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 15 November 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 364 565 447
Rank change year-on-year +201 -118 +309
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 274 153 261
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.60% 0.25% 0.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.27% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 265 126 238
10th Percentile £34,000 £32,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £35,500 £35,400
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £42,500 £42,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year +1.19% -1.18% -1.16%
75th Percentile £50,000 £51,750 £53,438
90th Percentile £58,750 £63,750 £63,250
UK median annual salary £42,500 £42,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year +1.19% -1.18% -1.16%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 41,644 57,671 45,173
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.53% 94.73% 95.36%
Number of salaries quoted 26,465 32,493 34,957
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,724 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,500 £42,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,168 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.53% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £100,000
UK median annual salary £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -

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 15 November 2025.

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 15 November 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +104 117 £41,500 +1.84% 21
London +70 40 £42,500 -12.82% 15
East of England +54 40 £47,500 +18.75% 5
Midlands +74 35 £44,000 -2.04% 13
North of England +29 25 £40,500 +15.71% 7
East Midlands +44 22 £38,500 -9.41% 11
South West +30 17 £48,500 +6.59% 3
Yorkshire +20 14 £47,500 +31.03% 7
West Midlands +43 13 £44,000 -2.04% 2
North West +40 11 £40,000 +14.29%
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 November 2025, 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.

1 199 (72.63%) Windows
2 186 (67.88%) Microsoft
3 151 (55.11%) Microsoft 365
4 148 (54.01%) Azure
5 139 (50.73%) Windows Server
6 131 (47.81%) Active Directory
7 93 (33.94%) Microsoft Exchange
8 92 (33.58%) PowerShell
9 91 (33.21%) Hyper-V
10 86 (31.39%) Firewall
11 83 (30.29%) VMware
12 78 (28.47%) DNS
13 71 (25.91%) DHCP
13 71 (25.91%) Microsoft Intune
14 53 (19.34%) VMware Infrastructure
15 51 (18.61%) Mentoring
15 51 (18.61%) Problem-Solving
16 50 (18.25%) Customer Service
16 50 (18.25%) Entra ID
17 47 (17.15%) Security Cleared
18 44 (16.06%) ITIL
18 44 (16.06%) SC Cleared
19 41 (14.96%) SLA
20 39 (14.23%) LAN
20 39 (14.23%) WAN
21 37 (13.50%) VLAN
22 33 (12.04%) Incident Management
23 32 (11.68%) TCP/IP
24 31 (11.31%) Cisco
24 31 (11.31%) VPN

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 93 (33.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 29 (10.58%) SharePoint
3 22 (8.03%) Exchange Server 2003
4 16 (5.84%) IIS
5 10 (3.65%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.36%) Confluence
Applications
1 11 (4.01%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.36%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 151 (55.11%) Microsoft 365
2 148 (54.01%) Azure
3 50 (18.25%) Entra ID
4 22 (8.03%) AWS
5 18 (6.57%) IaaS
6 14 (5.11%) SaaS
7 13 (4.74%) PaaS
8 12 (4.38%) Power Platform
9 6 (2.19%) Power Automate
9 6 (2.19%) PowerApps
10 5 (1.82%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (1.82%) Mimecast
10 5 (1.82%) Serverless
11 2 (0.73%) Google Workspace
11 2 (0.73%) Nutanix
12 1 (0.36%) Azure App Service
12 1 (0.36%) Cloud Computing
12 1 (0.36%) Dynamics 365
12 1 (0.36%) GCP
12 1 (0.36%) n8n
Communications & Networking
1 86 (31.39%) Firewall
2 78 (28.47%) DNS
3 71 (25.91%) DHCP
4 39 (14.23%) LAN
4 39 (14.23%) WAN
5 37 (13.50%) VLAN
6 32 (11.68%) TCP/IP
7 31 (11.31%) VPN
8 23 (8.39%) Internet
9 22 (8.03%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (7.30%) SAN
11 18 (6.57%) VoIP
12 15 (5.47%) Wireless
13 11 (4.01%) Kerberos
14 7 (2.55%) Network Security
15 6 (2.19%) Cisco IOS
16 5 (1.82%) IPsec
16 5 (1.82%) SSL
16 5 (1.82%) Unified Communications
16 5 (1.82%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (8.39%) Oracle Database
1 23 (8.39%) Oracle Database 10g
2 10 (3.65%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.82%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (1.82%) Power BI
4 2 (0.73%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 2 (0.73%) JIRA
General
1 118 (43.07%) Social Skills
2 20 (7.30%) Law
3 13 (4.74%) Marketing
4 11 (4.01%) Automotive
4 11 (4.01%) Manufacturing
5 10 (3.65%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (3.65%) Telecoms
6 9 (3.28%) Billing
7 8 (2.92%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.92%) Finance
8 7 (2.55%) Electronics
8 7 (2.55%) Public Sector
9 2 (0.73%) Games
10 1 (0.36%) Banking
10 1 (0.36%) Legal
10 1 (0.36%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.01%) LDAP
2 3 (1.09%) FreeSWITCH
2 3 (1.09%) Node.js
3 2 (0.73%) SAML
4 1 (0.36%) FIX Protocol
4 1 (0.36%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 29 (10.58%) Onboarding
2 19 (6.93%) Self-Motivation
3 13 (4.74%) PKI
4 11 (4.01%) Replication
5 10 (3.65%) Driving Licence
6 8 (2.92%) Management Information System
7 6 (2.19%) Clustering
7 6 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
8 5 (1.82%) Data Centre
9 2 (0.73%) iPhone
9 2 (0.73%) Web Conferencing
10 1 (0.36%) Blockchain
10 1 (0.36%) BYOD
10 1 (0.36%) Enterprise Storage
10 1 (0.36%) Eurex
10 1 (0.36%) FMCG
10 1 (0.36%) IoT
10 1 (0.36%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 199 (72.63%) Windows
2 139 (50.73%) Windows Server
3 29 (10.58%) Windows Server 2019
4 26 (9.49%) Windows 10
5 25 (9.12%) Unix
6 24 (8.76%) Solaris
7 23 (8.39%) HPUX
8 22 (8.03%) Windows Server 2003
9 21 (7.66%) Windows 7
9 21 (7.66%) Windows Server 2008
10 19 (6.93%) Android
11 18 (6.57%) Apple iOS
12 16 (5.84%) Linux
12 16 (5.84%) Windows Server 2016
13 13 (4.74%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (18.61%) Mentoring
1 51 (18.61%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (18.25%) Customer Service
3 44 (16.06%) ITIL
4 33 (12.04%) Incident Management
5 29 (10.58%) Migration
6 23 (8.39%) Continuous Improvement
7 21 (7.66%) Coaching
8 20 (7.30%) Cybersecurity
9 18 (6.57%) Business Continuity
9 18 (6.57%) Mobile Device Management
10 17 (6.20%) Data Loss Prevention
11 16 (5.84%) Business Intelligence
12 15 (5.47%) Information Security
12 15 (5.47%) Patch Management
12 15 (5.47%) Service Delivery
13 14 (5.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 14 (5.11%) Remote Monitoring and Management
13 14 (5.11%) Task Automation
14 13 (4.74%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 92 (33.58%) PowerShell
2 21 (7.66%) Perl
3 14 (5.11%) SQL
4 11 (4.01%) VB
5 2 (0.73%) C
5 2 (0.73%) Java
5 2 (0.73%) PHP
6 1 (0.36%) Bash
6 1 (0.36%) Python
Qualifications
1 47 (17.15%) Security Cleared
2 44 (16.06%) SC Cleared
3 24 (8.76%) DV Cleared
4 18 (6.57%) Degree
5 16 (5.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (5.11%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (4.01%) CCNA
8 10 (3.65%) Azure Certification
9 7 (2.55%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.82%) ACMT
10 5 (1.82%) CCNP
10 5 (1.82%) HND
10 5 (1.82%) MCP
10 5 (1.82%) MCTS
10 5 (1.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 4 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.09%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 2 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
14 1 (0.36%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (14.96%) SLA
2 20 (7.30%) Cyber Essentials
3 11 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (3.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.36%) NIST
System Software
1 131 (47.81%) Active Directory
2 91 (33.21%) Hyper-V
3 53 (19.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.82%) Docker
5 5 (1.82%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (1.09%) Firmware
7 2 (0.73%) XenApp
8 1 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 71 (25.91%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (7.66%) SCCM
3 19 (6.93%) Autotask
4 14 (5.11%) Backup Exec
5 13 (4.74%) Jamf Pro
6 11 (4.01%) WSUS
7 7 (2.55%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.82%) FortiGate
8 5 (1.82%) Kubernetes
9 2 (0.73%) Grafana
9 2 (0.73%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.36%) Avamar
10 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.36%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.36%) Puppet
10 1 (0.36%) SCOM
10 1 (0.36%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 186 (67.88%) Microsoft
2 83 (30.29%) VMware
3 31 (11.31%) Cisco
4 30 (10.95%) Oracle
5 29 (10.58%) Veeam
6 20 (7.30%) Apple
7 13 (4.74%) HP
7 13 (4.74%) Sophos
8 12 (4.38%) Datto
9 10 (3.65%) arcserve
10 9 (3.28%) Meraki
10 9 (3.28%) Ubiquiti
11 8 (2.92%) SAP
12 7 (2.55%) Samsung
12 7 (2.55%) SonicWALL
13 5 (1.82%) Barracuda Networks
13 5 (1.82%) Citrix
13 5 (1.82%) Dell
13 5 (1.82%) Salesforce
13 5 (1.82%) SolarWinds