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 17 October 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 515 547 466
Rank change year-on-year +32 -81 -72
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 316 130 316
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.27% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.30% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 248 123 243
10th Percentile £29,750 £29,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £30,750 £29,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £35,000 £33,000 £34,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.06% -2.94% +4.62%
75th Percentile £38,750 £38,500 £39,375
90th Percentile £41,750 £43,500 £45,000
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.

6 months to
17 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 110,560 43,931 66,554
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 89.93% 95.34%
Number of salaries quoted 74,960 25,802 38,157
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,188 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £53,000 £56,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.38% -5.36% -6.67%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £45,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +20.22% -8.50% -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 17 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 17 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 -3 280 £35,000 +6.06% 63
UK excluding London -12 261 £35,000 +6.06% 45
North of England -21 63 £34,000 +4.62% 5
East of England +26 62 £35,000 +4.48% 10
Work from Home -28 57 £35,000 +7.69% 20
South East -45 55 £35,000 +4.48% 13
London -36 53 £36,500 -6.41% 20
North West -1 50 £34,000 +4.62% 5
Midlands -42 36 £32,500 -2.99% 4
West Midlands -29 30 £32,500 -1.52% 3
Scotland - 29 £30,000 - 3
Yorkshire -30 13 £31,000 -4.62%
South West -88 11 £37,500 +13.64% 9
East Midlands -31 6 £35,000 +4.48% 1
Wales - 5 £35,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1Microsoft64.2%203
2Microsoft 36561.7%195
3Windows52.5%166
4Active Directory42.7%135
5Entra ID34.5%109
6Windows Server28.5%90
7Customer Service27.8%88
8Problem-Solving26.9%85
9Azure25.3%80
10Firewall23.7%75
11Microsoft Exchange20.3%64
11SharePoint20.3%64
13DNS19.6%62
14Microsoft Intune17.7%56
15VPN17.4%55
16DHCP16.5%52
17WAN15.5%49
18LAN15.2%48
19Windows 1014.9%47
20TCP/IP14.6%46
21VMware13.0%41
22Hyper-V12.7%40
23Cybersecurity11.4%36
23macOS11.4%36
25Meraki10.1%32
26Cisco9.8%31
26Continuous Improvement9.8%31
28VMware Infrastructure9.5%30
29Infrastructure Engineering9.2%29
30Remote Monitoring and Management8.9%28

2nd Line Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Job Titles

RankJob TitleShareJob Ads
12nd Line Support Engineer79.4%251
2IT Engineer57.6%182
3IT Support Engineer54.1%171
41st/2nd Line Support Engineer20.9%66
5Technical Engineer7.3%23
62nd Line Technical Support Engineer6.3%20
6Service Desk Engineer6.3%20
8Field Engineer6.0%19
9Desktop Engineer5.7%18
102nd Line Desktop Support Engineer4.7%15
11Microsoft Engineer4.4%14
12Microsoft 365 Engineer3.2%10
12Site Engineer3.2%10
14Cloud Engineer2.8%9
14Field Support Engineer2.8%9
162nd Line Network Engineer2.5%8
172nd Line Support Analyst1.9%6
17Infrastructure Engineer1.9%6
17IT Support Analyst1.9%6
17Lead Cloud Engineer1.9%6
75 2nd Line Engineer jobs Nationwide