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 24 April 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 474 452 444
Rank change year-on-year -22 -8 +240
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 201 154 423
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.26% 0.41% 0.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.46% 0.54%
Number of salaries quoted 186 148 397
10th Percentile £35,000 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,563 £37,500 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year - +12.50% -4.48%
75th Percentile £50,000 £52,500 £45,750
90th Percentile £58,750 £68,750 £53,750
UK median annual salary £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
% change year-on-year - +12.50% -4.76%

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 72,689 33,363 78,271
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.75% 89.26% 94.45%
Number of salaries quoted 47,571 21,428 59,865
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -10.74%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £72,433
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £53,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -11.67%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 +8 71 £45,000 +5.88% 4
North of England -33 50 £42,500 +6.92% 8
London +6 47 £46,250 -28.85% 1
Yorkshire -27 41 £45,000 +24.14% 4
Midlands -62 17 £33,750 -32.50% 2
East Midlands -62 14 £32,500 -35.00% 1
East of England -40 11 £50,000 +17.65%
North East -33 5 £40,000 +11.11%
South West -69 5 £45,000 +12.50% 6
North West -38 4 £38,000 -10.59% 4
West Midlands -37 3 £45,000 -10.00% 1
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 April 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.

1 116 (57.71%) Microsoft
2 107 (53.23%) Azure
3 106 (52.74%) Microsoft 365
4 93 (46.27%) Active Directory
4 93 (46.27%) Windows
5 84 (41.79%) Microsoft Exchange
6 65 (32.34%) Windows Server
7 59 (29.35%) Entra ID
7 59 (29.35%) SharePoint
8 50 (24.88%) Microsoft Intune
9 49 (24.38%) DNS
10 46 (22.89%) Firewall
11 43 (21.39%) Hyper-V
12 40 (19.90%) PowerShell
12 40 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
12 40 (19.90%) VMware
13 37 (18.41%) DHCP
14 34 (16.92%) Customer Service
15 32 (15.92%) VLAN
15 32 (15.92%) VPN
16 30 (14.93%) ITIL
16 30 (14.93%) SQL
17 27 (13.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 27 (13.43%) Workflow
18 25 (12.44%) Incident Management
19 24 (11.94%) Identity Management
20 23 (11.44%) SaaS
21 22 (10.95%) Security Cleared
21 22 (10.95%) VMware Infrastructure
22 18 (8.96%) Disaster Recovery

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 84 (41.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 59 (29.35%) SharePoint
3 10 (4.98%) Exchange Server 2003
4 4 (1.99%) Exchange Server 2007
4 4 (1.99%) Exchange Server 2010
4 4 (1.99%) Exchange Server 2013
5 1 (0.50%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (4.48%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (5.47%) Unit4 Business World
2 3 (1.49%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (1.00%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.50%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 107 (53.23%) Azure
2 106 (52.74%) Microsoft 365
3 59 (29.35%) Entra ID
4 23 (11.44%) SaaS
5 18 (8.96%) Mimecast
6 11 (5.47%) Boomi
6 11 (5.47%) iPaaS
6 11 (5.47%) Workato
7 8 (3.98%) Google Workspace
8 5 (2.49%) Power Platform
9 4 (1.99%) AWS
9 4 (1.99%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.50%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.50%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.50%) GCP
10 1 (0.50%) Google Docs
10 1 (0.50%) IaaS
10 1 (0.50%) n8n
10 1 (0.50%) PaaS
10 1 (0.50%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 49 (24.38%) DNS
2 46 (22.89%) Firewall
3 37 (18.41%) DHCP
4 32 (15.92%) VLAN
4 32 (15.92%) VPN
5 18 (8.96%) TCP/IP
6 17 (8.46%) Wireless
7 13 (6.47%) SAN
8 10 (4.98%) VoIP
9 7 (3.48%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (2.99%) LAN
10 6 (2.99%) Network Security
10 6 (2.99%) SMTP
11 5 (2.49%) EIGRP
11 5 (2.49%) IMAP
11 5 (2.49%) Intrusion Detection
11 5 (2.49%) OSPF
11 5 (2.49%) POP3
11 5 (2.49%) WAN
11 5 (2.49%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.47%) Oracle Database
1 11 (5.47%) Oracle Database 10g
2 9 (4.48%) SQL Server
3 3 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.49%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 17 (8.46%) JIRA
General
1 56 (27.86%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.95%) Legal
3 14 (6.97%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (6.97%) Finance
4 12 (5.97%) Organisational Skills
5 8 (3.98%) Manufacturing
6 5 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.49%) Law
7 4 (1.99%) Retail
8 3 (1.49%) Advertising
8 3 (1.49%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.00%) Banking
10 1 (0.50%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.47%) Web Services
2 1 (0.50%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.97%) Driving Licence
2 13 (6.47%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (5.47%) Onboarding
4 7 (3.48%) PKI
5 6 (2.99%) Replication
6 4 (1.99%) IoT
6 4 (1.99%) Video Conferencing
7 3 (1.49%) CMDB
7 3 (1.49%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.49%) Web Conferencing
8 1 (0.50%) Blockchain
8 1 (0.50%) Clustering
8 1 (0.50%) Eurex
8 1 (0.50%) Low-Code
8 1 (0.50%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 93 (46.27%) Windows
2 65 (32.34%) Windows Server
3 18 (8.96%) Linux
4 14 (6.97%) Mac OS
5 13 (6.47%) Windows Server 2008
6 12 (5.97%) Solaris
6 12 (5.97%) Unix
7 11 (5.47%) HPUX
8 10 (4.98%) Windows Server 2003
8 10 (4.98%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (4.48%) Windows 7
10 8 (3.98%) Windows 10
11 7 (3.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (2.99%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (1.99%) Apple iOS
13 4 (1.99%) Windows Server 2019
14 3 (1.49%) Android
15 1 (0.50%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (19.90%) Problem-Solving
2 34 (16.92%) Customer Service
3 30 (14.93%) ITIL
4 27 (13.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 27 (13.43%) Workflow
5 25 (12.44%) Incident Management
6 24 (11.94%) Identity Management
7 18 (8.96%) Disaster Recovery
7 18 (8.96%) Project Delivery
8 17 (8.46%) Change Management
8 17 (8.46%) Cybersecurity
8 17 (8.46%) Technical Leadership
9 14 (6.97%) ERP
9 14 (6.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 13 (6.47%) Service Delivery
11 12 (5.97%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (5.97%) ITSM
11 12 (5.97%) Migration
12 11 (5.47%) Mentoring
12 11 (5.47%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 40 (19.90%) PowerShell
2 30 (14.93%) SQL
3 14 (6.97%) R
4 9 (4.48%) Perl
5 3 (1.49%) C
5 3 (1.49%) Java
5 3 (1.49%) PHP
5 3 (1.49%) Python
6 2 (1.00%) Bash
7 1 (0.50%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 22 (10.95%) Security Cleared
2 16 (7.96%) DV Cleared
3 14 (6.97%) DBS Check
3 14 (6.97%) SC Cleared
4 12 (5.97%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (5.47%) Degree
6 7 (3.48%) CCNA
6 7 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (2.49%) CCNP
8 3 (1.49%) HND
9 1 (0.50%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (5.97%) SLA
3 10 (4.98%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (3.98%) GDPR
5 1 (0.50%) NIST
System Software
1 93 (46.27%) Active Directory
2 43 (21.39%) Hyper-V
3 22 (10.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (3.48%) vSphere
5 3 (1.49%) Firmware
5 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 3 (1.49%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.50%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 50 (24.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (7.96%) Jamf Pro
3 9 (4.48%) Backup Exec
4 7 (3.48%) WSUS
5 4 (1.99%) Autotask
6 3 (1.49%) FortiGate
7 2 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (1.00%) Terraform
8 1 (0.50%) Ansible
Vendors
1 116 (57.71%) Microsoft
2 40 (19.90%) VMware
3 17 (8.46%) Veeam
4 15 (7.46%) Oracle
5 14 (6.97%) Cisco
5 14 (6.97%) CrowdStrike
6 11 (5.47%) Apple
6 11 (5.47%) Logitech
6 11 (5.47%) Yealink
7 9 (4.48%) HP
8 8 (3.98%) Google
8 8 (3.98%) Meraki
9 7 (3.48%) McAfee
10 6 (2.99%) ConnectWise
11 5 (2.49%) SolarWinds
11 5 (2.49%) SonicWALL
12 4 (1.99%) Aruba
12 4 (1.99%) Datto
12 4 (1.99%) Dell
12 4 (1.99%) Ubiquiti