3rd Line Support Job Trends in England

Third Line Support
UK > England

The median Third Line Support salary in England is £45,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 20 July 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 532 432 492
Rank change year-on-year -100 +60 +126
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 186 232 349
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.21% 0.53% 0.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.59% 0.44%
Number of salaries quoted 170 228 320
10th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,875 £37,500 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -
75th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £45,000
90th Percentile £58,750 £58,750 £52,625
UK median annual salary £45,000 £42,500 £40,000
% change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -

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 83,530 39,318 79,484
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.32% 90.44% 94.64%
Number of salaries quoted 58,858 23,754 57,439
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,750 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £54,399
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +1.11% -9.34%
75th Percentile £75,250 £75,000 £71,250
90th Percentile £97,500 £97,500 £90,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £53,500
% change year-on-year - +2.80% -10.83%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -6 72 £47,500 +14.46% 7
North of England -14 40 £40,500 -4.71% 4
London -33 35 £53,750 +7.50% 3
Midlands -58 19 £32,500 -15.58% 4
South West -72 16 £45,000 +1.69% 3
Yorkshire -21 15 £45,000 -5.26%
East Midlands -24 15 £32,500 -15.58% 2
North West -11 13 £31,500 -21.25% 4
North East -34 12 £40,000 -
East of England -37 4 £36,500 -23.16% 4
West Midlands -44 4 £45,000 +10.43% 2
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 20 July 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.

1 121 (65.05%) Microsoft
2 108 (58.06%) Azure
3 107 (57.53%) Microsoft 365
4 90 (48.39%) Active Directory
5 85 (45.70%) Windows
6 75 (40.32%) Entra ID
7 74 (39.78%) Microsoft Exchange
8 70 (37.63%) SharePoint
9 56 (30.11%) Windows Server
10 54 (29.03%) Microsoft Intune
11 46 (24.73%) SaaS
12 42 (22.58%) Firewall
13 40 (21.51%) VLAN
14 39 (20.97%) DNS
15 36 (19.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 34 (18.28%) SQL
17 33 (17.74%) Workflow
18 32 (17.20%) Identity Management
19 31 (16.67%) DHCP
20 30 (16.13%) Hyper-V
21 29 (15.59%) Change Management
21 29 (15.59%) VPN
22 27 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
22 27 (14.52%) Project Delivery
22 27 (14.52%) VMware
22 27 (14.52%) VMware Infrastructure
23 26 (13.98%) Incident Management
23 26 (13.98%) JIRA
24 24 (12.90%) Cisco
24 24 (12.90%) Technical Leadership

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 (39.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 70 (37.63%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.15%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (2.15%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (2.15%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 4 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (5.91%) Unit4 Business World
2 3 (1.61%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.54%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 108 (58.06%) Azure
2 107 (57.53%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (40.32%) Entra ID
4 46 (24.73%) SaaS
5 23 (12.37%) Mimecast
6 11 (5.91%) Boomi
6 11 (5.91%) Google Workspace
6 11 (5.91%) iPaaS
6 11 (5.91%) Workato
7 5 (2.69%) AWS
7 5 (2.69%) OneDrive
8 4 (2.15%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.61%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.08%) Azure Stack
11 1 (0.54%) Google Docs
11 1 (0.54%) IaaS
11 1 (0.54%) PaaS
11 1 (0.54%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 42 (22.58%) Firewall
2 40 (21.51%) VLAN
3 39 (20.97%) DNS
4 31 (16.67%) DHCP
5 29 (15.59%) VPN
6 20 (10.75%) TCP/IP
7 19 (10.22%) Wireless
8 13 (6.99%) Wi-Fi
9 11 (5.91%) LAN
10 10 (5.38%) WAN
11 9 (4.84%) VoIP
12 8 (4.30%) SAN
13 5 (2.69%) Network Security
14 4 (2.15%) DMZ
14 4 (2.15%) Wireshark
15 3 (1.61%) BGP
15 3 (1.61%) IPsec
15 3 (1.61%) Remote Desktop
15 3 (1.61%) SD-WAN
16 2 (1.08%) ICMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.30%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 26 (13.98%) JIRA
2 1 (0.54%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 68 (36.56%) Social Skills
2 29 (15.59%) Legal
3 15 (8.06%) Finance
4 8 (4.30%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (3.76%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.76%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (2.15%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.61%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (7.53%) Web Services
2 10 (5.38%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 11 (5.91%) Driving Licence
2 10 (5.38%) Self-Motivation
2 10 (5.38%) Video Conferencing
3 8 (4.30%) Onboarding
4 7 (3.76%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (2.69%) Cyber Threat
5 5 (2.69%) PKI
6 4 (2.15%) Replication
7 1 (0.54%) Clustering
7 1 (0.54%) CMDB
7 1 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.54%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 85 (45.70%) Windows
2 56 (30.11%) Windows Server
3 20 (10.75%) Linux
4 17 (9.14%) Mac OS
5 15 (8.06%) Windows Server 2016
6 13 (6.99%) Windows Server 2012
7 10 (5.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (4.84%) Windows 10
9 5 (2.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (2.15%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (1.61%) Apple iOS
12 2 (1.08%) Android
13 1 (0.54%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (19.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 33 (17.74%) Workflow
3 32 (17.20%) Identity Management
4 29 (15.59%) Change Management
5 27 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (14.52%) Project Delivery
6 26 (13.98%) Incident Management
7 24 (12.90%) Technical Leadership
8 23 (12.37%) ITIL
9 20 (10.75%) Cybersecurity
9 20 (10.75%) Mentoring
10 19 (10.22%) Customer Service
11 18 (9.68%) ITSM
12 17 (9.14%) Disaster Recovery
13 16 (8.60%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (8.60%) ERP
14 15 (8.06%) Remote Monitoring and Management
15 14 (7.53%) Service Delivery
16 13 (6.99%) Migration
16 13 (6.99%) Server Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (18.28%) SQL
2 21 (11.29%) PowerShell
2 21 (11.29%) R
3 10 (5.38%) C#
4 7 (3.76%) T-SQL
5 4 (2.15%) COBOL
5 4 (2.15%) Java
5 4 (2.15%) Python
6 3 (1.61%) Bash
7 1 (0.54%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 21 (11.29%) Microsoft Certification
2 19 (10.22%) Degree
3 14 (7.53%) CCNA
3 14 (7.53%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (4.30%) Azure Certification
5 6 (3.23%) Security Cleared
6 5 (2.69%) DV Cleared
7 4 (2.15%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.15%) DBS Check
7 4 (2.15%) MCSA
7 4 (2.15%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 2 (1.08%) CCNP
9 1 (0.54%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (12.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (9.14%) Cyber Essentials
3 7 (3.76%) GDPR
4 3 (1.61%) SLA
5 2 (1.08%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 90 (48.39%) Active Directory
2 30 (16.13%) Hyper-V
3 27 (14.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.69%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.69%) vSphere
5 1 (0.54%) Firmware
5 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 1 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 54 (29.03%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (9.68%) Jamf Pro
3 14 (7.53%) Autotask
4 7 (3.76%) Backup Exec
5 5 (2.69%) WSUS
6 4 (2.15%) Iperf
7 2 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (1.08%) Terraform
8 1 (0.54%) Ansible
Vendors
1 121 (65.05%) Microsoft
2 27 (14.52%) VMware
3 24 (12.90%) Cisco
4 21 (11.29%) CrowdStrike
5 15 (8.06%) Meraki
5 15 (8.06%) SonicWALL
6 14 (7.53%) HP
7 13 (6.99%) Veeam
8 11 (5.91%) Google
9 10 (5.38%) Aruba
9 10 (5.38%) Datto
9 10 (5.38%) Ubiquiti
10 8 (4.30%) Logitech
10 8 (4.30%) Yealink
11 7 (3.76%) Apple
11 7 (3.76%) Fortinet
12 6 (3.23%) ConnectWise
13 5 (2.69%) McAfee
13 5 (2.69%) ServiceNow
14 4 (2.15%) Dell