3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer Contracts

Third Line Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £572, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 496 562 674
Rank change year-on-year +66 +112 +93
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer 24 20 44
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.082% 0.046% 0.074%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.089% 0.049% 0.078%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 18 35
10th Percentile £357 £233 £313
25th Percentile £441 £266 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £572 £370 £450
Median % change year-on-year +54.53% -17.78% +12.85%
75th Percentile £591 £388 £525
90th Percentile £623 £456 £588
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £365 £475
% change year-on-year +57.53% -23.16% +19.50%

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 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer.

Daily rate trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer.

Hourly rate trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Top 11 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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
UK excluding London +69 23 £575 +57.53% 7
England +62 22 £575 +53.33% 9
South East +51 12 £575 +53.33% 3
North West +21 5 £350 -17.65% 1
North of England +20 5 £350 +7.69% 1
Work from Home +42 3 £365 +2.10% 2
East of England +30 3 £467 +119.53%
Wales +2 2 £365 -
London +37 1 £375 -25.00% 2
West Midlands - 1 - - 1
Midlands - 1 - - 1

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer in the job title.

1 24 (100.00%) Windows
1 24 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 23 (95.83%) VMware
2 23 (95.83%) Active Directory
3 19 (79.17%) Windows Server
4 17 (70.83%) Microsoft
4 17 (70.83%) VMware Infrastructure
5 13 (54.17%) Firewall
5 13 (54.17%) Linux
5 13 (54.17%) vCenter Server
6 12 (50.00%) ITIL
7 11 (45.83%) DHCP
7 11 (45.83%) DNS
7 11 (45.83%) SAN
7 11 (45.83%) IaaS
8 10 (41.67%) PaaS
8 10 (41.67%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (41.67%) Docker
8 10 (41.67%) DevOps
8 10 (41.67%) Data Centre
8 10 (41.67%) Symantec
8 10 (41.67%) Microsoft Exchange
8 10 (41.67%) Hyper-V
8 10 (41.67%) Azure
8 10 (41.67%) Clustering
9 9 (37.50%) Citrix
10 8 (33.33%) PowerShell
10 8 (33.33%) DV Cleared
10 8 (33.33%) Security Cleared
10 8 (33.33%) PKI

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (41.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (8.33%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 11 (45.83%) IaaS
2 10 (41.67%) Azure
2 10 (41.67%) PaaS
3 7 (29.17%) AWS
3 7 (29.17%) GCP
3 7 (29.17%) OpenShift
4 3 (12.50%) Entra ID
4 3 (12.50%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (12.50%) Nutanix
5 2 (8.33%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 13 (54.17%) Firewall
2 11 (45.83%) DHCP
2 11 (45.83%) DNS
2 11 (45.83%) SAN
3 7 (29.17%) SMTP
3 7 (29.17%) VPN
4 6 (25.00%) Fibre Channel
5 3 (12.50%) LAN
5 3 (12.50%) Network Security
5 3 (12.50%) WLAN
6 1 (4.17%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (29.17%) Amazon RDS
1 7 (29.17%) Big Data
1 7 (29.17%) Elasticsearch
General
1 6 (25.00%) Public Sector
2 2 (8.33%) Legal
2 2 (8.33%) Telecoms
3 1 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
Miscellaneous
1 10 (41.67%) Clustering
1 10 (41.67%) Data Centre
2 8 (33.33%) PKI
3 3 (12.50%) Replication
4 1 (4.17%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 24 (100.00%) Windows
2 19 (79.17%) Windows Server
3 13 (54.17%) Linux
4 7 (29.17%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (20.83%) Windows Server 2003
6 4 (16.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (16.67%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (8.33%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 12 (50.00%) ITIL
3 10 (41.67%) DevOps
4 7 (29.17%) Artificial Intelligence
4 7 (29.17%) Machine Learning
4 7 (29.17%) Software Deployment
5 6 (25.00%) Proactive Maintenance
6 5 (20.83%) Security Patching
7 4 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
7 4 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
8 3 (12.50%) Asset Management
8 3 (12.50%) Business Continuity
8 3 (12.50%) Capacity Management
8 3 (12.50%) Data Management
8 3 (12.50%) Proactive Management
8 3 (12.50%) Problem Management
8 3 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
8 3 (12.50%) Storage Management
8 3 (12.50%) Strategic Roadmap
8 3 (12.50%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 8 (33.33%) PowerShell
2 3 (12.50%) Shell Script
3 1 (4.17%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (33.33%) DV Cleared
1 8 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 7 (29.17%) Degree
3 5 (20.83%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (12.50%) DBS Check
5 2 (8.33%) MCSE
5 2 (8.33%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (16.67%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (95.83%) Active Directory
2 17 (70.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (41.67%) Docker
3 10 (41.67%) Hyper-V
3 10 (41.67%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (29.17%) BitLocker
4 7 (29.17%) Microsoft App-V
4 7 (29.17%) Terminal Services
5 4 (16.67%) DFS Replication
5 4 (16.67%) vSphere
6 3 (12.50%) VMware NSX
7 2 (8.33%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (54.17%) vCenter Server
2 7 (29.17%) Ansible
2 7 (29.17%) Kubernetes
2 7 (29.17%) Nagios
2 7 (29.17%) Puppet
2 7 (29.17%) vMotion
3 3 (12.50%) Backup Exec
3 3 (12.50%) Failover Clustering
3 3 (12.50%) Podman
4 2 (8.33%) SCCM
4 2 (8.33%) WSUS
5 1 (4.17%) McAfee ePO
5 1 (4.17%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (4.17%) SCOM
5 1 (4.17%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 23 (95.83%) VMware
2 17 (70.83%) Microsoft
3 10 (41.67%) Symantec
4 9 (37.50%) Citrix
5 7 (29.17%) Google
5 7 (29.17%) HP
6 4 (16.67%) Cisco
7 3 (12.50%) LogicMonitor
7 3 (12.50%) Veeam
8 2 (8.33%) McAfee
9 1 (4.17%) Canon
9 1 (4.17%) SolarWinds