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 18 April 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 411 500 452
Rank change year-on-year +89 -48 +52
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 325 136 495
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.33% 0.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.40% 0.37% 0.55%
Number of salaries quoted 294 131 470
10th Percentile £28,575 £29,000 £25,950
25th Percentile £30,625 £30,000 £27,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £35,000 £32,000
Median % change year-on-year - +9.38% -1.54%
75th Percentile £40,000 £41,500 £36,000
90th Percentile £42,500 £43,750 £40,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,500 £32,500 £30,000
% change year-on-year +3.08% +8.33% -6.25%

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 80,276 37,162 89,418
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.62% 89.30% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 51,387 23,373 66,316
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +12.15% -10.83%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

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 18 April 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 18 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
England +88 314 £35,000 - 61
UK excluding London +83 256 £33,500 +3.08% 64
South East +12 86 £32,500 -18.75% 16
London +33 68 £40,000 +2.56% 9
Work from Home +33 65 £32,500 - 22
East of England +8 50 £35,000 +7.69% 13
Midlands -6 43 £35,000 +13.82% 10
South West -22 39 £33,750 +0.75% 8
North of England -54 28 £30,000 - 11
West Midlands 0 25 £35,000 -7.89% 5
North West -8 22 £30,000 - 9
East Midlands -47 13 £35,000 +14.75% 5
Scotland -16 9 £40,000 +23.08% 8
Yorkshire -74 6 £33,500 +3.08%
Wales - 1 £34,000 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 18 April 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.

1 202 (62.15%) Microsoft 365
2 197 (60.62%) Microsoft
3 191 (58.77%) Windows
4 141 (43.38%) Active Directory
5 123 (37.85%) Azure
6 120 (36.92%) Windows Server
7 113 (34.77%) Problem-Solving
8 90 (27.69%) Firewall
9 87 (26.77%) DNS
10 81 (24.92%) DHCP
11 72 (22.15%) Entra ID
11 72 (22.15%) Microsoft Exchange
12 71 (21.85%) Customer Service
12 71 (21.85%) Windows 10
13 68 (20.92%) VPN
13 68 (20.92%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (17.23%) LAN
15 54 (16.62%) WAN
16 52 (16.00%) SharePoint
16 52 (16.00%) TCP/IP
17 50 (15.38%) Microsoft Intune
18 46 (14.15%) Hyper-V
19 43 (13.23%) SLA
20 39 (12.00%) Google Workspace
20 39 (12.00%) Windows Server 2016
21 38 (11.69%) VLAN
21 38 (11.69%) Windows Server 2019
22 35 (10.77%) Google
22 35 (10.77%) ITIL
23 34 (10.46%) 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 72 (22.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 52 (16.00%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.31%) Confluence
3 1 (0.31%) IIS
3 1 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 26 (8.00%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (1.54%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (1.54%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 202 (62.15%) Microsoft 365
2 123 (37.85%) Azure
3 72 (22.15%) Entra ID
4 39 (12.00%) Google Workspace
5 24 (7.38%) AWS
6 21 (6.46%) OneDrive
7 7 (2.15%) Mimecast
8 6 (1.85%) SaaS
9 3 (0.92%) Cohesity
9 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (0.92%) PaaS
9 3 (0.92%) Power Automate
9 3 (0.92%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.31%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.31%) Azure Storage
10 1 (0.31%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 90 (27.69%) Firewall
2 87 (26.77%) DNS
3 81 (24.92%) DHCP
4 68 (20.92%) VPN
4 68 (20.92%) Wi-Fi
5 56 (17.23%) LAN
6 54 (16.62%) WAN
7 52 (16.00%) TCP/IP
8 38 (11.69%) VLAN
9 34 (10.46%) VoIP
10 18 (5.54%) Wireless
11 11 (3.38%) Remote Desktop
12 10 (3.08%) IPsec
13 6 (1.85%) SD-WAN
14 5 (1.54%) ADSL
15 4 (1.23%) Broadband
15 4 (1.23%) NetScaler
16 3 (0.92%) NAS
16 3 (0.92%) SAN
16 3 (0.92%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (0.92%) Power BI
2 3 (0.92%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 7 (2.15%) JIRA
General
1 92 (28.31%) Social Skills
2 11 (3.38%) Law
3 10 (3.08%) Finance
3 10 (3.08%) Manufacturing
3 10 (3.08%) Telecoms
4 9 (2.77%) Marketing
4 9 (2.77%) Retail
5 7 (2.15%) Legal
6 5 (1.54%) Advertising
6 5 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (0.92%) Dutch Language
8 3 (0.92%) Electronics
8 3 (0.92%) French Language
8 3 (0.92%) Public Sector
8 3 (0.92%) Spanish Language
9 2 (0.62%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (0.62%) Automotive
9 2 (0.62%) Military
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.77%) Driving Licence
2 16 (4.92%) Onboarding
3 8 (2.46%) Smartphone
4 2 (0.62%) Data Centre
4 2 (0.62%) IoT
4 2 (0.62%) iPad
4 2 (0.62%) iPhone
4 2 (0.62%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.31%) Hedge funds
5 1 (0.31%) NHS
5 1 (0.31%) PKI
5 1 (0.31%) Public Cloud
5 1 (0.31%) Security Posture
5 1 (0.31%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.31%) Video Conferencing
5 1 (0.31%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 191 (58.77%) Windows
2 120 (36.92%) Windows Server
3 71 (21.85%) Windows 10
4 39 (12.00%) Windows Server 2016
5 38 (11.69%) Windows Server 2019
6 32 (9.85%) Mac OS
7 20 (6.15%) Windows Server 2012
8 17 (5.23%) Android
8 17 (5.23%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.23%) Linux
10 2 (0.62%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.31%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (34.77%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (21.85%) Customer Service
3 35 (10.77%) ITIL
4 31 (9.54%) Service Delivery
5 27 (8.31%) Cybersecurity
6 23 (7.08%) ITSM
7 19 (5.85%) Service Management
8 16 (4.92%) Continuous Improvement
8 16 (4.92%) Mentoring
9 15 (4.62%) Remote Monitoring and Management
10 13 (4.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 12 (3.69%) Mobile Device Management
12 11 (3.38%) Configuration Management
13 10 (3.08%) Computer Science
14 9 (2.77%) Asset Management
14 9 (2.77%) Proactive Maintenance
15 8 (2.46%) Change Management
15 8 (2.46%) Collaborative Working
15 8 (2.46%) Project Delivery
15 8 (2.46%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 17 (5.23%) PowerShell
2 4 (1.23%) SQL
3 3 (0.92%) Python
Qualifications
1 26 (8.00%) Microsoft Certification
2 22 (6.77%) Security Cleared
3 17 (5.23%) SC Cleared
4 12 (3.69%) Degree
5 10 (3.08%) A+ Certification
6 8 (2.46%) DBS Check
7 5 (1.54%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 3 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
10 2 (0.62%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.62%) HP APS
10 2 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.31%) CCNA
11 1 (0.31%) CCNP
11 1 (0.31%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (13.23%) SLA
2 7 (2.15%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (1.23%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.23%) GDPR
3 4 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.23%) NIST
4 3 (0.92%) QA
System Software
1 141 (43.38%) Active Directory
2 46 (14.15%) Hyper-V
3 25 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (4.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (2.15%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.92%) Terminal Services
7 2 (0.62%) Firmware
8 1 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.31%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 50 (15.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 19 (5.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 8 (2.46%) Jamf Pro
3 8 (2.46%) SCCM
4 7 (2.15%) Autotask
5 3 (0.92%) WSUS
6 2 (0.62%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.62%) Nagios
7 1 (0.31%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 197 (60.62%) Microsoft
2 35 (10.77%) Google
3 33 (10.15%) VMware
4 12 (3.69%) Sophos
5 10 (3.08%) Apple
5 10 (3.08%) HP
6 8 (2.46%) Cisco
6 8 (2.46%) Fortinet
6 8 (2.46%) Samsung
7 7 (2.15%) Meraki
7 7 (2.15%) SolarWinds
7 7 (2.15%) Veeam
8 5 (1.54%) ConnectWise
8 5 (1.54%) ServiceNow
9 4 (1.23%) Aruba
9 4 (1.23%) CheckPoint
9 4 (1.23%) F5
9 4 (1.23%) Freshdesk
9 4 (1.23%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.92%) NetApp