3rd Line Support Job Trends in England

Third Line Support
UK > England

The median Third Line Support salary in England is £42,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 26 January 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 396 542 420
Rank change year-on-year +146 -122 +261
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 230 126 347
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.42% 0.27% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.46% 0.29% 0.61%
Number of salaries quoted 213 105 326
10th Percentile £34,000 £35,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £44,750 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.03% +11.88% -5.88%
75th Percentile £50,000 £55,000 £51,125
90th Percentile £59,100 £76,250 £63,750
UK median annual salary £42,500 £45,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year -5.56% +12.50% -5.88%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in England with a recognized job title 50,169 43,645 57,017
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.09% 95.01%
Number of salaries quoted 31,870 22,677 45,397
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -9.09%

3rd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

3rd Line Support job vacancy trend in England

3rd Line Support
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in England

3rd Line Support
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Support in England over the 6 months to 26 January 2026.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Support in England

3rd Line Support
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Support within the England region over the 6 months to 26 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +86 101 £41,500 -7.78% 28
North of England +30 40 £42,500 +18.06% 4
Yorkshire +23 35 £45,000 +24.14% 3
London +52 33 £42,500 -17.48% 5
East of England +30 28 £47,000 +17.50% 1
Midlands +27 26 £40,750 -18.50% 1
East Midlands +4 21 £37,500 -42.31% 1
West Midlands +22 5 £44,000 -12.00%
North West +20 5 £40,500 +1.25% 1
South West -2 3 £42,500 - 1
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 January 2026, 3rd Line Support 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 permanent job ads across the England region featuring 3rd Line Support in the job title.

1 139 (60.43%) Microsoft
2 131 (56.96%) Windows
3 107 (46.52%) Active Directory
3 107 (46.52%) Microsoft 365
4 103 (44.78%) Azure
5 81 (35.22%) Windows Server
6 74 (32.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 58 (25.22%) Customer Service
7 58 (25.22%) Hyper-V
8 56 (24.35%) DNS
9 54 (23.48%) VMware
10 53 (23.04%) PowerShell
11 52 (22.61%) DHCP
12 51 (22.17%) Firewall
13 49 (21.30%) Problem-Solving
14 48 (20.87%) Microsoft Intune
15 45 (19.57%) Entra ID
16 42 (18.26%) Security Cleared
17 38 (16.52%) SC Cleared
18 37 (16.09%) Mentoring
19 36 (15.65%) VPN
20 32 (13.91%) SLA
21 30 (13.04%) VLAN
22 29 (12.61%) Oracle
23 28 (12.17%) Incident Management
24 27 (11.74%) ITIL
24 27 (11.74%) SharePoint
24 27 (11.74%) TCP/IP
25 25 (10.87%) DV Cleared
25 25 (10.87%) Unix

3rd Line Support Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 74 (32.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 27 (11.74%) SharePoint
3 22 (9.57%) Exchange Server 2003
4 3 (1.30%) IIS
5 2 (0.87%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.43%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.30%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.43%) Fidessa
2 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 107 (46.52%) Microsoft 365
2 103 (44.78%) Azure
3 45 (19.57%) Entra ID
4 9 (3.91%) IaaS
5 8 (3.48%) Power Platform
6 7 (3.04%) AWS
6 7 (3.04%) Mimecast
7 6 (2.61%) SaaS
8 4 (1.74%) PaaS
9 3 (1.30%) Google Workspace
10 2 (0.87%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.87%) Serverless
11 1 (0.43%) Amazon S3
11 1 (0.43%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.43%) Dynamics 365
11 1 (0.43%) GCP
11 1 (0.43%) n8n
11 1 (0.43%) Power Automate
11 1 (0.43%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 56 (24.35%) DNS
2 52 (22.61%) DHCP
3 51 (22.17%) Firewall
4 36 (15.65%) VPN
5 30 (13.04%) VLAN
6 27 (11.74%) TCP/IP
7 18 (7.83%) LAN
7 18 (7.83%) WAN
8 17 (7.39%) Wireless
9 13 (5.65%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (4.78%) SAN
11 7 (3.04%) VoIP
12 6 (2.61%) SMTP
13 5 (2.17%) EIGRP
13 5 (2.17%) IMAP
13 5 (2.17%) Network Security
13 5 (2.17%) OSPF
13 5 (2.17%) POP3
13 5 (2.17%) SSL
13 5 (2.17%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (10.00%) Oracle Database
1 23 (10.00%) Oracle Database 10g
2 11 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.17%) Power BI
4 4 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (1.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 3 (1.30%) JIRA
General
1 75 (32.61%) Social Skills
2 12 (5.22%) Law
3 11 (4.78%) Automotive
3 11 (4.78%) Manufacturing
4 10 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.91%) Marketing
6 5 (2.17%) Finance
6 5 (2.17%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.17%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.74%) Legal
7 4 (1.74%) Public Sector
7 4 (1.74%) Retail
8 3 (1.30%) Advertising
8 3 (1.30%) Electronics
9 2 (0.87%) Banking
9 2 (0.87%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.43%) FIX Protocol
1 1 (0.43%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (13.48%) Onboarding
2 16 (6.96%) Self-Motivation
3 10 (4.35%) Driving Licence
4 6 (2.61%) Management Information System
4 6 (2.61%) Replication
5 4 (1.74%) PKI
6 3 (1.30%) CMDB
6 3 (1.30%) IoT
6 3 (1.30%) Web Conferencing
7 2 (0.87%) Clustering
7 2 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (0.87%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.43%) Blockchain
8 1 (0.43%) BYOD
8 1 (0.43%) Eurex
8 1 (0.43%) FMCG
8 1 (0.43%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 131 (56.96%) Windows
2 81 (35.22%) Windows Server
3 25 (10.87%) Unix
4 24 (10.43%) Solaris
5 23 (10.00%) HPUX
6 22 (9.57%) Windows Server 2003
7 21 (9.13%) Windows 7
7 21 (9.13%) Windows Server 2008
8 16 (6.96%) Apple iOS
9 15 (6.52%) Android
10 10 (4.35%) Linux
10 10 (4.35%) Mac OS
10 10 (4.35%) Windows 10
11 6 (2.61%) Windows Server 2016
12 4 (1.74%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.87%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.43%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (25.22%) Customer Service
2 49 (21.30%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (16.09%) Mentoring
4 28 (12.17%) Incident Management
5 27 (11.74%) ITIL
6 20 (8.70%) Cybersecurity
7 18 (7.83%) Disaster Recovery
7 18 (7.83%) Mobile Device Management
8 17 (7.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 15 (6.52%) Coaching
9 15 (6.52%) Logistics
9 15 (6.52%) Network Monitoring
10 12 (5.22%) Zero Trust
11 11 (4.78%) Service Desk Management
11 11 (4.78%) Stakeholder Management
12 10 (4.35%) Network Management
13 9 (3.91%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (3.91%) Infrastructure Management
13 9 (3.91%) Project Delivery
13 9 (3.91%) Remote Monitoring and Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (23.04%) PowerShell
2 22 (9.57%) SQL
3 21 (9.13%) Perl
4 3 (1.30%) C
4 3 (1.30%) Java
4 3 (1.30%) PHP
5 1 (0.43%) Bash
5 1 (0.43%) Python
5 1 (0.43%) R
5 1 (0.43%) VB
Qualifications
1 42 (18.26%) Security Cleared
2 38 (16.52%) SC Cleared
3 25 (10.87%) DV Cleared
4 17 (7.39%) DBS Check
5 16 (6.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (6.52%) Degree
7 10 (4.35%) CCNA
7 10 (4.35%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (2.61%) Azure Certification
9 5 (2.17%) CCNP
9 5 (2.17%) HND
10 4 (1.74%) MCP
10 4 (1.74%) MCTS
11 2 (0.87%) ACMT
11 2 (0.87%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (13.91%) SLA
2 6 (2.61%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 2 (0.87%) GDPR
5 1 (0.43%) NIST
System Software
1 107 (46.52%) Active Directory
2 58 (25.22%) Hyper-V
3 22 (9.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.30%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 3 (1.30%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (0.87%) Docker
6 2 (0.87%) Firmware
6 2 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.87%) vSphere
7 1 (0.43%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.43%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.43%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 48 (20.87%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (6.52%) Jamf Pro
3 8 (3.48%) SCCM
4 7 (3.04%) Autotask
5 5 (2.17%) FortiGate
6 4 (1.74%) Backup Exec
6 4 (1.74%) vCenter Server
7 3 (1.30%) WSUS
8 2 (0.87%) Kubernetes
9 1 (0.43%) Avamar
9 1 (0.43%) SCOM
Vendors
1 139 (60.43%) Microsoft
2 54 (23.48%) VMware
3 29 (12.61%) Oracle
4 17 (7.39%) Apple
4 17 (7.39%) Cisco
5 13 (5.65%) Veeam
6 7 (3.04%) Samsung
7 6 (2.61%) HP
7 6 (2.61%) Meraki
7 6 (2.61%) SolarWinds
7 6 (2.61%) Sophos
8 4 (1.74%) Logitech
8 4 (1.74%) Yealink
9 3 (1.30%) Barracuda Networks
9 3 (1.30%) ConnectWise
9 3 (1.30%) Dell
9 3 (1.30%) Google
9 3 (1.30%) IFS
9 3 (1.30%) SAP
9 3 (1.30%) Ubiquiti