3rd Line Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Third Line Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £45,250 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 13 February 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 381 406 339
Rank change year-on-year +25 -67 +150
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 156 136 345
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.33% 0.42% 0.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.45% 0.73%
Number of salaries quoted 146 117 325
10th Percentile £37,750 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,500 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,250 £47,500 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.74% +13.10% -6.67%
75th Percentile £55,000 £54,500 £50,000
90th Percentile £58,750 £59,000 £52,500
UK median annual salary £46,250 £50,000 £42,500
% change year-on-year -7.50% +17.65% -5.56%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 43,170 30,002 47,195
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.10% 91.68% 95.06%
Number of salaries quoted 26,900 14,726 36,691
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

3rd Line Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 13 February 2026.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK excluding London

3rd Line Engineer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 13 February 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 +14 48 £45,000 -10.00% 22
North of England +20 40 £45,000 +20.81% 17
Yorkshire +6 40 £45,000 -2.70% 10
South West +7 28 £55,000 +25.00% 5
East of England +14 17 £47,000 +10.59% 9
Midlands -1 14 £55,000 +10.00% 4
East Midlands -13 10 £55,000 -11.65% 2
Wales - 9 £45,000 - 4
West Midlands +6 4 £51,000 +2.00% 2
Scotland - 1 £55,000 - 1
3rd Line Engineer
UK

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 13 February 2026, 3rd Line Engineer 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 UK excluding London region featuring 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 57 (36.54%) Microsoft
2 56 (35.90%) Azure
3 47 (30.13%) Windows
4 45 (28.85%) Active Directory
4 45 (28.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 39 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
6 38 (24.36%) Problem-Solving
6 38 (24.36%) Security Cleared
7 37 (23.72%) ITIL
8 34 (21.79%) VMware
9 31 (19.87%) Windows Server
10 30 (19.23%) SC Cleared
11 29 (18.59%) PowerShell
12 26 (16.67%) Entra ID
12 26 (16.67%) VMware Infrastructure
13 25 (16.03%) Microsoft Exchange
14 23 (14.74%) Customer Service
15 22 (14.10%) Microsoft Intune
16 21 (13.46%) Firewall
17 18 (11.54%) ITSM
17 18 (11.54%) Veeam
18 16 (10.26%) Hyper-V
18 16 (10.26%) Project Delivery
19 15 (9.62%) Service Delivery
20 14 (8.97%) Degree
20 14 (8.97%) Mentoring
20 14 (8.97%) SharePoint
21 13 (8.33%) Cisco
21 13 (8.33%) DV Cleared
21 13 (8.33%) SQL

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 25 (16.03%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (8.97%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.28%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 5 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.92%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (1.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.64%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 56 (35.90%) Azure
2 39 (25.00%) Microsoft 365
3 26 (16.67%) Entra ID
4 8 (5.13%) AWS
5 7 (4.49%) Mimecast
6 4 (2.56%) SaaS
7 2 (1.28%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (13.46%) Firewall
2 7 (4.49%) DHCP
2 7 (4.49%) DNS
2 7 (4.49%) VPN
2 7 (4.49%) Wireless
3 5 (3.21%) VLAN
3 5 (3.21%) WAN
3 5 (3.21%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (2.56%) Ethernet
4 4 (2.56%) LAN
5 3 (1.92%) IP Telephony
5 3 (1.92%) Network Security
5 3 (1.92%) SD-WAN
5 3 (1.92%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.28%) Cisco Firepower
6 2 (1.28%) Cisco IOS
6 2 (1.28%) Cisco ISE
6 2 (1.28%) InfiniBand
6 2 (1.28%) Junos
6 2 (1.28%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.56%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.92%) Data Mining
2 3 (1.92%) Oracle Database
2 3 (1.92%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 5 (3.21%) JIRA
General
1 24 (15.38%) Social Skills
2 11 (7.05%) Law
3 7 (4.49%) Finance
3 7 (4.49%) Marketing
4 6 (3.85%) Automotive
4 6 (3.85%) Public Sector
5 5 (3.21%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.56%) Legal
6 4 (2.56%) Manufacturing
6 4 (2.56%) Retail
6 4 (2.56%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.92%) Advertising
7 3 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.64%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.64%) Electronics
Miscellaneous
1 13 (8.33%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.77%) Driving Licence
3 4 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (1.92%) CMDB
4 3 (1.92%) iPad
5 2 (1.28%) PKI
5 2 (1.28%) Replication
5 2 (1.28%) YubiKey
6 1 (0.64%) FMCG
6 1 (0.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.64%) Life Science
6 1 (0.64%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 47 (30.13%) Windows
2 31 (19.87%) Windows Server
3 9 (5.77%) Android
3 9 (5.77%) Linux
4 8 (5.13%) Windows 10
5 6 (3.85%) Apple iOS
6 4 (2.56%) Mac OS
6 4 (2.56%) Unix
6 4 (2.56%) Windows Server 2012
6 4 (2.56%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (1.92%) HPUX
7 3 (1.92%) Solaris
7 3 (1.92%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (28.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 38 (24.36%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (23.72%) ITIL
4 23 (14.74%) Customer Service
5 18 (11.54%) ITSM
6 16 (10.26%) Project Delivery
7 15 (9.62%) Service Delivery
8 14 (8.97%) Mentoring
9 12 (7.69%) Incident Management
9 12 (7.69%) Logistics
10 11 (7.05%) Service Management
10 11 (7.05%) Technical Leadership
11 10 (6.41%) Disaster Recovery
12 9 (5.77%) DevOps
12 9 (5.77%) Stakeholder Management
13 8 (5.13%) Continuous Improvement
13 8 (5.13%) Root Cause Analysis
14 7 (4.49%) Cybersecurity
14 7 (4.49%) Task Automation
14 7 (4.49%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 29 (18.59%) PowerShell
2 13 (8.33%) SQL
3 4 (2.56%) Bash
3 4 (2.56%) Python
3 4 (2.56%) R
Qualifications
1 38 (24.36%) Security Cleared
2 30 (19.23%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.97%) Degree
4 13 (8.33%) DV Cleared
5 12 (7.69%) DBS Check
6 6 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (3.85%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 5 (3.21%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (2.56%) CCNA
9 3 (1.92%) CCNP
9 3 (1.92%) RHCE
10 1 (0.64%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (0.64%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (7.69%) SLA
2 7 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.92%) NIST
4 1 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.64%) GDPR
System Software
1 45 (28.85%) Active Directory
2 26 (16.67%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (10.26%) Hyper-V
4 9 (5.77%) vSphere
5 6 (3.85%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (1.92%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 3 (1.92%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (1.28%) Lustre
7 2 (1.28%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (1.28%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (1.28%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.64%) Firmware
8 1 (0.64%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (14.10%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (7.05%) SCCM
3 7 (4.49%) SCOM
3 7 (4.49%) vCenter Server
4 6 (3.85%) Jamf Pro
5 4 (2.56%) Proxmox
5 4 (2.56%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 3 (1.92%) Ansible
7 2 (1.28%) FortiGate
7 2 (1.28%) SCSM
7 2 (1.28%) WSUS
8 1 (0.64%) Avamar
Vendors
1 57 (36.54%) Microsoft
2 34 (21.79%) VMware
3 18 (11.54%) Veeam
4 13 (8.33%) Cisco
5 9 (5.77%) Apple
6 6 (3.85%) arcserve
6 6 (3.85%) Oracle
6 6 (3.85%) SolarWinds
7 4 (2.56%) CrowdStrike
7 4 (2.56%) McAfee
8 3 (1.92%) EMC
8 3 (1.92%) IFS
8 3 (1.92%) Juniper
8 3 (1.92%) Red Hat
8 3 (1.92%) Remedy
8 3 (1.92%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.92%) Trend Micro
9 2 (1.28%) IBM
9 2 (1.28%) Mellanox
9 2 (1.28%) Thales