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 16 December 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 519 497 447
Rank change year-on-year -22 -50 +127
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 84 47 155
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.14% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.15% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 38 75
10th Percentile £326 £255 £256
25th Percentile £400 £363 £281
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 £550 £522 £483
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 33,396 31,755 41,279
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.76% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,158 19,530 27,755
10th Percentile £290 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £723 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,967 1,021 1,465
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.48 £15.19
25th Percentile £18.11 £21.00 £19.18
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.03% -24.44% +50.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.47 £72.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.00%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +5 83 £500 +25.00% 91
UK excluding London -22 63 £500 +33.33% 96
South East +15 38 £500 +25.00% 31
London +2 19 £438 +4.17% 10
Midlands -23 18 £400 +25.98% 7
West Midlands -17 17 £400 +25.98% 3
Work from Home -4 11 £350 -12.50% 35
South West -11 4 £350 -6.67% 11
Scotland +4 1 - - 1
East of England -25 1 £350 -17.65% 11
North West -33 1 - - 3
North of England -44 1 - - 25
East Midlands - 1 £275 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 16 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 (76.19%) Security Cleared
2 40 (47.62%) DV Cleared
3 38 (45.24%) Windows
4 37 (44.05%) Active Directory
5 35 (41.67%) Juniper
6 28 (33.33%) ITSM
6 28 (33.33%) vCenter Server
6 28 (33.33%) Windows Server
7 27 (32.14%) Cisco
7 27 (32.14%) Junos
8 24 (28.57%) SC Cleared
9 22 (26.19%) SolarWinds
9 22 (26.19%) VMware NSX
9 22 (26.19%) VPN
10 21 (25.00%) Cisco Firepower
10 21 (25.00%) Cisco IOS
10 21 (25.00%) Cisco ISE
11 20 (23.81%) Microsoft
12 19 (22.62%) Service Management
13 18 (21.43%) VMware
14 17 (20.24%) Azure
14 17 (20.24%) PowerShell
14 17 (20.24%) WAN
15 16 (19.05%) Microsoft 365
16 15 (17.86%) Load Balancing
16 15 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
17 14 (16.67%) BGP
17 14 (16.67%) DNS
17 14 (16.67%) Firewall
17 14 (16.67%) IPsec

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 14 (16.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (7.14%) SharePoint
3 3 (3.57%) SharePoint Server
4 2 (2.38%) Exchange Server 2003
4 2 (2.38%) Exchange Server 2007
4 2 (2.38%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (2.38%) Exchange Server 2013
4 2 (2.38%) Office Communications Server
4 2 (2.38%) Skype for Business
5 1 (1.19%) Apache
Applications
1 3 (3.57%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.19%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 17 (20.24%) Azure
2 16 (19.05%) Microsoft 365
3 11 (13.10%) Entra ID
4 4 (4.76%) AWS
5 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Purview
5 2 (2.38%) Nutanix
5 2 (2.38%) Power Platform
6 1 (1.19%) GCP
6 1 (1.19%) Google Workspace
6 1 (1.19%) IaaS
6 1 (1.19%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.19%) PaaS
6 1 (1.19%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (32.14%) Junos
2 22 (26.19%) VPN
3 21 (25.00%) Cisco Firepower
3 21 (25.00%) Cisco IOS
3 21 (25.00%) Cisco ISE
4 17 (20.24%) WAN
5 14 (16.67%) BGP
5 14 (16.67%) DNS
5 14 (16.67%) Firewall
5 14 (16.67%) IPsec
5 14 (16.67%) MPLS
6 9 (10.71%) DHCP
7 5 (5.95%) NX-OS
8 4 (4.76%) SAN
8 4 (4.76%) TCP/IP
9 2 (2.38%) DDNS
9 2 (2.38%) VLAN
9 2 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
10 1 (1.19%) Skype
10 1 (1.19%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.76%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (1.19%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (1.19%) JIRA
1 1 (1.19%) MSI
1 1 (1.19%) Robot Framework
1 1 (1.19%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 13 (15.48%) Social Skills
2 11 (13.10%) Public Sector
3 7 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.76%) Local Government
5 2 (2.38%) Finance
6 1 (1.19%) Banking
6 1 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.19%) Law
6 1 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.38%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 27 (32.14%) PKI
2 5 (5.95%) Self-Motivation
3 3 (3.57%) Analytical Mindset
3 3 (3.57%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.57%) Onboarding
4 2 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (2.38%) Replication
5 1 (1.19%) Clustering
5 1 (1.19%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.19%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.19%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 38 (45.24%) Windows
2 28 (33.33%) Windows Server
3 7 (8.33%) Linux
3 7 (8.33%) Windows 10
4 6 (7.14%) Mac OS
5 3 (3.57%) Windows Server 2003
5 3 (3.57%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (2.38%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (1.19%) CentOS
7 1 (1.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (33.33%) ITSM
2 19 (22.62%) Service Management
3 15 (17.86%) Load Balancing
3 15 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (13.10%) ITIL
4 11 (13.10%) Network Design
5 10 (11.90%) Change Management
6 8 (9.52%) Agile
7 7 (8.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 6 (7.14%) Migration
8 6 (7.14%) Project Delivery
9 5 (5.95%) Mentoring
9 5 (5.95%) Root Cause Analysis
10 4 (4.76%) Creative Thinking
10 4 (4.76%) Customer Service
10 4 (4.76%) Network Virtualisation
10 4 (4.76%) Zero Trust
11 3 (3.57%) Change Control
11 3 (3.57%) Cybersecurity
11 3 (3.57%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 17 (20.24%) PowerShell
2 4 (4.76%) Bash
3 1 (1.19%) PHP
3 1 (1.19%) Python
3 1 (1.19%) SQL
3 1 (1.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 64 (76.19%) Security Cleared
2 40 (47.62%) DV Cleared
3 24 (28.57%) SC Cleared
4 3 (3.57%) Degree
4 3 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (2.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (1.19%) A+ Certification
6 1 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.57%) GDPR
1 3 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.19%) SLA
System Software
1 37 (44.05%) Active Directory
2 22 (26.19%) VMware NSX
3 11 (13.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (8.33%) Hyper-V
5 4 (4.76%) Firmware
6 3 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (2.38%) Brightmail
7 2 (2.38%) ISA Server
7 2 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (2.38%) vSphere
8 1 (1.19%) BitLocker
8 1 (1.19%) Docker
8 1 (1.19%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 28 (33.33%) vCenter Server
2 14 (16.67%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (11.90%) SCCM
4 6 (7.14%) SCOM
5 5 (5.95%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (3.57%) AirWatch
7 2 (2.38%) Ansible
7 2 (2.38%) FortiGate
7 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (1.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (1.19%) Kubernetes
8 1 (1.19%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (1.19%) Puppet
8 1 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (1.19%) Terraform
8 1 (1.19%) vMotion
8 1 (1.19%) WMI
Vendors
1 35 (41.67%) Juniper
2 27 (32.14%) Cisco
3 22 (26.19%) SolarWinds
4 20 (23.81%) Microsoft
5 18 (21.43%) VMware
6 5 (5.95%) Apple
6 5 (5.95%) Broadcom
7 3 (3.57%) CheckPoint
7 3 (3.57%) HP
7 3 (3.57%) Palo Alto
8 2 (2.38%) NetApp
8 2 (2.38%) Proofpoint
9 1 (1.19%) Adobe
9 1 (1.19%) Citrix
9 1 (1.19%) ConnectWise
9 1 (1.19%) McAfee
9 1 (1.19%) Red Hat
9 1 (1.19%) ServiceNow
9 1 (1.19%) Veeam
9 1 (1.19%) Veritas