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 13 August 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 586 483 463
Rank change year-on-year -103 -20 +4
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 74 72 105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.22% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.15% 0.24% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 56 64
10th Percentile £225 £246 £263
25th Percentile £271 £345 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £513 £375
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% +36.67% -1.32%
75th Percentile £521 £588 £439
90th Percentile £573 £600 £509
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £550 £375
% change year-on-year -13.64% +46.67% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 1
Median hourly rate - £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year - +24.07% -
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 49,387 30,089 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.36% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,655 19,063 23,293
10th Percentile £328 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,474 1,522 2,032
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.18
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.26 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.31 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.21% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.11 £45.00
% change year-on-year +73.66% -44.20% +25.00%

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 13 August 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 14 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 13 August 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 -87 74 £475 -13.64% 31
UK excluding London -98 59 £475 -13.64% 30
South East -55 37 £475 -17.39% 14
London -81 15 £625 +58.23% 5
Midlands -52 10 £300 -25.00% 4
Work from Home -56 8 £300 +4.35% 8
North of England -61 6 £290 -17.14% 6
East Midlands - 5 £300 - 1
South West -35 4 £425 +21.43%
North West -46 3 £448 +27.86% 3
West Midlands -49 3 £250 -37.50% 3
East of England - 3 £223 - 6
North East - 2 £258 - 3
Yorkshire - 2 £305 -

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

For the 6 months to 13 August 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 56 (75.68%) Windows
2 47 (63.51%) Security Cleared
2 47 (63.51%) Windows Server
3 44 (59.46%) Microsoft
4 42 (56.76%) Active Directory
5 37 (50.00%) DV Cleared
5 37 (50.00%) VMware
6 33 (44.59%) VMware Infrastructure
7 30 (40.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 21 (28.38%) DNS
8 21 (28.38%) vCenter Server
9 20 (27.03%) PowerShell
10 18 (24.32%) ITSM
10 18 (24.32%) SCOM
11 16 (21.62%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (20.27%) Dell
12 15 (20.27%) Hyper-V
12 15 (20.27%) Problem-Solving
13 13 (17.57%) Avamar
13 13 (17.57%) Azure
13 13 (17.57%) DHCP
13 13 (17.57%) Thales
14 12 (16.22%) Change Management
14 12 (16.22%) Entra ID
15 10 (13.51%) Continuous Improvement
15 10 (13.51%) Firewall
15 10 (13.51%) Linux
15 10 (13.51%) Microsoft 365
15 10 (13.51%) Microsoft Intune
15 10 (13.51%) SC Cleared

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 (21.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (10.81%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.70%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (4.05%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.35%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 13 (17.57%) Azure
2 12 (16.22%) Entra ID
3 10 (13.51%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (9.46%) AWS
5 6 (8.11%) IaaS
5 6 (8.11%) PaaS
6 4 (5.41%) GCP
7 3 (4.05%) OpenShift
8 2 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
8 2 (2.70%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.35%) Mimecast
9 1 (1.35%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 21 (28.38%) DNS
2 13 (17.57%) DHCP
3 10 (13.51%) Firewall
4 9 (12.16%) VPN
5 8 (10.81%) SMTP
6 2 (2.70%) Skype
6 2 (2.70%) TCP/IP
6 2 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (1.35%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.11%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (6.76%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (4.05%) Big Data
3 3 (4.05%) Data Mining
3 3 (4.05%) SQL Server
4 2 (2.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (2.70%) Git
1 2 (2.70%) JIRA
General
1 16 (21.62%) Social Skills
2 9 (12.16%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (9.46%) Marketing
4 3 (4.05%) Manufacturing
5 2 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.70%) Military
5 2 (2.70%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.35%) Advertising
6 1 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 20 (27.03%) PKI
2 9 (12.16%) Clustering
3 5 (6.76%) Data Centre
4 4 (5.41%) Enterprise Storage
5 3 (4.05%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (2.70%) NHS
6 2 (2.70%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.35%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.35%) Replication
7 1 (1.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 56 (75.68%) Windows
2 47 (63.51%) Windows Server
3 10 (13.51%) Linux
4 9 (12.16%) Windows Server 2019
5 6 (8.11%) Windows 10
6 4 (5.41%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (2.70%) Windows 7
7 2 (2.70%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (2.70%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (2.70%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (1.35%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (40.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 18 (24.32%) ITSM
3 15 (20.27%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (16.22%) Change Management
5 10 (13.51%) Continuous Improvement
6 8 (10.81%) Coaching
7 7 (9.46%) Privileged Access Management
8 6 (8.11%) Customer Service
9 5 (6.76%) AI
9 5 (6.76%) DevOps
9 5 (6.76%) Incident Management
9 5 (6.76%) ITIL
9 5 (6.76%) Service Delivery
9 5 (6.76%) Vulnerability Remediation
10 4 (5.41%) Cybersecurity
10 4 (5.41%) Infrastructure Monitoring
11 3 (4.05%) Asset Management
11 3 (4.05%) Collaborative Working
11 3 (4.05%) Information Security
11 3 (4.05%) Server Management
Programming Languages
1 20 (27.03%) PowerShell
2 6 (8.11%) SQL
3 1 (1.35%) Python
Qualifications
1 47 (63.51%) Security Cleared
2 37 (50.00%) DV Cleared
3 10 (13.51%) SC Cleared
4 5 (6.76%) Degree
5 3 (4.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.35%) CCNA
6 1 (1.35%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.35%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.35%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (1.35%) GxP
1 1 (1.35%) NCSC
1 1 (1.35%) SLA
System Software
1 42 (56.76%) Active Directory
2 33 (44.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (20.27%) Hyper-V
4 8 (10.81%) BitLocker
4 8 (10.81%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (9.46%) Microsoft App-V
6 6 (8.11%) Docker
7 5 (6.76%) vSphere
8 4 (5.41%) Terminal Services
9 1 (1.35%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 21 (28.38%) vCenter Server
2 18 (24.32%) SCOM
3 13 (17.57%) Avamar
4 10 (13.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 8 (10.81%) Ansible
6 7 (9.46%) SCCM
6 7 (9.46%) vMotion
7 6 (8.11%) Kubernetes
7 6 (8.11%) Puppet
8 3 (4.05%) Backup Exec
8 3 (4.05%) Nagios
8 3 (4.05%) SCSM
9 2 (2.70%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (2.70%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (1.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 44 (59.46%) Microsoft
2 37 (50.00%) VMware
3 15 (20.27%) Dell
4 13 (17.57%) Thales
5 9 (12.16%) Citrix
5 9 (12.16%) Juniper
6 8 (10.81%) NetApp
7 7 (9.46%) HP
8 5 (6.76%) ServiceNow
9 4 (5.41%) Google
9 4 (5.41%) Symantec
9 4 (5.41%) Veeam
10 3 (4.05%) McAfee
10 3 (4.05%) Trend Micro
11 2 (2.70%) Cisco
11 2 (2.70%) Proofpoint
12 1 (1.35%) Adobe
12 1 (1.35%) Barracuda Networks
12 1 (1.35%) BMC
12 1 (1.35%) Clearswift