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 23 June 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 583 470 456
Rank change year-on-year -113 -14 +61
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 54 67 125
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.22% 0.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.12% 0.24% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 56 73
10th Percentile - £195 £253
25th Percentile £225 £298 £298
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £375
Median % change year-on-year +1.17% +25.20% -3.23%
75th Percentile £523 £591 £400
90th Percentile £638 £600 £500
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £550 £350
% change year-on-year -18.18% +57.14% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £24.66 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 46,904 27,610 40,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.14% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,521 17,729 25,983
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.60% -1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,134 1,203 2,979
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.25 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.99% -27.00% -14.77%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.23%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 -127 54 £475 -13.64% 37
UK excluding London -118 34 £450 -18.18% 33
South East -65 23 £475 -17.39% 11
London -70 20 £625 +75.44% 7
Work from Home -51 6 £335 +27.01% 17
South West -28 5 £463 +32.14% 2
Midlands -51 4 £278 -1.07% 9
North of England -77 3 £250 -28.57% 5
North West -46 1 - -
West Midlands -60 1 £210 -25.08% 6
North East - 1 £290 -
Yorkshire - 1 £210 - 5
East Midlands - 1 £220 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 23 June 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 41 (75.93%) Windows
2 38 (70.37%) Security Cleared
3 30 (55.56%) Microsoft
3 30 (55.56%) Windows Server
4 29 (53.70%) Active Directory
5 28 (51.85%) DV Cleared
5 28 (51.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 26 (48.15%) VMware
7 24 (44.44%) VMware Infrastructure
8 20 (37.04%) PowerShell
9 17 (31.48%) vCenter Server
10 15 (27.78%) DNS
11 13 (24.07%) DHCP
12 12 (22.22%) Hyper-V
12 12 (22.22%) Linux
12 12 (22.22%) NetApp
12 12 (22.22%) SCOM
13 11 (20.37%) ITSM
13 11 (20.37%) Microsoft Exchange
13 11 (20.37%) VPN
14 10 (18.52%) Ansible
14 10 (18.52%) BitLocker
14 10 (18.52%) Firewall
15 9 (16.67%) Citrix
15 9 (16.67%) Dell
15 9 (16.67%) Microsoft App-V
15 9 (16.67%) SC Cleared
15 9 (16.67%) SMTP
15 9 (16.67%) vMotion
15 9 (16.67%) VMware ESXi

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 11 (20.37%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.85%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 8 (14.81%) Azure
1 8 (14.81%) IaaS
1 8 (14.81%) PaaS
2 7 (12.96%) AWS
3 4 (7.41%) GCP
4 3 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (5.56%) OpenShift
5 2 (3.70%) Entra ID
6 1 (1.85%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.85%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 15 (27.78%) DNS
2 13 (24.07%) DHCP
3 11 (20.37%) VPN
4 10 (18.52%) Firewall
5 9 (16.67%) SMTP
6 2 (3.70%) DKIM
6 2 (3.70%) TCP/IP
7 1 (1.85%) LAN
7 1 (1.85%) Skype
7 1 (1.85%) VLAN
7 1 (1.85%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (14.81%) Elasticsearch
2 5 (9.26%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (5.56%) Big Data
3 3 (5.56%) Data Mining
4 1 (1.85%) SQL Server
General
1 7 (12.96%) Marketing
2 5 (9.26%) Social Skills
3 4 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (5.56%) Public Sector
5 1 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.85%) Military
5 1 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 18 (33.33%) PKI
2 9 (16.67%) Clustering
3 6 (11.11%) Enterprise Storage
4 4 (7.41%) Data Centre
5 3 (5.56%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (3.70%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.70%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.85%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.85%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.85%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.85%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 41 (75.93%) Windows
2 30 (55.56%) Windows Server
3 12 (22.22%) Linux
4 6 (11.11%) Windows 10
4 6 (11.11%) Windows Server 2003
5 3 (5.56%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (1.85%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.85%) Windows 7
6 1 (1.85%) Windows Server 2008
6 1 (1.85%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (1.85%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (51.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 11 (20.37%) ITSM
3 7 (12.96%) Change Management
3 7 (12.96%) Privileged Access Management
3 7 (12.96%) Problem-Solving
4 6 (11.11%) Incident Management
5 5 (9.26%) Continuous Improvement
5 5 (9.26%) DevOps
6 4 (7.41%) AI
6 4 (7.41%) Service Delivery
7 3 (5.56%) Information Security
7 3 (5.56%) Infrastructure Monitoring
7 3 (5.56%) ITIL
7 3 (5.56%) Machine Learning
7 3 (5.56%) Software Deployment
7 3 (5.56%) Vulnerability Remediation
8 2 (3.70%) Kalman Filter
8 2 (3.70%) Mentoring
8 2 (3.70%) Root Cause Analysis
8 2 (3.70%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 20 (37.04%) PowerShell
2 2 (3.70%) SQL
3 1 (1.85%) Python
3 1 (1.85%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 38 (70.37%) Security Cleared
2 28 (51.85%) DV Cleared
3 9 (16.67%) SC Cleared
4 4 (7.41%) Degree
5 2 (3.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.85%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (1.85%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (53.70%) Active Directory
2 24 (44.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (22.22%) Hyper-V
4 10 (18.52%) BitLocker
5 9 (16.67%) Microsoft App-V
5 9 (16.67%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (14.81%) Docker
7 4 (7.41%) Terminal Services
7 4 (7.41%) vSphere
8 1 (1.85%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (31.48%) vCenter Server
2 12 (22.22%) SCOM
3 10 (18.52%) Ansible
4 9 (16.67%) vMotion
5 8 (14.81%) Avamar
5 8 (14.81%) Kubernetes
5 8 (14.81%) Puppet
5 8 (14.81%) SCCM
6 5 (9.26%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (5.56%) Backup Exec
7 3 (5.56%) Nagios
7 3 (5.56%) SCSM
8 1 (1.85%) WSUS
Vendors
1 30 (55.56%) Microsoft
2 26 (48.15%) VMware
3 12 (22.22%) NetApp
4 9 (16.67%) Citrix
4 9 (16.67%) Dell
5 8 (14.81%) Thales
6 7 (12.96%) HP
7 4 (7.41%) Google
7 4 (7.41%) Symantec
8 3 (5.56%) Juniper
8 3 (5.56%) McAfee
8 3 (5.56%) Trend Micro
8 3 (5.56%) Veeam
9 2 (3.70%) Proofpoint
10 1 (1.85%) Adobe
10 1 (1.85%) BMC
10 1 (1.85%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.85%) Remedy
10 1 (1.85%) Samsung
10 1 (1.85%) ServiceNow