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 15 November 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 501 474 385
Rank change year-on-year -27 -89 +224
Permanent jobs requiring a 2nd Line Engineer 170 291 407
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.43% 0.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.45% 0.80%
Number of salaries quoted 159 218 381
10th Percentile £28,950 £27,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,750 £29,750 £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 £40,000 £38,000
90th Percentile £42,500 £43,750 £42,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £33,000 £32,500 £31,000
% change year-on-year +1.54% +4.84% -1.59%

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 47,609 64,478 50,569
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.88% 94.87% 95.44%
Number of salaries quoted 29,568 36,288 39,151
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,750 £50,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.43% -3.81% -

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 15 November 2025.

Salary histogram for 2nd Line Engineer in the UK

2nd Line Engineer
Top 13 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 15 November 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 -1 170 £33,500 -1.47% 109
UK excluding London +15 137 £33,000 +1.54% 92
South East -1 42 £33,500 +2.29% 32
Work from Home +71 37 £33,000 - 33
South West +37 36 £33,000 - 15
London +14 33 £39,000 -2.50% 22
Midlands +39 27 £33,500 +9.84% 18
North of England +18 18 £31,000 -4.62% 15
East of England +23 15 £33,000 +1.54% 9
West Midlands +34 14 £37,500 +25.00% 11
North West +33 12 £30,000 -7.69% 7
East Midlands +17 12 £33,500 -1.47% 7
Yorkshire -4 6 £32,500 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 15 November 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.

1 122 (71.76%) Windows
2 113 (66.47%) Microsoft 365
3 94 (55.29%) Microsoft
4 83 (48.82%) Active Directory
5 66 (38.82%) Azure
6 64 (37.65%) Firewall
7 58 (34.12%) Windows Server
8 55 (32.35%) DNS
9 48 (28.24%) VPN
10 46 (27.06%) DHCP
10 46 (27.06%) Microsoft Intune
11 45 (26.47%) Customer Service
11 45 (26.47%) Problem-Solving
12 40 (23.53%) TCP/IP
13 38 (22.35%) Microsoft Exchange
13 38 (22.35%) Windows 10
14 37 (21.76%) VMware
15 36 (21.18%) Entra ID
16 35 (20.59%) Hyper-V
17 32 (18.82%) VLAN
18 31 (18.24%) SharePoint
19 28 (16.47%) VMware Infrastructure
20 26 (15.29%) LAN
20 26 (15.29%) WAN
21 25 (14.71%) Apple
21 25 (14.71%) Sophos
22 24 (14.12%) Linux
23 23 (13.53%) ITIL
24 22 (12.94%) Mentoring
24 22 (12.94%) SLA

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 38 (22.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 31 (18.24%) SharePoint
3 5 (2.94%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (5.29%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.59%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 2 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.59%) Carpe Diem
2 1 (0.59%) Elite 3E
Cloud Services
1 113 (66.47%) Microsoft 365
2 66 (38.82%) Azure
3 36 (21.18%) Entra ID
4 15 (8.82%) Google Workspace
5 10 (5.88%) OneDrive
6 8 (4.71%) AWS
7 4 (2.35%) Azure AKS
7 4 (2.35%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (2.35%) GitHub
7 4 (2.35%) SaaS
8 1 (0.59%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 64 (37.65%) Firewall
2 55 (32.35%) DNS
3 48 (28.24%) VPN
4 46 (27.06%) DHCP
5 40 (23.53%) TCP/IP
6 32 (18.82%) VLAN
7 26 (15.29%) LAN
7 26 (15.29%) WAN
8 21 (12.35%) Wi-Fi
9 12 (7.06%) VoIP
10 10 (5.88%) IPsec
10 10 (5.88%) Wireless
11 5 (2.94%) Cisco IOS
11 5 (2.94%) Internet
12 3 (1.76%) DKIM
12 3 (1.76%) DMARC
12 3 (1.76%) PBX
12 3 (1.76%) Remote Desktop
12 3 (1.76%) SD-WAN
13 2 (1.18%) PSTN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.47%) SQL Server
2 9 (5.29%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (2.35%) Git
1 4 (2.35%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.76%) JIRA
General
1 70 (41.18%) Social Skills
2 21 (12.35%) Marketing
3 19 (11.18%) Law
4 14 (8.24%) Manufacturing
5 9 (5.29%) Finance
6 8 (4.71%) Telecoms
7 6 (3.53%) Electronics
7 6 (3.53%) Public Sector
8 5 (2.94%) Advertising
8 5 (2.94%) Games
9 4 (2.35%) Dutch Language
9 4 (2.35%) French Language
9 4 (2.35%) Spanish Language
10 2 (1.18%) Front Office
10 2 (1.18%) Legal
11 1 (0.59%) Analytical Skills
11 1 (0.59%) Automotive
11 1 (0.59%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.35%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 37 (21.76%) Driving Licence
2 7 (4.12%) iPhone
2 7 (4.12%) Onboarding
3 5 (2.94%) Clustering
4 3 (1.76%) Smartphone
4 3 (1.76%) Video Conferencing
5 2 (1.18%) Digital Signage
5 2 (1.18%) Enterprise Cloud
5 2 (1.18%) iPad
5 2 (1.18%) Mobile App
5 2 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.59%) Client/Server
6 1 (0.59%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.59%) IoT
6 1 (0.59%) Social Media
6 1 (0.59%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 122 (71.76%) Windows
2 58 (34.12%) Windows Server
3 38 (22.35%) Windows 10
4 24 (14.12%) Linux
5 19 (11.18%) Apple iOS
5 19 (11.18%) Mac OS
6 17 (10.00%) Android
7 10 (5.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (4.12%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (1.76%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (26.47%) Customer Service
1 45 (26.47%) Problem-Solving
2 23 (13.53%) ITIL
3 22 (12.94%) Mentoring
4 19 (11.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 18 (10.59%) ITSM
5 18 (10.59%) Mobile Device Management
5 18 (10.59%) Service Management
6 17 (10.00%) DevOps
7 15 (8.82%) Configuration Management
8 14 (8.24%) Cybersecurity
9 13 (7.65%) Service Delivery
10 11 (6.47%) Continuous Improvement
11 9 (5.29%) Containerisation
11 9 (5.29%) Infrastructure as Code
11 9 (5.29%) Migration
11 9 (5.29%) Task Automation
12 8 (4.71%) CI/CD
13 7 (4.12%) Collaborative Culture
13 7 (4.12%) Remote Monitoring and Management
Programming Languages
1 18 (10.59%) PowerShell
2 6 (3.53%) SQL
3 5 (2.94%) Bicep
4 2 (1.18%) Java
Qualifications
1 20 (11.76%) SC Cleared
1 20 (11.76%) Security Cleared
2 15 (8.82%) BPSS Clearance
3 12 (7.06%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (5.88%) Degree
5 7 (4.12%) A+ Certification
6 5 (2.94%) ACMT
6 5 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 4 (2.35%) MCP
8 2 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.18%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.18%) DBS Check
8 2 (1.18%) Dell Certification
8 2 (1.18%) MCSA
9 1 (0.59%) MCITP
9 1 (0.59%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (12.94%) SLA
2 5 (2.94%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.76%) GDPR
4 1 (0.59%) Accessibility
System Software
1 83 (48.82%) Active Directory
2 35 (20.59%) Hyper-V
3 28 (16.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (5.29%) Docker
5 7 (4.12%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (1.76%) Firmware
6 3 (1.76%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 46 (27.06%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (11.76%) Jamf Pro
3 17 (10.00%) SCCM
4 9 (5.29%) Autotask
4 9 (5.29%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.94%) MaaS360
5 5 (2.94%) vCenter Server
6 4 (2.35%) FortiGate
6 4 (2.35%) Terraform
7 3 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (1.18%) WSUS
9 1 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.59%) SmoothWall
Vendors
1 94 (55.29%) Microsoft
2 37 (21.76%) VMware
3 25 (14.71%) Apple
3 25 (14.71%) Sophos
4 16 (9.41%) Samsung
5 15 (8.82%) ConnectWise
6 11 (6.47%) Cisco
6 11 (6.47%) Google
7 10 (5.88%) Veeam
8 7 (4.12%) ServiceNow
9 6 (3.53%) SAP
10 5 (2.94%) Datto
10 5 (2.94%) McAfee
10 5 (2.94%) Oracle
11 4 (2.35%) Adobe
11 4 (2.35%) Juniper
12 3 (1.76%) Freshdesk
12 3 (1.76%) Fujitsu
13 2 (1.18%) iManage
13 2 (1.18%) Okta