3rd Line Infrastructure Support Contract Job Trends

Third Line Infrastructure Support
UK

The median Third Line Infrastructure Support daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 580 539 587
Rank change year-on-year -41 +48 +176
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Infrastructure Support 8 3 8
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.022% 0.009% 0.019%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.024% 0.010% 0.020%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 3 7
10th Percentile £380 - £260
25th Percentile £425 £431 £269
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £438 £300
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +45.83% -7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £447 £375
90th Percentile - £449 £435
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £325
% change year-on-year +2.86% +34.62% -
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 Roles
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 33,835 30,753 40,099
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.20% 92.71% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,431 18,857 26,859
10th Percentile £300 £298 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £500
% change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,964 949 1,554
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.05 £19.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +41.93%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.52 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.21% -31.75% +80.14%

3rd Line Infrastructure Support
Job Vacancy Trend

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

3rd Line Infrastructure Support job vacancy trend in the UK

3rd Line Infrastructure Support
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

3rd Line Infrastructure Support
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Infrastructure Support over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

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

3rd Line Infrastructure Support
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

3rd Line Infrastructure Support
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 Support within the UK over the 6 months to 1 January 2026. 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 - 8 £450 - 3
UK excluding London -48 5 £450 +2.86% 3
Work from Home - 3 £450 - 2
South East - 2 £625 -
South West - 2 £450 -
East of England - 1 £350 -

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

For the 6 months to 1 January 2026, 3rd Line Infrastructure Support 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 Support in the job title.

1 7 (87.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 5 (62.50%) VMware
3 3 (37.50%) Azure
3 3 (37.50%) HP
3 3 (37.50%) Hyper-V
3 3 (37.50%) Linux
3 3 (37.50%) Windows
4 2 (25.00%) Active Directory
4 2 (25.00%) Agile
4 2 (25.00%) Application Packaging
4 2 (25.00%) DV Cleared
4 2 (25.00%) Entra ID
4 2 (25.00%) Firewall
4 2 (25.00%) FortiGate
4 2 (25.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (25.00%) Middleware
4 2 (25.00%) Palo Alto
4 2 (25.00%) Performance Optimisation
4 2 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
4 2 (25.00%) SAN
4 2 (25.00%) SCCM
4 2 (25.00%) Security Cleared
4 2 (25.00%) TCP/IP
4 2 (25.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (25.00%) WAN
4 2 (25.00%) Wi-Fi
4 2 (25.00%) Windows Server
5 1 (12.50%) AWS
5 1 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
5 1 (12.50%) Customer Service

3rd Line Infrastructure Support 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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (37.50%) Azure
2 2 (25.00%) Entra ID
3 1 (12.50%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (25.00%) Firewall
1 2 (25.00%) SAN
1 2 (25.00%) TCP/IP
1 2 (25.00%) WAN
1 2 (25.00%) Wi-Fi
General
1 2 (25.00%) Local Government
1 2 (25.00%) Public Sector
2 1 (12.50%) Social Skills
2 1 (12.50%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (25.00%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 2 (25.00%) Data Centre
1 2 (25.00%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 3 (37.50%) Linux
1 3 (37.50%) Windows
2 2 (25.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (87.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 2 (25.00%) Agile
2 2 (25.00%) Application Packaging
2 2 (25.00%) Performance Optimisation
2 2 (25.00%) Platform Engineering
3 1 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 1 (12.50%) Customer Service
3 1 (12.50%) Customer-Centricity
3 1 (12.50%) Proactive Management
3 1 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (12.50%) Root Cause Analysis
3 1 (12.50%) Server Management
Qualifications
1 2 (25.00%) DV Cleared
1 2 (25.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 3 (37.50%) Hyper-V
2 2 (25.00%) Active Directory
2 2 (25.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (25.00%) FortiGate
1 2 (25.00%) Microsoft Intune
1 2 (25.00%) SCCM
Vendors
1 5 (62.50%) VMware
2 3 (37.50%) HP
3 2 (25.00%) Palo Alto
4 1 (12.50%) Red Hat
4 1 (12.50%) Veritas