2nd Line Engineer Job Trends

Second Line Engineer
UK

The median Second Line Engineer salary in the UK is £33,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 December 2025.

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

6 months to
4 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 474 494 361
Rank change year-on-year +20 -133 +226
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 184 270 387
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.43% 0.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.37% 0.45% 0.82%
Number of salaries quoted 170 209 363
10th Percentile £28,975 £27,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,750 £30,000 £28,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £33,500 £34,000 £32,500
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% +4.62% -
75th Percentile £38,750 £38,750 £38,375
90th Percentile £43,750 £44,000 £42,532
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,000 £32,500 £31,000
% change year-on-year +1.54% +4.84% -0.80%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 49,602 59,661 47,478
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.30% 94.09% 95.22%
Number of salaries quoted 31,401 33,077 36,945
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.52% - -

2nd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring '2nd Line Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

2nd Line Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for 2nd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing 2nd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 4 December 2025.

Salary histogram for 2nd Line Engineer in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Top 14 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing 2nd Line Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 4 December 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
England +43 183 £33,500 -1.47% 92
UK excluding London +68 148 £33,000 +1.54% 87
South East +18 44 £33,500 +2.29% 45
South West +35 37 £33,000 -1.49% 10
Work from Home +88 36 £33,000 - 29
London +29 36 £40,000 +5.96% 10
Midlands +47 30 £35,000 +7.69% 16
North of England +24 19 £30,000 -7.69% 10
East of England +23 18 £33,500 +3.08% 6
West Midlands +47 16 £37,500 +25.00% 7
North West +39 13 £30,000 -7.69% 4
East Midlands +13 13 £33,500 -1.47% 9
Yorkshire -5 6 £32,500 +4.00% 6
Scotland +24 1 £40,000 +50.94% 1

2nd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 December 2025, 2nd 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 featuring 2nd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 127 (69.02%) Windows
2 124 (67.39%) Microsoft 365
3 104 (56.52%) Microsoft
4 90 (48.91%) Active Directory
5 72 (39.13%) Azure
6 71 (38.59%) Firewall
7 67 (36.41%) Windows Server
8 58 (31.52%) DNS
9 54 (29.35%) Problem-Solving
10 53 (28.80%) VPN
11 51 (27.72%) DHCP
12 46 (25.00%) Microsoft Intune
13 45 (24.46%) Customer Service
14 43 (23.37%) TCP/IP
15 40 (21.74%) Microsoft Exchange
15 40 (21.74%) Windows 10
16 39 (21.20%) Entra ID
16 39 (21.20%) Hyper-V
17 37 (20.11%) VMware
18 36 (19.57%) VLAN
19 35 (19.02%) SharePoint
20 28 (15.22%) VMware Infrastructure
21 26 (14.13%) Apple
21 26 (14.13%) LAN
22 25 (13.59%) SLA
22 25 (13.59%) Sophos
23 24 (13.04%) WAN
24 23 (12.50%) ITIL
24 23 (12.50%) Mentoring
24 23 (12.50%) Wi-Fi

2nd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 40 (21.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 35 (19.02%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.72%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (4.89%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.54%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 4 (2.17%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.54%) Carpe Diem
2 1 (0.54%) Elite 3E
Cloud Services
1 124 (67.39%) Microsoft 365
2 72 (39.13%) Azure
3 39 (21.20%) Entra ID
4 15 (8.15%) Google Workspace
5 11 (5.98%) OneDrive
6 9 (4.89%) AWS
7 4 (2.17%) Azure AKS
7 4 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (2.17%) GitHub
7 4 (2.17%) SaaS
8 1 (0.54%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 71 (38.59%) Firewall
2 58 (31.52%) DNS
3 53 (28.80%) VPN
4 51 (27.72%) DHCP
5 43 (23.37%) TCP/IP
6 36 (19.57%) VLAN
7 26 (14.13%) LAN
8 24 (13.04%) WAN
9 23 (12.50%) Wi-Fi
10 13 (7.07%) VoIP
10 13 (7.07%) Wireless
11 11 (5.98%) IPsec
12 6 (3.26%) Cisco IOS
13 4 (2.17%) Internet
14 3 (1.63%) DKIM
14 3 (1.63%) DMARC
14 3 (1.63%) PBX
14 3 (1.63%) Remote Desktop
15 2 (1.09%) Network Security
15 2 (1.09%) PSTN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (5.98%) SQL Server
2 9 (4.89%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 5 (2.72%) JIRA
2 4 (2.17%) Git
2 4 (2.17%) Jenkins
General
1 72 (39.13%) Social Skills
2 22 (11.96%) Law
2 22 (11.96%) Marketing
3 14 (7.61%) Manufacturing
4 9 (4.89%) Finance
5 8 (4.35%) Telecoms
6 7 (3.80%) Advertising
7 6 (3.26%) Electronics
7 6 (3.26%) Public Sector
8 5 (2.72%) Games
9 4 (2.17%) Dutch Language
9 4 (2.17%) French Language
9 4 (2.17%) Spanish Language
10 3 (1.63%) Retail
11 2 (1.09%) Front Office
11 2 (1.09%) Legal
11 2 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.54%) Analytical Skills
12 1 (0.54%) Automotive
12 1 (0.54%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.17%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 41 (22.28%) Driving Licence
2 10 (5.43%) Onboarding
3 7 (3.80%) iPhone
4 5 (2.72%) Clustering
5 3 (1.63%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (1.09%) Digital Signage
6 2 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
6 2 (1.09%) iPad
6 2 (1.09%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.09%) Smartphone
7 1 (0.54%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.54%) Hedge funds
7 1 (0.54%) IoT
7 1 (0.54%) PKI
7 1 (0.54%) Social Media
7 1 (0.54%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 127 (69.02%) Windows
2 67 (36.41%) Windows Server
3 40 (21.74%) Windows 10
4 21 (11.41%) Mac OS
5 20 (10.87%) Apple iOS
5 20 (10.87%) Linux
6 18 (9.78%) Android
7 13 (7.07%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (5.43%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (2.17%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (29.35%) Problem-Solving
2 45 (24.46%) Customer Service
3 23 (12.50%) ITIL
3 23 (12.50%) Mentoring
4 20 (10.87%) Service Management
5 19 (10.33%) Mobile Device Management
6 18 (9.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 18 (9.78%) ITSM
7 16 (8.70%) Configuration Management
8 15 (8.15%) DevOps
9 13 (7.07%) Cybersecurity
9 13 (7.07%) Service Delivery
10 12 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (5.98%) Remote Monitoring and Management
12 9 (4.89%) Asset Management
12 9 (4.89%) Containerisation
12 9 (4.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 9 (4.89%) Migration
13 8 (4.35%) CI/CD
14 7 (3.80%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 17 (9.24%) PowerShell
2 6 (3.26%) SQL
3 5 (2.72%) Bicep
4 2 (1.09%) Java
Qualifications
1 20 (10.87%) Security Cleared
2 19 (10.33%) SC Cleared
3 15 (8.15%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (6.52%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (4.89%) Degree
6 7 (3.80%) A+ Certification
7 5 (2.72%) ACMT
7 5 (2.72%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (2.72%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 4 (2.17%) MCP
9 2 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 2 (1.09%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.09%) DBS Check
9 2 (1.09%) Dell Certification
9 2 (1.09%) MCSA
10 1 (0.54%) CCNA
10 1 (0.54%) CCNP
10 1 (0.54%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.54%) MCITP
10 1 (0.54%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (13.59%) SLA
2 5 (2.72%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.63%) GDPR
4 1 (0.54%) Accessibility
System Software
1 90 (48.91%) Active Directory
2 39 (21.20%) Hyper-V
3 28 (15.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (4.89%) Docker
5 7 (3.80%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (2.17%) Firmware
6 4 (2.17%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.54%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 46 (25.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (11.41%) Jamf Pro
3 17 (9.24%) SCCM
4 9 (4.89%) Autotask
4 9 (4.89%) Kubernetes
5 6 (3.26%) vCenter Server
6 5 (2.72%) FortiGate
6 5 (2.72%) MaaS360
7 4 (2.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (2.17%) Terraform
8 2 (1.09%) WSUS
9 1 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.54%) SmoothWall
Vendors
1 104 (56.52%) Microsoft
2 37 (20.11%) VMware
3 26 (14.13%) Apple
4 25 (13.59%) Sophos
5 17 (9.24%) Samsung
6 15 (8.15%) ConnectWise
7 11 (5.98%) Cisco
7 11 (5.98%) Google
8 10 (5.43%) Veeam
9 7 (3.80%) ServiceNow
10 6 (3.26%) SAP
11 5 (2.72%) Datto
11 5 (2.72%) Juniper
11 5 (2.72%) McAfee
11 5 (2.72%) Oracle
12 4 (2.17%) Adobe
13 3 (1.63%) Fortinet
13 3 (1.63%) Freshdesk
13 3 (1.63%) Fujitsu
14 2 (1.09%) Intapp