52%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 18 (27.27%) DNS
2 12 (18.18%) DHCP
3 10 (15.15%) Firewall
4 9 (13.64%) VPN
5 8 (12.12%) SMTP
6 3 (4.55%) TCP/IP
7 2 (3.03%) DKIM
7 2 (3.03%) Skype
8 1 (1.52%) LAN
8 1 (1.52%) VLAN
8 1 (1.52%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (10.61%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (7.58%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (4.55%) Big Data
3 3 (4.55%) Data Mining
3 3 (4.55%) SQL Server
4 2 (3.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (3.03%) Git
General
1 12 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 7 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (10.61%) Marketing
3 2 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (3.03%) Military
3 2 (3.03%) Public Sector
4 1 (1.52%) Advertising
4 1 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 20 (30.30%) PKI
2 9 (13.64%) Clustering
3 5 (7.58%) Enterprise Storage
4 4 (6.06%) Data Centre
5 3 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.52%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.52%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.52%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.52%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 49 (74.24%) Windows
2 39 (59.09%) Windows Server
3 10 (15.15%) Linux
4 7 (10.61%) Windows Server 2019
5 6 (9.09%) Windows 10
6 5 (7.58%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (3.03%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (1.52%) Mac OS
8 1 (1.52%) Windows 7
8 1 (1.52%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (1.52%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (48.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 16 (24.24%) ITSM
3 12 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
4 10 (15.15%) Change Management
5 9 (13.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 7 (10.61%) Privileged Access Management
7 6 (9.09%) AI
7 6 (9.09%) Coaching
8 5 (7.58%) DevOps
8 5 (7.58%) Incident Management
9 4 (6.06%) Service Delivery
10 3 (4.55%) Collaborative Working
10 3 (4.55%) Information Security
10 3 (4.55%) Infrastructure Monitoring
10 3 (4.55%) ITIL
10 3 (4.55%) Machine Learning
10 3 (4.55%) Software Deployment
10 3 (4.55%) Vulnerability Remediation
11 2 (3.03%) Customer Service
11 2 (3.03%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 19 (28.79%) PowerShell
2 6 (9.09%) SQL
3 1 (1.52%) Python
3 1 (1.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 44 (66.67%) Security Cleared
2 35 (53.03%) DV Cleared
3 9 (13.64%) SC Cleared
4 4 (6.06%) Degree
5 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.52%) SLA
System Software
1 36 (54.55%) Active Directory
2 31 (46.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (21.21%) Hyper-V
4 9 (13.64%) BitLocker
5 8 (12.12%) Microsoft App-V
5 8 (12.12%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (10.61%) Docker
7 5 (7.58%) vSphere
8 4 (6.06%) Terminal Services
9 1 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (30.30%) vCenter Server
2 16 (24.24%) SCOM
3 12 (18.18%) Avamar
4 9 (13.64%) Ansible
4 9 (13.64%) Microsoft Intune
5 8 (12.12%) SCCM
5 8 (12.12%) vMotion
6 7 (10.61%) Kubernetes
6 7 (10.61%) Puppet
7 3 (4.55%) Backup Exec
7 3 (4.55%) Nagios
7 3 (4.55%) SCSM
8 1 (1.52%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (1.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 37 (56.06%) Microsoft
2 33 (50.00%) VMware
3 13 (19.70%) Dell
4 12 (18.18%) Thales
5 10 (15.15%) NetApp
6 8 (12.12%) Citrix
7 7 (10.61%) HP
7 7 (10.61%) Juniper
8 4 (6.06%) Google
8 4 (6.06%) Symantec
9 3 (4.55%) McAfee
9 3 (4.55%) ServiceNow
9 3 (4.55%) Trend Micro
9 3 (4.55%) Veeam
10 2 (3.03%) Proofpoint
11 1 (1.52%) Adobe
11 1 (1.52%) BMC
11 1 (1.52%) Cisco
11 1 (1.52%) Red Hat
11 1 (1.52%) Remedy