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 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 573 471 450
Rank change year-on-year -102 -21 +69
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 57 55 129
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.12% 0.19% 0.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.13% 0.20% 0.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 44 78
10th Percentile £225 £219 £250
25th Percentile £275 £335 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £433 £350
Median % change year-on-year +15.29% +23.79% -11.11%
75th Percentile £530 £588 £388
90th Percentile £638 £600 £479
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £538 £333
% change year-on-year -11.63% +61.65% -11.33%
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 44,544 26,886 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,258 17,494 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.88% -34.16% -5.88%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -96 57 £500 +5.71% 31
UK excluding London -108 37 £475 -11.63% 29
South East -51 25 £500 -13.04% 14
London -50 20 £625 +66.67% 5
Work from Home -54 6 £335 -8.22% 14
Midlands -57 5 £275 -3.85% 3
South West - 4 £500 - 2
North of England -74 2 £290 -17.14% 3
East Midlands - 2 £248 - 1
East of England -26 1 - - 5
North West -43 1 - - 1
West Midlands -61 1 £210 -26.52% 2
North East - 1 £290 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 21 May 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 42 (73.68%) Security Cleared
2 40 (70.18%) Windows
3 31 (54.39%) DV Cleared
4 30 (52.63%) Windows Server
5 29 (50.88%) Active Directory
6 28 (49.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 28 (49.12%) VMware
7 25 (43.86%) Microsoft
8 23 (40.35%) VMware Infrastructure
9 21 (36.84%) PowerShell
10 17 (29.82%) vCenter Server
11 16 (28.07%) DNS
12 15 (26.32%) Linux
12 15 (26.32%) NetApp
13 12 (21.05%) DHCP
13 12 (21.05%) ITSM
13 12 (21.05%) SCOM
14 11 (19.30%) Problem-Solving
14 11 (19.30%) SCCM
14 11 (19.30%) VPN
15 10 (17.54%) Firewall
15 10 (17.54%) Hyper-V
15 10 (17.54%) SC Cleared
16 9 (15.79%) Ansible
16 9 (15.79%) BitLocker
17 8 (14.04%) Azure
17 8 (14.04%) Change Management
17 8 (14.04%) Citrix
17 8 (14.04%) Incident Management
17 8 (14.04%) Microsoft App-V

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 7 (12.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (3.51%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 8 (14.04%) Azure
2 7 (12.28%) IaaS
2 7 (12.28%) PaaS
3 4 (7.02%) AWS
3 4 (7.02%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (3.51%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.75%) GCP
5 1 (1.75%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.75%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 16 (28.07%) DNS
2 12 (21.05%) DHCP
3 11 (19.30%) VPN
4 10 (17.54%) Firewall
5 8 (14.04%) SMTP
6 2 (3.51%) DKIM
6 2 (3.51%) VLAN
7 1 (1.75%) Cisco Firepower
7 1 (1.75%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (1.75%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (1.75%) Junos
7 1 (1.75%) LAN
7 1 (1.75%) Network Security
7 1 (1.75%) NX-OS
7 1 (1.75%) TCP/IP
7 1 (1.75%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (12.28%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (5.26%) Data Mining
3 1 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (1.75%) SQL Server
General
1 7 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (10.53%) Marketing
2 6 (10.53%) Public Sector
3 5 (8.77%) Social Skills
4 2 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.75%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.75%) Law
5 1 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 18 (31.58%) PKI
2 8 (14.04%) Clustering
2 8 (14.04%) Enterprise Storage
3 3 (5.26%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (3.51%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (3.51%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (3.51%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (3.51%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.75%) Data Centre
5 1 (1.75%) Enterprise Cloud
5 1 (1.75%) Security Posture
5 1 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.75%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 40 (70.18%) Windows
2 30 (52.63%) Windows Server
3 15 (26.32%) Linux
4 7 (12.28%) Windows Server 2003
5 6 (10.53%) Windows 10
6 3 (5.26%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (1.75%) Mac OS
7 1 (1.75%) Windows 7
7 1 (1.75%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (1.75%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (49.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 12 (21.05%) ITSM
3 11 (19.30%) Problem-Solving
4 8 (14.04%) Change Management
4 8 (14.04%) Incident Management
5 7 (12.28%) Agile
6 6 (10.53%) ITIL
6 6 (10.53%) Privileged Access Management
7 4 (7.02%) Continuous Improvement
7 4 (7.02%) Platform Engineering
7 4 (7.02%) Service Delivery
8 3 (5.26%) Creative Thinking
8 3 (5.26%) Information Security
8 3 (5.26%) Infrastructure Monitoring
8 3 (5.26%) Migration
8 3 (5.26%) Service Management
8 3 (5.26%) Vulnerability Remediation
9 2 (3.51%) DevOps
9 2 (3.51%) Mentoring
9 2 (3.51%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 21 (36.84%) PowerShell
2 2 (3.51%) SQL
3 1 (1.75%) Python
3 1 (1.75%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 42 (73.68%) Security Cleared
2 31 (54.39%) DV Cleared
3 10 (17.54%) SC Cleared
4 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (3.51%) Degree
6 1 (1.75%) CCNA
6 1 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.75%) MCSE
6 1 (1.75%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.51%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 29 (50.88%) Active Directory
2 23 (40.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (17.54%) Hyper-V
4 9 (15.79%) BitLocker
5 8 (14.04%) Microsoft App-V
5 8 (14.04%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (12.28%) Docker
7 3 (5.26%) vSphere
8 1 (1.75%) Firmware
8 1 (1.75%) Terminal Services
8 1 (1.75%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 17 (29.82%) vCenter Server
2 12 (21.05%) SCOM
3 11 (19.30%) SCCM
4 9 (15.79%) Ansible
5 8 (14.04%) vMotion
6 7 (12.28%) Kubernetes
6 7 (12.28%) Puppet
7 5 (8.77%) Avamar
8 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (5.26%) Backup Exec
9 3 (5.26%) SCSM
10 1 (1.75%) WSUS
Vendors
1 28 (49.12%) VMware
2 25 (43.86%) Microsoft
3 15 (26.32%) NetApp
4 8 (14.04%) Citrix
5 6 (10.53%) Dell
6 5 (8.77%) Thales
7 4 (7.02%) HP
8 3 (5.26%) Juniper
8 3 (5.26%) McAfee
8 3 (5.26%) Trend Micro
8 3 (5.26%) Veeam
9 2 (3.51%) Cisco
9 2 (3.51%) Proofpoint
10 1 (1.75%) Barracuda Networks
10 1 (1.75%) Broadcom
10 1 (1.75%) Google
10 1 (1.75%) Palo Alto
10 1 (1.75%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.75%) ServiceNow
10 1 (1.75%) Symantec