3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer Contract Job Trends

Third Line Infrastructure Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Infrastructure Engineer daily rate in the UK is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025.

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

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 581 540 580
Rank change year-on-year -41 +40 +154
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer 6 12 25
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.016% 0.035% 0.057%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.018% 0.038% 0.061%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 10 16
10th Percentile £337 £353 £257
25th Percentile £345 £362 £262
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £413 £300
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% +37.50% -10.45%
75th Percentile £638 £444 £350
90th Percentile - £486 £394
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £438 £300
% change year-on-year +11.43% +45.83% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 - -
Median hourly rate £30.00 - -
75th Percentile £31.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

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 33,474 31,919 40,968
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.77% 93.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,192 19,646 27,547
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 £720 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,966 1,020 1,459
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.48 £15.16
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.00 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.52 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.97% -25.51% +50.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.59 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £72.53 £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 Infrastructure Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies 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 17 December 2025.

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

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
Top 6 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 Infrastructure Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 17 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 -40 6 £488 +18.18% 20
London -8 2 £481 +20.31% 4
UK excluding London -62 2 £488 +11.43% 16
Work from Home -3 1 - - 6
South East -15 1 £625 +47.06%
East of England - 1 £350 -

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

For the 6 months to 17 December 2025, 3rd Line Infrastructure 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 Infrastructure Engineer in the job title.

1 6 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 5 (83.33%) VMware
3 3 (50.00%) HP
3 3 (50.00%) Hyper-V
4 2 (33.33%) Azure
4 2 (33.33%) DV Cleared
4 2 (33.33%) Firewall
4 2 (33.33%) FortiGate
4 2 (33.33%) Linux
4 2 (33.33%) Middleware
4 2 (33.33%) Palo Alto
4 2 (33.33%) Performance Optimisation
4 2 (33.33%) SAN
4 2 (33.33%) Security Cleared
4 2 (33.33%) TCP/IP
4 2 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (33.33%) WAN
4 2 (33.33%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (33.33%) Windows
5 1 (16.67%) Active Directory
5 1 (16.67%) Agile
5 1 (16.67%) AWS
5 1 (16.67%) Canon
5 1 (16.67%) Cisco
5 1 (16.67%) Customer Service
5 1 (16.67%) Entra ID
5 1 (16.67%) McAfee
5 1 (16.67%) McAfee ePO
5 1 (16.67%) Microsoft
5 1 (16.67%) Microsoft 365

3rd Line Infrastructure 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 1 (16.67%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 2 (33.33%) Azure
2 1 (16.67%) AWS
2 1 (16.67%) Entra ID
2 1 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
2 1 (16.67%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 2 (33.33%) Firewall
1 2 (33.33%) SAN
1 2 (33.33%) TCP/IP
1 2 (33.33%) WAN
1 2 (33.33%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (16.67%) SSL
General
1 2 (33.33%) Local Government
2 1 (16.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 1 (16.67%) Public Sector
2 1 (16.67%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (33.33%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Data Centre
2 2 (33.33%) PKI
3 1 (16.67%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 2 (33.33%) Linux
1 2 (33.33%) Windows
2 1 (16.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (100.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 2 (33.33%) Performance Optimisation
3 1 (16.67%) Agile
3 1 (16.67%) Customer Service
3 1 (16.67%) Platform Engineering
3 1 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (16.67%) Process Improvement
3 1 (16.67%) Root Cause Analysis
3 1 (16.67%) Security Patching
3 1 (16.67%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 1 (16.67%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 2 (33.33%) DV Cleared
1 2 (33.33%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 3 (50.00%) Hyper-V
2 2 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (16.67%) Active Directory
3 1 (16.67%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 2 (33.33%) FortiGate
2 1 (16.67%) McAfee ePO
2 1 (16.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (16.67%) SCCM
2 1 (16.67%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 5 (83.33%) VMware
2 3 (50.00%) HP
3 2 (33.33%) Palo Alto
4 1 (16.67%) Canon
4 1 (16.67%) Cisco
4 1 (16.67%) McAfee
4 1 (16.67%) Microsoft
4 1 (16.67%) NetApp
4 1 (16.67%) Red Hat
4 1 (16.67%) Veritas