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 December 2025.

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

 6 months to
21 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 507 493 450
Rank change year-on-year -14 -43 +124
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 79 42 155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.12% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.13% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 34 76
10th Percentile £363 £272 £256
25th Percentile £413 £363 £284
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £400 £325
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +23.08% -13.33%
75th Percentile - £448 £394
90th Percentile £538 £531 £481
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £375 £325
% change year-on-year +33.33% +15.38% -13.33%
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 33,430 31,506 40,926
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.01% 92.78% 93.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,135 19,373 27,542
10th Percentile £291 £300 £285
25th Percentile £404 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £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 1,981 981 1,444
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.53 £15.04
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.05 £19.11
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -26.67% +50.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.71 £72.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +83.52%

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 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 21 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 21 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 +12 78 £500 +25.00% 79
UK excluding London +6 61 £500 +33.33% 81
South East +16 36 £500 +25.00% 29
Midlands -20 18 £400 +25.98% 5
West Midlands -15 17 £400 +25.98% 2
London -2 16 £450 +7.14% 11
Work from Home -13 8 £350 -13.04% 25
South West -17 3 £338 -10.00% 6
East of England -20 2 £350 - 9
Scotland +4 1 - - 1
North West -30 1 - - 3
North of England -40 1 - - 24
East Midlands - 1 £275 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 62 (78.48%) Security Cleared
2 38 (48.10%) DV Cleared
3 35 (44.30%) Juniper
3 35 (44.30%) Windows
4 33 (41.77%) Active Directory
5 29 (36.71%) ITSM
6 28 (35.44%) vCenter Server
7 27 (34.18%) Cisco
7 27 (34.18%) Junos
7 27 (34.18%) Windows Server
8 24 (30.38%) SC Cleared
9 22 (27.85%) SolarWinds
9 22 (27.85%) VMware NSX
9 22 (27.85%) VPN
10 21 (26.58%) Cisco Firepower
10 21 (26.58%) Cisco IOS
10 21 (26.58%) Cisco ISE
11 20 (25.32%) Service Management
12 17 (21.52%) VMware
12 17 (21.52%) WAN
13 15 (18.99%) Azure
13 15 (18.99%) Firewall
13 15 (18.99%) Load Balancing
13 15 (18.99%) Microsoft
13 15 (18.99%) PowerShell
13 15 (18.99%) Problem-Solving
14 14 (17.72%) BGP
14 14 (17.72%) IPsec
14 14 (17.72%) MPLS
15 13 (16.46%) DNS

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 (13.92%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (6.33%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.53%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2003
4 1 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2007
4 1 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2010
4 1 (1.27%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (1.27%) Office Communications Server
4 1 (1.27%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.27%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 15 (18.99%) Azure
2 13 (16.46%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (10.13%) Entra ID
4 4 (5.06%) AWS
5 2 (2.53%) Microsoft Purview
5 2 (2.53%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.27%) GCP
6 1 (1.27%) IaaS
6 1 (1.27%) Nutanix
6 1 (1.27%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.27%) PaaS
6 1 (1.27%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (34.18%) Junos
2 22 (27.85%) VPN
3 21 (26.58%) Cisco Firepower
3 21 (26.58%) Cisco IOS
3 21 (26.58%) Cisco ISE
4 17 (21.52%) WAN
5 15 (18.99%) Firewall
6 14 (17.72%) BGP
6 14 (17.72%) IPsec
6 14 (17.72%) MPLS
7 13 (16.46%) DNS
8 8 (10.13%) DHCP
9 5 (6.33%) NX-OS
10 4 (5.06%) TCP/IP
11 3 (3.80%) SAN
12 2 (2.53%) VLAN
12 2 (2.53%) Wi-Fi
13 1 (1.27%) Network Security
13 1 (1.27%) Skype
13 1 (1.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.06%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.27%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (1.27%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.27%) JIRA
General
1 13 (16.46%) Social Skills
2 11 (13.92%) Public Sector
3 7 (8.86%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (5.06%) Local Government
5 1 (1.27%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.27%) Finance
5 1 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.27%) Law
5 1 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.53%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 25 (31.65%) PKI
2 5 (6.33%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (3.80%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.53%) Data Centre
4 2 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (2.53%) Onboarding
4 2 (2.53%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.27%) Clustering
5 1 (1.27%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.27%) Replication
5 1 (1.27%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 35 (44.30%) Windows
2 27 (34.18%) Windows Server
3 7 (8.86%) Linux
3 7 (8.86%) Windows 10
4 5 (6.33%) Mac OS
5 2 (2.53%) Windows Server 2003
5 2 (2.53%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (2.53%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (36.71%) ITSM
2 20 (25.32%) Service Management
3 15 (18.99%) Load Balancing
3 15 (18.99%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (13.92%) Network Design
5 10 (12.66%) Change Management
5 10 (12.66%) ITIL
6 7 (8.86%) Agile
7 6 (7.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 6 (7.59%) Project Delivery
8 5 (6.33%) Mentoring
8 5 (6.33%) Migration
8 5 (6.33%) Root Cause Analysis
8 5 (6.33%) Zero Trust
9 4 (5.06%) Creative Thinking
9 4 (5.06%) Customer Service
9 4 (5.06%) Network Virtualisation
10 3 (3.80%) Change Control
10 3 (3.80%) Platform Engineering
11 2 (2.53%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 15 (18.99%) PowerShell
2 3 (3.80%) Bash
3 1 (1.27%) SQL
3 1 (1.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 62 (78.48%) Security Cleared
2 38 (48.10%) DV Cleared
3 24 (30.38%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.80%) Degree
4 3 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (2.53%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (2.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (1.27%) A+ Certification
6 1 (1.27%) CCNA
6 1 (1.27%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.80%) Cyber Essentials
1 3 (3.80%) GDPR
1 3 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.27%) SLA
System Software
1 33 (41.77%) Active Directory
2 22 (27.85%) VMware NSX
3 9 (11.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (8.86%) Hyper-V
5 4 (5.06%) Firmware
6 2 (2.53%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (2.53%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (2.53%) vSphere
7 1 (1.27%) BitLocker
7 1 (1.27%) Brightmail
7 1 (1.27%) Docker
7 1 (1.27%) ISA Server
7 1 (1.27%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 28 (35.44%) vCenter Server
2 12 (15.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (11.39%) SCCM
4 6 (7.59%) SCOM
5 4 (5.06%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (2.53%) AirWatch
6 2 (2.53%) FortiGate
7 1 (1.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (1.27%) Ansible
7 1 (1.27%) Kubernetes
7 1 (1.27%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (1.27%) Puppet
7 1 (1.27%) vMotion
Vendors
1 35 (44.30%) Juniper
2 27 (34.18%) Cisco
3 22 (27.85%) SolarWinds
4 17 (21.52%) VMware
5 15 (18.99%) Microsoft
6 5 (6.33%) Broadcom
7 4 (5.06%) Apple
7 4 (5.06%) Palo Alto
8 3 (3.80%) CheckPoint
8 3 (3.80%) HP
9 2 (2.53%) NetApp
9 2 (2.53%) Proofpoint
9 2 (2.53%) ServiceNow
10 1 (1.27%) Barracuda Networks
10 1 (1.27%) Citrix
10 1 (1.27%) ConnectWise
10 1 (1.27%) QNAP
10 1 (1.27%) Red Hat
10 1 (1.27%) Veeam
10 1 (1.27%) Veritas
88 3rd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide