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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 511 559 468
Rank change year-on-year +48 -91 -68
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 313 121 328
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.24% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.27% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 246 115 253
10th Percentile £29,750 £29,500 £26,800
25th Percentile £31,250 £30,750 £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £33,500 £34,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.48% -1.47% +4.62%
75th Percentile £38,750 £38,500 £38,750
90th Percentile £40,875 £44,500 £44,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £35,000 £33,000 £32,500
% change year-on-year +6.06% +1.54% +4.84%

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 109,260 44,699 69,182
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.68% 89.81% 95.36%
Number of salaries quoted 74,288 25,844 39,771
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,750 £35,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,210 £53,688 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% -2.39% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -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 9 October 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 9 October 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 +15 277 £35,000 +4.48% 70
UK excluding London +11 256 £35,000 +6.06% 45
East of England +16 61 £35,000 +4.48% 4
North of England -29 61 £34,000 +4.62% 4
Work from Home +9 58 £35,000 +7.69% 18
London -32 55 £36,000 -7.69% 23
South East -32 54 £33,500 - 15
North West +12 48 £34,000 +4.62% 4
Midlands -28 36 £32,500 -2.99% 7
West Midlands -25 29 £32,500 -1.52% 5
Scotland - 29 £30,000 - 2
Yorkshire -26 13 £31,000 -4.62%
South West -88 10 £35,000 +6.06% 10
East Midlands -33 7 £35,000 +4.48% 2
Wales - 5 £35,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 9 October 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.

1 201 (64.22%) Microsoft
2 194 (61.98%) Microsoft 365
3 164 (52.40%) Windows
4 132 (42.17%) Active Directory
5 109 (34.82%) Entra ID
6 90 (28.75%) Customer Service
6 90 (28.75%) Windows Server
7 86 (27.48%) Problem-Solving
8 80 (25.56%) Azure
9 75 (23.96%) Firewall
10 64 (20.45%) SharePoint
11 62 (19.81%) Microsoft Exchange
12 61 (19.49%) DNS
13 57 (18.21%) Microsoft Intune
14 56 (17.89%) VPN
15 52 (16.61%) DHCP
16 49 (15.65%) WAN
16 49 (15.65%) Windows 10
17 47 (15.02%) LAN
18 44 (14.06%) TCP/IP
19 40 (12.78%) VMware
20 39 (12.46%) Hyper-V
21 36 (11.50%) Mac OS
22 35 (11.18%) Cybersecurity
23 32 (10.22%) Meraki
24 31 (9.90%) VMware Infrastructure
25 30 (9.58%) Wi-Fi
26 29 (9.27%) Cisco
26 29 (9.27%) Continuous Improvement
27 28 (8.95%) Remote Monitoring and Management

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 64 (20.45%) SharePoint
2 62 (19.81%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.64%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (5.43%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.28%) NetSuite
1 4 (1.28%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 194 (61.98%) Microsoft 365
2 109 (34.82%) Entra ID
3 80 (25.56%) Azure
4 20 (6.39%) Google Workspace
5 15 (4.79%) OneDrive
6 13 (4.15%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.83%) AWS
8 6 (1.92%) Cohesity
8 6 (1.92%) Microsoft Copilot
9 3 (0.96%) Dynamics 365
9 3 (0.96%) GCP
9 3 (0.96%) PowerApps
9 3 (0.96%) SaaS
10 2 (0.64%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (0.64%) Rubrik
10 2 (0.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 1 (0.32%) Azure Storage
11 1 (0.32%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.32%) PaaS
11 1 (0.32%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 75 (23.96%) Firewall
2 61 (19.49%) DNS
3 56 (17.89%) VPN
4 52 (16.61%) DHCP
5 49 (15.65%) WAN
6 47 (15.02%) LAN
7 44 (14.06%) TCP/IP
8 30 (9.58%) Wi-Fi
9 26 (8.31%) VoIP
10 22 (7.03%) VLAN
11 12 (3.83%) MPLS
12 9 (2.88%) SAN
12 9 (2.88%) Wireless
13 6 (1.92%) Structured Cabling
14 5 (1.60%) IPsec
14 5 (1.60%) SSL
15 4 (1.28%) Internet
16 3 (0.96%) BGP
16 3 (0.96%) SD-WAN
17 2 (0.64%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.24%) Power BI
2 4 (1.28%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.32%) Carbide.c++
1 1 (0.32%) JIRA
General
1 134 (42.81%) Social Skills
2 23 (7.35%) Organisational Skills
3 22 (7.03%) Legal
4 20 (6.39%) Telecoms
5 10 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (2.56%) Advertising
7 6 (1.92%) Billing
7 6 (1.92%) Finance
8 5 (1.60%) Analytical Skills
8 5 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.60%) Retail
9 4 (1.28%) Public Sector
10 3 (0.96%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.32%) Aerospace
Miscellaneous
1 57 (18.21%) Driving Licence
2 33 (10.54%) Onboarding
3 7 (2.24%) Data Centre
4 5 (1.60%) iPhone
5 4 (1.28%) Replication
6 3 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (0.96%) IoT
6 3 (0.96%) iPad
6 3 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (0.96%) Smartphone
7 2 (0.64%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.32%) Educational Technology
8 1 (0.32%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.32%) Hedge funds
8 1 (0.32%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 164 (52.40%) Windows
2 90 (28.75%) Windows Server
3 49 (15.65%) Windows 10
4 36 (11.50%) Mac OS
5 11 (3.51%) Windows Server 2016
5 11 (3.51%) Windows Server 2019
6 7 (2.24%) Android
7 2 (0.64%) AIX
7 2 (0.64%) Linux
7 2 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.64%) VMS
7 2 (0.64%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.32%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (28.75%) Customer Service
2 86 (27.48%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (11.18%) Cybersecurity
4 29 (9.27%) Continuous Improvement
5 28 (8.95%) Remote Monitoring and Management
6 27 (8.63%) Service Delivery
7 26 (8.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 25 (7.99%) ITIL
9 20 (6.39%) User Experience
10 19 (6.07%) Stakeholder Management
11 18 (5.75%) Collaborative Culture
12 17 (5.43%) Client Onboarding
13 16 (5.11%) Disaster Recovery
14 15 (4.79%) ITSM
14 15 (4.79%) Project Delivery
14 15 (4.79%) Root Cause Analysis
15 14 (4.47%) Cloud Security
16 13 (4.15%) Kalman Filter
17 12 (3.83%) Mentoring
17 12 (3.83%) Technology Transformation
Programming Languages
1 19 (6.07%) PowerShell
2 5 (1.60%) SQL
3 4 (1.28%) VBScript
4 2 (0.64%) Java
Qualifications
1 18 (5.75%) Security Cleared
2 12 (3.83%) SC Cleared
3 11 (3.51%) Degree
3 11 (3.51%) Microsoft Certification
4 6 (1.92%) HND
5 5 (1.60%) DBS Check
6 3 (0.96%) CCNA
6 3 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.64%) A+ Certification
7 2 (0.64%) CCNP
7 2 (0.64%) Dell Certification
7 2 (0.64%) MCSA
8 1 (0.32%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.32%) HP APS
8 1 (0.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 1 (0.32%) JNCIS
8 1 (0.32%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (8.31%) SLA
2 9 (2.88%) GDPR
3 8 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.64%) Accessibility
System Software
1 132 (42.17%) Active Directory
2 39 (12.46%) Hyper-V
3 31 (9.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (2.24%) BitLocker
5 6 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.32%) Firmware
7 1 (0.32%) Terminal Server
7 1 (0.32%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 57 (18.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (4.15%) Jamf Pro
3 7 (2.24%) Autotask
3 7 (2.24%) WSUS
4 6 (1.92%) FortiGate
4 6 (1.92%) SCCM
5 5 (1.60%) SmoothWall
6 4 (1.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 2 (0.64%) Netcool
7 2 (0.64%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 201 (64.22%) Microsoft
2 40 (12.78%) VMware
3 32 (10.22%) Meraki
4 29 (9.27%) Cisco
5 24 (7.67%) Google
6 23 (7.35%) Fortinet
7 13 (4.15%) Apple
8 12 (3.83%) ServiceNow
8 12 (3.83%) Veeam
9 9 (2.88%) HP
10 8 (2.56%) NetApp
10 8 (2.56%) SonicWALL
11 7 (2.24%) Juniper
12 6 (1.92%) Draytek
13 5 (1.60%) Citrix
13 5 (1.60%) Dell
13 5 (1.60%) Palo Alto
13 5 (1.60%) TOWER Software
14 4 (1.28%) Datto
15 3 (0.96%) Ubiquiti