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 10 September 2026.

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

 6 months to
10 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 594 469 478
Rank change year-on-year -125 +9 -19
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 78 81 85
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.14% 0.25% 0.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.15% 0.27% 0.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 65 51
10th Percentile £225 £270 £255
25th Percentile £275 £385 £342
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £385
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +29.87% +9.14%
75th Percentile £513 £588 £450
90th Percentile £566 £600 £538
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £500 £375
% change year-on-year -15.00% +33.33% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 2
10th Percentile - - £27.76
25th Percentile - £29.00 £33.14
Median hourly rate - £30.00 £42.09
Median % change year-on-year - -28.72% -
75th Percentile - £60.32 £51.05
90th Percentile - £77.90 £56.42
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 50,324 30,039 35,625
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,923 18,938 22,148
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,732 1,556 1,742
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.67 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 10 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 10 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 -116 77 £475 -5.00% 35
UK excluding London -118 62 £425 -15.00% 33
South East -64 36 £475 -17.39% 15
London -76 16 £625 +51.52% 8
North of England -63 11 £318 - 2
Midlands -60 9 £300 -25.00% 6
North West -51 7 £363 - 1
Work from Home -75 6 £318 +15.45% 15
East Midlands - 4 £300 -
East of England -26 3 £223 -36.29% 8
South West -42 3 £425 +9.68% 2
West Midlands -55 3 £250 -37.50% 6
North East - 3 £290 - 1
Yorkshire - 2 £305 -
Scotland -40 1 £413 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 10 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 59 (75.64%) Windows
2 51 (65.38%) Windows Server
3 48 (61.54%) Security Cleared
4 46 (58.97%) Microsoft
5 45 (57.69%) Active Directory
6 39 (50.00%) VMware
7 35 (44.87%) DV Cleared
7 35 (44.87%) VMware Infrastructure
8 27 (34.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 20 (25.64%) DNS
9 20 (25.64%) vCenter Server
10 18 (23.08%) Hyper-V
10 18 (23.08%) ITSM
10 18 (23.08%) Microsoft Exchange
11 17 (21.79%) PowerShell
11 17 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
11 17 (21.79%) SCOM
12 16 (20.51%) Azure
13 15 (19.23%) Dell
14 14 (17.95%) Microsoft 365
15 13 (16.67%) Avamar
15 13 (16.67%) Entra ID
15 13 (16.67%) SC Cleared
15 13 (16.67%) Thales
16 12 (15.38%) Change Management
16 12 (15.38%) DHCP
17 11 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
18 10 (12.82%) Citrix
18 10 (12.82%) Firewall
18 10 (12.82%) 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 18 (23.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (11.54%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.56%) Confluence
4 1 (1.28%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.28%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 16 (20.51%) Azure
2 14 (17.95%) Microsoft 365
3 13 (16.67%) Entra ID
4 6 (7.69%) AWS
4 6 (7.69%) IaaS
4 6 (7.69%) PaaS
5 4 (5.13%) GCP
6 3 (3.85%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.85%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.56%) Azure Data Factory
7 2 (2.56%) OneDrive
8 1 (1.28%) Azure AI
8 1 (1.28%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
8 1 (1.28%) Mimecast
8 1 (1.28%) Power Automate
8 1 (1.28%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.28%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (25.64%) DNS
2 12 (15.38%) DHCP
3 10 (12.82%) Firewall
4 8 (10.26%) VPN
5 7 (8.97%) SMTP
6 3 (3.85%) TCP/IP
6 3 (3.85%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (2.56%) NetScaler
7 2 (2.56%) Skype
8 1 (1.28%) DKIM
8 1 (1.28%) LAN
8 1 (1.28%) VoIP
8 1 (1.28%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.41%) Amazon RDS
1 5 (6.41%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (5.13%) SQL Server
3 3 (3.85%) Big Data
4 2 (2.56%) Data Mining
4 2 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (2.56%) Git
1 2 (2.56%) JIRA
General
1 18 (23.08%) Social Skills
2 11 (14.10%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (8.97%) Marketing
4 4 (5.13%) Legal
5 3 (3.85%) Manufacturing
5 3 (3.85%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.56%) Advertising
6 2 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.56%) Military
7 1 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 19 (24.36%) PKI
2 8 (10.26%) Clustering
3 6 (7.69%) Data Centre
4 4 (5.13%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.56%) NHS
5 2 (2.56%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.28%) Driving Licence
6 1 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.28%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.28%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.28%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 59 (75.64%) Windows
2 51 (65.38%) Windows Server
3 9 (11.54%) Windows Server 2019
4 8 (10.26%) Linux
4 8 (10.26%) Windows 10
5 3 (3.85%) Windows Server 2003
6 2 (2.56%) Windows 7
6 2 (2.56%) Windows Server 2008
6 2 (2.56%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (2.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (34.62%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 18 (23.08%) ITSM
3 17 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (15.38%) Change Management
5 11 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 9 (11.54%) ITIL
7 8 (10.26%) Coaching
8 7 (8.97%) Privileged Access Management
9 5 (6.41%) AI
9 5 (6.41%) Customer Service
9 5 (6.41%) Incident Management
9 5 (6.41%) Vulnerability Remediation
10 4 (5.13%) DevOps
10 4 (5.13%) Infrastructure Monitoring
10 4 (5.13%) Service Delivery
11 3 (3.85%) Cybersecurity
11 3 (3.85%) Identity Access Management
11 3 (3.85%) Machine Learning
11 3 (3.85%) Project Delivery
11 3 (3.85%) Software Deployment
Programming Languages
1 17 (21.79%) PowerShell
2 6 (7.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 48 (61.54%) Security Cleared
2 35 (44.87%) DV Cleared
3 13 (16.67%) SC Cleared
4 6 (7.69%) Degree
5 3 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.28%) CCNA
6 1 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.28%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.56%) SLA
2 1 (1.28%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.28%) GxP
2 1 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.28%) NCSC
System Software
1 45 (57.69%) Active Directory
2 35 (44.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (23.08%) Hyper-V
4 7 (8.97%) BitLocker
4 7 (8.97%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (7.69%) Microsoft App-V
6 5 (6.41%) Docker
7 4 (5.13%) Terminal Services
7 4 (5.13%) vSphere
8 2 (2.56%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 20 (25.64%) vCenter Server
2 17 (21.79%) SCOM
3 13 (16.67%) Avamar
4 10 (12.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 6 (7.69%) Ansible
5 6 (7.69%) SCCM
5 6 (7.69%) vMotion
6 5 (6.41%) Kubernetes
6 5 (6.41%) Puppet
7 3 (3.85%) Backup Exec
7 3 (3.85%) Nagios
8 2 (2.56%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (2.56%) SCSM
8 2 (2.56%) SysTrack
9 1 (1.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 46 (58.97%) Microsoft
2 39 (50.00%) VMware
3 15 (19.23%) Dell
4 13 (16.67%) Thales
5 10 (12.82%) Citrix
6 9 (11.54%) Juniper
7 7 (8.97%) HP
8 6 (7.69%) NetApp
8 6 (7.69%) ServiceNow
9 4 (5.13%) Google
9 4 (5.13%) Symantec
10 3 (3.85%) Cisco
10 3 (3.85%) McAfee
10 3 (3.85%) Veeam
11 2 (2.56%) Nexthink
11 2 (2.56%) Proofpoint
11 2 (2.56%) Trend Micro
12 1 (1.28%) Okta
12 1 (1.28%) Palo Alto
12 1 (1.28%) Samsung
37 3rd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide