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 25 December 2025.

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

 6 months to
25 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 508 513 446
Rank change year-on-year +5 -67 +136
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 81 41 155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.12% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.13% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 33 76
10th Percentile £368 £267 £256
25th Percentile £413 £363 £284
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £400 £328
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +22.14% -18.13%
75th Percentile - £450 £394
90th Percentile £541 £533 £481
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £375 £325
% change year-on-year +33.33% +15.38% -18.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 0
10th Percentile - £21.84 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.72 -
Median hourly rate £30.00 £24.18 -
Median % change year-on-year +24.07% - -
75th Percentile £60.32 £42.09 -
90th Percentile £77.90 £52.84 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £89.63 £23.34 -
% change year-on-year +284.02% - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,803 31,437 40,517
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.09% 92.75% 93.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,362 19,311 27,163
10th Percentile £294 £300 £283
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,992 980 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.86
25th Percentile £18.19 £21.03 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.20 £33.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.64% -26.67% +45.77%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.62% +84.72%

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 25 December 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 25 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for 3rd Line Engineer 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 25 December 2025. 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 +6 80 £500 +29.03% 72
UK excluding London -8 63 £500 +33.33% 73
South East +5 38 £500 +25.00% 23
Midlands -25 18 £400 +25.98% 6
West Midlands -18 17 £400 +25.98% 3
London -1 16 £450 +7.14% 13
Work from Home -5 7 £275 -31.68% 26
South West -17 3 £338 -10.00% 5
East of England -20 2 £350 - 9
Scotland +4 1 - - 1
North West -31 1 - - 3
North of England -54 1 - - 22
East Midlands - 1 £275 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 25 December 2025, 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 64 (79.01%) Security Cleared
2 41 (50.62%) DV Cleared
3 37 (45.68%) Windows
4 35 (43.21%) Active Directory
4 35 (43.21%) Juniper
5 30 (37.04%) ITSM
5 30 (37.04%) vCenter Server
6 29 (35.80%) Windows Server
7 27 (33.33%) Cisco
7 27 (33.33%) Junos
8 23 (28.40%) SC Cleared
8 23 (28.40%) VPN
9 22 (27.16%) SolarWinds
9 22 (27.16%) VMware NSX
10 21 (25.93%) Cisco Firepower
10 21 (25.93%) Cisco IOS
10 21 (25.93%) Cisco ISE
11 20 (24.69%) Service Management
11 20 (24.69%) VMware
12 17 (20.99%) PowerShell
12 17 (20.99%) WAN
13 16 (19.75%) Firewall
13 16 (19.75%) Microsoft
13 16 (19.75%) Problem-Solving
14 15 (18.52%) Azure
14 15 (18.52%) DNS
14 15 (18.52%) Load Balancing
15 14 (17.28%) BGP
15 14 (17.28%) IPsec
15 14 (17.28%) MPLS

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 (13.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (6.17%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.47%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (1.23%) Exchange Server 2003
4 1 (1.23%) Exchange Server 2007
4 1 (1.23%) Exchange Server 2010
4 1 (1.23%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (1.23%) Office Communications Server
4 1 (1.23%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.23%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 15 (18.52%) Azure
2 13 (16.05%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (9.88%) Entra ID
4 4 (4.94%) AWS
5 2 (2.47%) IaaS
5 2 (2.47%) Microsoft Purview
5 2 (2.47%) PaaS
5 2 (2.47%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.23%) GCP
6 1 (1.23%) Nutanix
6 1 (1.23%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.23%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (33.33%) Junos
2 23 (28.40%) VPN
3 21 (25.93%) Cisco Firepower
3 21 (25.93%) Cisco IOS
3 21 (25.93%) Cisco ISE
4 17 (20.99%) WAN
5 16 (19.75%) Firewall
6 15 (18.52%) DNS
7 14 (17.28%) BGP
7 14 (17.28%) IPsec
7 14 (17.28%) MPLS
8 9 (11.11%) DHCP
9 5 (6.17%) NX-OS
10 4 (4.94%) TCP/IP
11 3 (3.70%) SAN
12 2 (2.47%) SMTP
12 2 (2.47%) VLAN
12 2 (2.47%) Wi-Fi
13 1 (1.23%) Network Security
13 1 (1.23%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.94%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.47%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (1.23%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.23%) JIRA
General
1 13 (16.05%) Social Skills
2 12 (14.81%) Public Sector
3 8 (9.88%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.94%) Local Government
5 1 (1.23%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.23%) Finance
5 1 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.23%) Law
5 1 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.47%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 27 (33.33%) PKI
2 5 (6.17%) Self-Motivation
3 4 (4.94%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.47%) Clustering
4 2 (2.47%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.47%) Enterprise Storage
4 2 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (2.47%) Onboarding
4 2 (2.47%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.23%) Replication
5 1 (1.23%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 37 (45.68%) Windows
2 29 (35.80%) Windows Server
3 9 (11.11%) Linux
4 7 (8.64%) Windows 10
5 4 (4.94%) Mac OS
6 3 (3.70%) Windows Server 2003
7 2 (2.47%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (2.47%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (37.04%) ITSM
2 20 (24.69%) Service Management
3 16 (19.75%) Problem-Solving
4 15 (18.52%) Load Balancing
5 11 (13.58%) Change Management
5 11 (13.58%) ITIL
5 11 (13.58%) Network Design
6 9 (11.11%) Agile
7 8 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 6 (7.41%) Project Delivery
9 5 (6.17%) Creative Thinking
9 5 (6.17%) Mentoring
9 5 (6.17%) Migration
9 5 (6.17%) Root Cause Analysis
9 5 (6.17%) Zero Trust
10 4 (4.94%) Customer Service
10 4 (4.94%) Network Virtualisation
10 4 (4.94%) Platform Engineering
11 3 (3.70%) Change Control
12 2 (2.47%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 17 (20.99%) PowerShell
2 2 (2.47%) Bash
3 1 (1.23%) SQL
3 1 (1.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 64 (79.01%) Security Cleared
2 41 (50.62%) DV Cleared
3 23 (28.40%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.70%) Degree
4 3 (3.70%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (2.47%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (1.23%) A+ Certification
6 1 (1.23%) CCNA
6 1 (1.23%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.70%) Cyber Essentials
1 3 (3.70%) GDPR
1 3 (3.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.23%) SLA
System Software
1 35 (43.21%) Active Directory
2 22 (27.16%) VMware NSX
3 11 (13.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (9.88%) Hyper-V
5 4 (4.94%) Firmware
6 3 (3.70%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (2.47%) BitLocker
7 2 (2.47%) Docker
7 2 (2.47%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (2.47%) vSphere
8 1 (1.23%) Brightmail
8 1 (1.23%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 30 (37.04%) vCenter Server
2 12 (14.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (12.35%) SCCM
4 7 (8.64%) SCOM
5 3 (3.70%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (2.47%) Ansible
6 2 (2.47%) FortiGate
6 2 (2.47%) Kubernetes
6 2 (2.47%) Puppet
6 2 (2.47%) vMotion
7 1 (1.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (1.23%) AirWatch
7 1 (1.23%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 35 (43.21%) Juniper
2 27 (33.33%) Cisco
3 22 (27.16%) SolarWinds
4 20 (24.69%) VMware
5 16 (19.75%) Microsoft
6 5 (6.17%) Broadcom
7 4 (4.94%) Palo Alto
8 3 (3.70%) Apple
8 3 (3.70%) CheckPoint
8 3 (3.70%) HP
8 3 (3.70%) NetApp
9 2 (2.47%) Citrix
9 2 (2.47%) Proofpoint
9 2 (2.47%) ServiceNow
10 1 (1.23%) Barracuda Networks
10 1 (1.23%) ConnectWise
10 1 (1.23%) QNAP
10 1 (1.23%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.23%) Veeam
10 1 (1.23%) Veritas
81 3rd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide