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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 559 404 514
Rank change year-on-year -155 +110 +52
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 177 264 263
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.19% 0.60% 0.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.20% 0.67% 0.38%
Number of salaries quoted 157 256 237
10th Percentile £31,850 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £37,500 £34,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £42,500 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -2.44%
75th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £47,500
90th Percentile £58,750 £56,250 £53,750
UK median annual salary £45,000 £42,500 £40,000
% change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -2.44%

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 89,383 39,648 68,958
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.03% 90.60% 95.00%
Number of salaries quoted 62,829 23,898 46,485
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £97,500 £95,000 £92,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -52 53 £52,500 +26.51% 6
North of England -31 38 £37,500 -11.76% 3
London -62 29 £55,000 +10.00% 1
Midlands -60 26 £41,000 +6.49% 6
South West -74 21 £45,000 +5.88%
North West -11 18 £31,500 -21.25% 2
East Midlands -21 16 £39,250 +1.95% 2
North East -45 12 £40,000 - 1
East of England -43 10 £37,500 -21.05% 3
West Midlands -47 10 £44,500 +18.67% 4
Yorkshire -29 8 £46,250 -2.63%
3rd Line Support
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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.

1 115 (64.97%) Microsoft
2 95 (53.67%) Microsoft 365
3 89 (50.28%) Azure
4 84 (47.46%) Active Directory
5 78 (44.07%) Windows
6 72 (40.68%) Entra ID
7 69 (38.98%) Microsoft Exchange
8 60 (33.90%) SharePoint
9 55 (31.07%) Firewall
10 51 (28.81%) Microsoft Intune
11 45 (25.42%) Windows Server
12 42 (23.73%) SaaS
13 33 (18.64%) Problem-Solving
13 33 (18.64%) VLAN
14 30 (16.95%) DNS
14 30 (16.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (16.38%) Mentoring
16 27 (15.25%) Cisco
16 27 (15.25%) DHCP
17 26 (14.69%) Project Delivery
18 25 (14.12%) Change Management
18 25 (14.12%) Degree
18 25 (14.12%) Identity Management
18 25 (14.12%) SQL
18 25 (14.12%) VMware
18 25 (14.12%) VMware Infrastructure
18 25 (14.12%) VPN
19 23 (12.99%) JIRA
19 23 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
20 22 (12.43%) Hyper-V

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 69 (38.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 60 (33.90%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.26%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (2.26%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (2.26%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.56%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.69%) Fidessa
1 3 (1.69%) Remedy ITSM
1 3 (1.69%) Unit4 Business World
2 2 (1.13%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 95 (53.67%) Microsoft 365
2 89 (50.28%) Azure
3 72 (40.68%) Entra ID
4 42 (23.73%) SaaS
5 18 (10.17%) Mimecast
6 11 (6.21%) Google Workspace
7 6 (3.39%) OneDrive
8 5 (2.82%) AWS
9 4 (2.26%) Power Automate
10 3 (1.69%) Boomi
10 3 (1.69%) iPaaS
10 3 (1.69%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.69%) Workato
11 2 (1.13%) Azure Stack
12 1 (0.56%) Google Docs
12 1 (0.56%) IaaS
12 1 (0.56%) PaaS
12 1 (0.56%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 55 (31.07%) Firewall
2 33 (18.64%) VLAN
3 30 (16.95%) DNS
4 27 (15.25%) DHCP
5 25 (14.12%) VPN
6 21 (11.86%) Wireless
7 20 (11.30%) TCP/IP
8 15 (8.47%) LAN
9 14 (7.91%) WAN
10 13 (7.34%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (5.08%) VoIP
12 8 (4.52%) Network Security
13 7 (3.95%) SD-WAN
14 4 (2.26%) DMZ
14 4 (2.26%) SAN
14 4 (2.26%) Wireshark
15 3 (1.69%) FIX Connectivity
15 3 (1.69%) ICMP
15 3 (1.69%) Remote Desktop
16 1 (0.56%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.65%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (12.99%) JIRA
2 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 69 (38.98%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.86%) Legal
3 10 (5.65%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (5.65%) Finance
4 7 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (2.82%) Manufacturing
6 4 (2.26%) Organisational Skills
7 3 (1.69%) Banking
7 3 (1.69%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.56%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.65%) .NET
2 6 (3.39%) Web Services
3 3 (1.69%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 16 (9.04%) Driving Licence
2 14 (7.91%) Self-Motivation
3 12 (6.78%) Onboarding
4 10 (5.65%) Video Conferencing
5 7 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.26%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.69%) Eurex
8 1 (0.56%) Clustering
8 1 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.56%) PKI
8 1 (0.56%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 78 (44.07%) Windows
2 45 (25.42%) Windows Server
3 20 (11.30%) Linux
4 15 (8.47%) Windows Server 2016
5 14 (7.91%) Windows Server 2012
6 13 (7.34%) Mac OS
7 9 (5.08%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (2.82%) Windows 10
9 4 (2.26%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (1.69%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.69%) CentOS
10 3 (1.69%) Rocky
10 3 (1.69%) Solaris
10 3 (1.69%) Ubuntu
10 3 (1.69%) Unix
11 2 (1.13%) Android
12 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (18.64%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (16.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 29 (16.38%) Mentoring
4 26 (14.69%) Project Delivery
5 25 (14.12%) Change Management
5 25 (14.12%) Identity Management
6 23 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
7 22 (12.43%) Incident Management
8 21 (11.86%) Cybersecurity
9 20 (11.30%) Workflow
10 18 (10.17%) Continuous Improvement
10 18 (10.17%) Customer Service
11 17 (9.60%) Disaster Recovery
11 17 (9.60%) ITIL
12 16 (9.04%) ITSM
13 14 (7.91%) Business Continuity
13 14 (7.91%) Remote Monitoring and Management
13 14 (7.91%) Server Management
14 13 (7.34%) Root Cause Analysis
15 10 (5.65%) Email Migration
Programming Languages
1 25 (14.12%) SQL
2 18 (10.17%) PowerShell
3 17 (9.60%) R
4 10 (5.65%) C#
5 7 (3.95%) T-SQL
6 6 (3.39%) Python
7 5 (2.82%) Bash
8 4 (2.26%) COBOL
8 4 (2.26%) Java
9 3 (1.69%) JavaScript
9 3 (1.69%) Perl
9 3 (1.69%) Ruby
10 1 (0.56%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 25 (14.12%) Degree
2 19 (10.73%) Microsoft Certification
3 17 (9.60%) CCNA
3 17 (9.60%) Cisco Certification
4 13 (7.34%) Azure Certification
5 4 (2.26%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.26%) MCSA
5 4 (2.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 3 (1.69%) CCNP
7 2 (1.13%) Security Cleared
8 1 (0.56%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.56%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (11.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 17 (9.60%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.69%) GDPR
3 3 (1.69%) SLA
4 2 (1.13%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 84 (47.46%) Active Directory
2 25 (14.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (12.43%) Hyper-V
4 5 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.69%) Firmware
6 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 51 (28.81%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (7.91%) Autotask
2 14 (7.91%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (2.26%) Iperf
4 2 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.56%) Terraform
5 1 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 115 (64.97%) Microsoft
2 27 (15.25%) Cisco
3 25 (14.12%) VMware
4 18 (10.17%) SonicWALL
5 17 (9.60%) CrowdStrike
6 14 (7.91%) HP
7 13 (7.34%) Fortinet
7 13 (7.34%) Meraki
8 11 (6.21%) Google
9 10 (5.65%) Aruba
9 10 (5.65%) Datto
9 10 (5.65%) Ubiquiti
10 7 (3.95%) Veeam
11 6 (3.39%) Sophos
12 5 (2.82%) Palo Alto
12 5 (2.82%) ServiceNow
13 4 (2.26%) ConnectWise
13 4 (2.26%) Dell
13 4 (2.26%) Ruckus Wireless
13 4 (2.26%) Yealink