3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £48,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 509 486 490
Rank change year-on-year -23 +4 +74
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 226 154 440
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.25% 0.36% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.27% 0.41% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 212 136 394
10th Percentile £38,250 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,000 £50,000 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +19.05% -8.70%
75th Percentile £58,750 £55,625 £51,500
90th Percentile £60,000 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,000 £50,000 £42,000
% change year-on-year -6.00% +19.05% -6.67%

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 83,161 37,674 90,190
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.86% 89.04% 94.55%
Number of salaries quoted 53,383 23,465 66,451
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,580 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +13.21% -11.67%
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%

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

3rd Line Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Engineer job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Engineer over the 6 months to 28 April 2026.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd 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 3rd Line Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 28 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 -13 209 £50,000 - 39
UK excluding London -33 175 £47,000 -6.00% 47
Work from Home -3 60 £52,500 +5.00% 14
South East -30 57 £48,000 -8.57% 14
London +24 51 £52,500 -19.23% 1
Yorkshire -22 47 £45,000 +28.57% 9
North of England -35 47 £45,000 +13.92% 13
South West -39 20 £52,209 +22.84% 6
Midlands -51 19 £50,000 - 3
Wales - 17 £45,000 - 4
East of England -23 15 £55,000 +29.41% 6
East Midlands -50 12 £53,750 -6.11% 2
West Midlands -29 7 £47,000 -6.00% 1

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 April 2026, 3rd 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 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 95 (42.04%) Azure
2 94 (41.59%) Microsoft
3 85 (37.61%) Microsoft 365
4 79 (34.96%) Active Directory
5 76 (33.63%) Windows
6 63 (27.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 56 (24.78%) VMware
8 54 (23.89%) Microsoft Exchange
9 50 (22.12%) Windows Server
10 46 (20.35%) Firewall
10 46 (20.35%) Microsoft Intune
10 46 (20.35%) SharePoint
11 44 (19.47%) Entra ID
12 41 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
13 40 (17.70%) PowerShell
14 39 (17.26%) VMware Infrastructure
15 37 (16.37%) DNS
15 37 (16.37%) Security Cleared
16 30 (13.27%) SC Cleared
17 29 (12.83%) Hyper-V
17 29 (12.83%) ITIL
18 26 (11.50%) Root Cause Analysis
18 26 (11.50%) Technical Leadership
19 25 (11.06%) Linux
20 23 (10.18%) Customer Service
21 22 (9.73%) SaaS
22 21 (9.29%) Change Management
22 21 (9.29%) SQL
23 20 (8.85%) Incident Management
23 20 (8.85%) VPN

3rd 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 54 (23.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (20.35%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.77%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.77%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.77%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.44%) Confluence
4 1 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 6 (2.65%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.33%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.33%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.88%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 95 (42.04%) Azure
2 85 (37.61%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (19.47%) Entra ID
4 22 (9.73%) SaaS
5 19 (8.41%) Mimecast
6 18 (7.96%) IaaS
7 15 (6.64%) Azure AKS
7 15 (6.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 15 (6.64%) Azure Key Vault
7 15 (6.64%) Azure Storage
8 6 (2.65%) Google Workspace
9 5 (2.21%) AWS
9 5 (2.21%) OneDrive
9 5 (2.21%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.44%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.44%) Google Docs
10 1 (0.44%) PaaS
10 1 (0.44%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 46 (20.35%) Firewall
2 37 (16.37%) DNS
3 20 (8.85%) VPN
4 14 (6.19%) DHCP
5 12 (5.31%) Wireless
6 9 (3.98%) VLAN
7 8 (3.54%) SAN
7 8 (3.54%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (3.10%) TCP/IP
9 6 (2.65%) LAN
10 5 (2.21%) WAN
11 3 (1.33%) Ethernet
11 3 (1.33%) Network Security
12 2 (0.88%) BGP
12 2 (0.88%) InfiniBand
12 2 (0.88%) OSPF
12 2 (0.88%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.88%) VoIP
13 1 (0.44%) Cisco Firepower
13 1 (0.44%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.21%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.33%) Power BI
3 1 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.44%) Data Mining
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Database 10g
Development Applications
1 16 (7.08%) JIRA
General
1 41 (18.14%) Social Skills
2 17 (7.52%) Law
3 14 (6.19%) Legal
4 9 (3.98%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.10%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.10%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.77%) Retail
8 3 (1.33%) Advertising
8 3 (1.33%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.33%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.88%) Banking
9 2 (0.88%) Finance
10 1 (0.44%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.33%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.19%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.54%) PKI
3 6 (2.65%) Onboarding
4 4 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (1.77%) Video Conferencing
5 3 (1.33%) CMDB
6 2 (0.88%) Data Centre
6 2 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.88%) Replication
6 2 (0.88%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.44%) Clustering
7 1 (0.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.44%) Life Science
7 1 (0.44%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.44%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 76 (33.63%) Windows
2 50 (22.12%) Windows Server
3 25 (11.06%) Linux
4 18 (7.96%) Mac OS
5 10 (4.42%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (3.54%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (3.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (3.10%) Windows 10
8 5 (2.21%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.77%) Windows Server 2008
9 4 (1.77%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.88%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.44%) Android
11 1 (0.44%) HPUX
11 1 (0.44%) Solaris
11 1 (0.44%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (27.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
3 29 (12.83%) ITIL
4 26 (11.50%) Root Cause Analysis
4 26 (11.50%) Technical Leadership
5 23 (10.18%) Customer Service
6 21 (9.29%) Change Management
7 20 (8.85%) Incident Management
8 17 (7.52%) Project Delivery
9 16 (7.08%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (7.08%) High Availability
10 15 (6.64%) Agile
10 15 (6.64%) Containerisation
10 15 (6.64%) Identity Management
10 15 (6.64%) Load Balancing
10 15 (6.64%) Workflow
11 14 (6.19%) Disaster Recovery
12 13 (5.75%) Mentoring
13 12 (5.31%) Kalman Filter
13 12 (5.31%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 40 (17.70%) PowerShell
2 21 (9.29%) SQL
3 14 (6.19%) R
4 9 (3.98%) Bash
5 7 (3.10%) Python
6 3 (1.33%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.88%) Bicep
8 1 (0.44%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 37 (16.37%) Security Cleared
2 30 (13.27%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.96%) Azure Certification
4 16 (7.08%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.98%) DBS Check
6 5 (2.21%) Degree
7 4 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.33%) HND
8 3 (1.33%) RHCE
9 2 (0.88%) CCNA
9 2 (0.88%) CCNP
9 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.44%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.77%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (0.88%) NIST
3 2 (0.88%) SLA
System Software
1 79 (34.96%) Active Directory
2 39 (17.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (12.83%) Hyper-V
4 12 (5.31%) vSphere
5 11 (4.87%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.77%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.33%) Docker
7 3 (1.33%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.88%) Firmware
8 2 (0.88%) Lustre
8 2 (0.88%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.44%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.44%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 46 (20.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (6.64%) Kubernetes
3 9 (3.98%) Jamf Pro
3 9 (3.98%) WSUS
4 8 (3.54%) Proxmox
4 8 (3.54%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 7 (3.10%) vCenter Server
6 6 (2.65%) SCCM
7 5 (2.21%) FortiGate
7 5 (2.21%) SCOM
8 4 (1.77%) Ansible
8 4 (1.77%) Autotask
9 3 (1.33%) Terraform
10 1 (0.44%) SCSM
10 1 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 94 (41.59%) Microsoft
2 56 (24.78%) VMware
3 18 (7.96%) Veeam
4 14 (6.19%) CrowdStrike
5 11 (4.87%) McAfee
6 8 (3.54%) HP
7 7 (3.10%) Cisco
8 6 (2.65%) Google
9 5 (2.21%) SolarWinds
9 5 (2.21%) SonicWALL
10 4 (1.77%) Apple
10 4 (1.77%) Aruba
10 4 (1.77%) ConnectWise
10 4 (1.77%) Datto
10 4 (1.77%) Dell
10 4 (1.77%) Meraki
10 4 (1.77%) NetApp
10 4 (1.77%) Oracle
10 4 (1.77%) Ubiquiti
11 3 (1.33%) Yealink