2nd Line Engineer Job Trends

Second Line Engineer
UK

The median Second Line Engineer salary in the UK is £35,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 433 529 473
Rank change year-on-year +96 -56 +13
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 340 128 477
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.30% 0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.39% 0.33% 0.50%
Number of salaries quoted 293 125 445
10th Percentile £29,750 £29,000 £25,950
25th Percentile £30,750 £30,000 £27,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £32,500
Median % change year-on-year - +7.69% -
75th Percentile £40,000 £41,500 £35,500
90th Percentile £42,500 £43,750 £40,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,500 £32,500 £30,500
% change year-on-year +3.08% +6.56% -4.31%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
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 87,026 38,759 95,314
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.46% 89.38% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 58,020 21,803 69,625
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,967 £50,000
% change year-on-year -1.90% +1.93% -6.54%

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 30 May 2026.

Salary histogram for 2nd Line Engineer in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Top 15 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 30 May 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
England +103 324 £35,000 - 58
UK excluding London +92 262 £33,500 +3.08% 52
South East +32 82 £30,000 -25.00% 21
London +8 76 £36,500 -8.75% 13
East of England +36 59 £35,000 +7.69% 9
Work from Home +35 59 £30,000 -7.69% 16
North of England -38 45 £31,000 +1.64% 13
North West +24 35 £31,750 +5.83% 8
Midlands -17 34 £32,500 - 5
South West -37 28 £35,000 +4.48% 3
West Midlands -18 22 £32,500 -7.14% 3
Scotland +19 13 £40,000 +23.08% 1
Yorkshire -51 10 £31,000 -4.62% 1
East Midlands -22 8 £35,000 +16.67% 2
Wales - 1 £34,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 30 May 2026, 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.

1 198 (58.24%) Microsoft
2 190 (55.88%) Microsoft 365
3 182 (53.53%) Windows
4 133 (39.12%) Active Directory
5 118 (34.71%) Azure
6 101 (29.71%) Problem-Solving
7 100 (29.41%) Windows Server
8 83 (24.41%) Entra ID
9 81 (23.82%) Firewall
10 76 (22.35%) Customer Service
10 76 (22.35%) DNS
10 76 (22.35%) Microsoft Exchange
11 71 (20.88%) DHCP
12 69 (20.29%) Windows 10
13 62 (18.24%) SharePoint
14 61 (17.94%) Wi-Fi
15 59 (17.35%) VPN
15 59 (17.35%) WAN
16 57 (16.76%) LAN
17 50 (14.71%) Microsoft Intune
18 46 (13.53%) SLA
19 39 (11.47%) Hyper-V
20 37 (10.88%) TCP/IP
21 36 (10.59%) Service Delivery
21 36 (10.59%) Windows Server 2016
21 36 (10.59%) Windows Server 2019
22 35 (10.29%) Mac OS
23 34 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
24 33 (9.71%) ITIL
25 32 (9.41%) VoIP

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 76 (22.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 62 (18.24%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.59%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.29%) Confluence
4 1 (0.29%) IIS
4 1 (0.29%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (8.82%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (1.47%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 190 (55.88%) Microsoft 365
2 118 (34.71%) Azure
3 83 (24.41%) Entra ID
4 30 (8.82%) Google Workspace
5 23 (6.76%) AWS
6 22 (6.47%) OneDrive
7 10 (2.94%) Power Platform
8 7 (2.06%) Mimecast
9 4 (1.18%) Cohesity
10 3 (0.88%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (0.88%) PaaS
10 3 (0.88%) Power Automate
10 3 (0.88%) SaaS
11 2 (0.59%) Azure Storage
12 1 (0.29%) Amazon EC2
12 1 (0.29%) Azure Monitor
12 1 (0.29%) Cloud Computing
12 1 (0.29%) GCP
12 1 (0.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 81 (23.82%) Firewall
2 76 (22.35%) DNS
3 71 (20.88%) DHCP
4 61 (17.94%) Wi-Fi
5 59 (17.35%) VPN
5 59 (17.35%) WAN
6 57 (16.76%) LAN
7 37 (10.88%) TCP/IP
8 32 (9.41%) VoIP
9 28 (8.24%) VLAN
10 14 (4.12%) Wireless
11 11 (3.24%) Remote Desktop
12 7 (2.06%) SD-WAN
13 6 (1.76%) IPsec
13 6 (1.76%) SAN
14 5 (1.47%) ADSL
15 4 (1.18%) Broadband
15 4 (1.18%) NetScaler
16 3 (0.88%) NAS
16 3 (0.88%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.06%) Power BI
2 2 (0.59%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.29%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 3 (0.88%) JIRA
2 1 (0.29%) Carbide.c++
General
1 90 (26.47%) Social Skills
2 15 (4.41%) Telecoms
3 14 (4.12%) Legal
4 10 (2.94%) Manufacturing
5 9 (2.65%) Finance
6 8 (2.35%) Retail
7 6 (1.76%) Advertising
7 6 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (1.76%) Marketing
8 5 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.47%) Law
9 4 (1.18%) Billing
9 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Analytical Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Automotive
10 2 (0.59%) Electronics
10 2 (0.59%) Military
10 2 (0.59%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.29%) Aerospace
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.65%) Driving Licence
2 19 (5.59%) Onboarding
3 10 (2.94%) Smartphone
4 3 (0.88%) Data Centre
5 2 (0.59%) IoT
5 2 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.29%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (0.29%) iPhone
6 1 (0.29%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.29%) NHS
6 1 (0.29%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.29%) Replication
6 1 (0.29%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.29%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 182 (53.53%) Windows
2 100 (29.41%) Windows Server
3 69 (20.29%) Windows 10
4 36 (10.59%) Windows Server 2016
4 36 (10.59%) Windows Server 2019
5 35 (10.29%) Mac OS
6 17 (5.00%) Windows Server 2012
7 16 (4.71%) Android
8 12 (3.53%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.18%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.88%) VMS
11 2 (0.59%) Linux
11 2 (0.59%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.29%) AIX
12 1 (0.29%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (29.71%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (22.35%) Customer Service
3 36 (10.59%) Service Delivery
4 34 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
5 33 (9.71%) ITIL
6 22 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
7 21 (6.18%) ITSM
8 18 (5.29%) Service Management
9 16 (4.71%) Remote Monitoring and Management
10 14 (4.12%) Cloud Security
10 14 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 13 (3.82%) Mentoring
12 12 (3.53%) Incident Management
12 12 (3.53%) Incident Response
13 10 (2.94%) Business Intelligence
13 10 (2.94%) Collaborative Culture
13 10 (2.94%) Identity Management
13 10 (2.94%) Mobile Device Management
14 9 (2.65%) Configuration Management
14 9 (2.65%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 23 (6.76%) PowerShell
2 3 (0.88%) Python
2 3 (0.88%) SQL
3 2 (0.59%) VBScript
4 1 (0.29%) Java
Qualifications
1 25 (7.35%) Microsoft Certification
1 25 (7.35%) Security Cleared
2 20 (5.88%) SC Cleared
3 14 (4.12%) Degree
4 8 (2.35%) A+ Certification
4 8 (2.35%) DBS Check
5 5 (1.47%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (1.18%) HND
7 3 (0.88%) HP APS
8 2 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.59%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (0.29%) Dell Certification
9 1 (0.29%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.29%) MCSA
9 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (13.53%) SLA
2 7 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
3 6 (1.76%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (1.18%) NIST
5 3 (0.88%) GDPR
5 3 (0.88%) QA
System Software
1 133 (39.12%) Active Directory
2 39 (11.47%) Hyper-V
3 22 (6.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (4.12%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (3.24%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.88%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.29%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 50 (14.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (4.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 12 (3.53%) SCCM
4 9 (2.65%) Autotask
5 5 (1.47%) FortiGate
5 5 (1.47%) WSUS
6 4 (1.18%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.59%) Nagios
8 1 (0.29%) Netcool
Vendors
1 198 (58.24%) Microsoft
2 29 (8.53%) Google
3 28 (8.24%) VMware
4 12 (3.53%) HP
5 11 (3.24%) Cisco
6 9 (2.65%) Meraki
7 8 (2.35%) Sophos
8 7 (2.06%) Apple
8 7 (2.06%) Fortinet
8 7 (2.06%) Samsung
8 7 (2.06%) ServiceNow
8 7 (2.06%) SolarWinds
9 5 (1.47%) Veeam
10 4 (1.18%) Aruba
10 4 (1.18%) CheckPoint
10 4 (1.18%) F5
10 4 (1.18%) NetApp
10 4 (1.18%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.18%) Sage
11 3 (0.88%) SonicWALL