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 11 April 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 480 491 468
Rank change year-on-year +11 -23 +122
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 228 150 457
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.37% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.41% 0.52%
Number of salaries quoted 214 133 412
10th Percentile £38,250 £35,650 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,000 £50,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +17.65% -7.10%
75th Percentile £58,750 £54,500 £51,500
90th Percentile £60,000 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £42,000
% change year-on-year -5.00% +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 77,261 36,752 87,362
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 89.59% 94.53%
Number of salaries quoted 49,774 23,301 65,437
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 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -10.00%
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 11 April 2026.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Top 14 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 11 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 -14 214 £50,000 - 57
UK excluding London -31 175 £47,500 -5.00% 55
South East -22 61 £47,500 -7.77% 19
Work from Home +8 58 £55,000 +10.00% 14
London +25 53 £52,500 -16.00% 9
Yorkshire -18 46 £45,000 +28.57% 13
North of England -47 46 £45,000 +13.92% 17
South West -34 25 £55,000 +25.00% 4
Midlands -61 15 £50,000 - 5
East of England -33 14 £52,500 +24.26% 8
Wales - 13 £45,000 - 2
East Midlands -59 8 £53,750 -9.66% 3
West Midlands -22 7 £47,000 -6.00% 2
Scotland - 1 £55,000 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 11 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 99 (43.42%) Azure
2 97 (42.54%) Microsoft
3 86 (37.72%) Microsoft 365
4 80 (35.09%) Active Directory
5 78 (34.21%) Windows
6 65 (28.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 59 (25.88%) VMware
8 55 (24.12%) Microsoft Exchange
8 55 (24.12%) Windows Server
9 49 (21.49%) Microsoft Intune
9 49 (21.49%) PowerShell
10 47 (20.61%) Entra ID
11 45 (19.74%) SharePoint
12 44 (19.30%) Problem-Solving
13 42 (18.42%) VMware Infrastructure
14 40 (17.54%) Firewall
14 40 (17.54%) Security Cleared
15 36 (15.79%) DNS
15 36 (15.79%) ITIL
16 31 (13.60%) Customer Service
17 30 (13.16%) Hyper-V
18 29 (12.72%) SC Cleared
19 25 (10.96%) Linux
20 24 (10.53%) Technical Leadership
21 23 (10.09%) Incident Management
22 22 (9.65%) Root Cause Analysis
23 21 (9.21%) Change Management
24 20 (8.77%) SaaS
24 20 (8.77%) SQL
24 20 (8.77%) Veeam

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 55 (24.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (19.74%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.75%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.75%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.75%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.44%) Confluence
4 1 (0.44%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 9 (3.95%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.32%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.32%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.88%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 99 (43.42%) Azure
2 86 (37.72%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (20.61%) Entra ID
4 20 (8.77%) SaaS
5 18 (7.89%) Mimecast
6 14 (6.14%) IaaS
7 11 (4.82%) Azure AKS
7 11 (4.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 11 (4.82%) Azure Key Vault
7 11 (4.82%) Azure Storage
8 7 (3.07%) AWS
9 5 (2.19%) OneDrive
9 5 (2.19%) Power Platform
10 4 (1.75%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.44%) Amazon S3
11 1 (0.44%) Google Docs
11 1 (0.44%) PaaS
11 1 (0.44%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 40 (17.54%) Firewall
2 36 (15.79%) DNS
3 20 (8.77%) VPN
4 17 (7.46%) DHCP
5 9 (3.95%) TCP/IP
5 9 (3.95%) Wireless
6 8 (3.51%) VLAN
6 8 (3.51%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (3.07%) LAN
7 7 (3.07%) SAN
7 7 (3.07%) WAN
8 4 (1.75%) Ethernet
9 3 (1.32%) Network Security
9 3 (1.32%) SD-WAN
9 3 (1.32%) VoIP
10 2 (0.88%) BGP
10 2 (0.88%) InfiniBand
10 2 (0.88%) OSPF
11 1 (0.44%) X.400
11 1 (0.44%) X.500
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.19%) Power BI
1 5 (2.19%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.32%) Data Mining
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle Database
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle Database 10g
4 1 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 17 (7.46%) JIRA
General
1 42 (18.42%) Social Skills
2 17 (7.46%) Law
3 14 (6.14%) Legal
4 8 (3.51%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.07%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.19%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.75%) Finance
7 4 (1.75%) Retail
8 3 (1.32%) Advertising
8 3 (1.32%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.32%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.88%) Banking
9 2 (0.88%) Marketing
10 1 (0.44%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.32%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.14%) Driving Licence
2 11 (4.82%) Onboarding
3 8 (3.51%) PKI
4 4 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.32%) CMDB
6 2 (0.88%) Data Centre
6 2 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.88%) Replication
6 2 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (0.88%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.44%) FMCG
7 1 (0.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.44%) Life Science
7 1 (0.44%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.44%) NHS
7 1 (0.44%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 78 (34.21%) Windows
2 55 (24.12%) Windows Server
3 25 (10.96%) Linux
4 14 (6.14%) Mac OS
5 11 (4.82%) Windows Server 2016
6 10 (4.39%) Windows 10
7 8 (3.51%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (3.07%) Apple iOS
8 7 (3.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (1.75%) Windows Server 2008
9 4 (1.75%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (1.32%) Android
11 2 (0.88%) HPUX
11 2 (0.88%) Solaris
11 2 (0.88%) Unix
11 2 (0.88%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (28.51%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 44 (19.30%) Problem-Solving
3 36 (15.79%) ITIL
4 31 (13.60%) Customer Service
5 24 (10.53%) Technical Leadership
6 23 (10.09%) Incident Management
7 22 (9.65%) Root Cause Analysis
8 21 (9.21%) Change Management
9 18 (7.89%) Project Delivery
10 16 (7.02%) Continuous Improvement
11 15 (6.58%) Identity Management
11 15 (6.58%) Workflow
12 13 (5.70%) ITSM
12 13 (5.70%) Mentoring
12 13 (5.70%) Service Delivery
13 12 (5.26%) Disaster Recovery
13 12 (5.26%) High Availability
14 11 (4.82%) Agile
14 11 (4.82%) Load Balancing
14 11 (4.82%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (21.49%) PowerShell
2 20 (8.77%) SQL
3 14 (6.14%) R
4 10 (4.39%) Bash
5 8 (3.51%) Python
6 3 (1.32%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.88%) Bicep
8 1 (0.44%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 40 (17.54%) Security Cleared
2 29 (12.72%) SC Cleared
3 16 (7.02%) DV Cleared
4 14 (6.14%) Azure Certification
5 9 (3.95%) DBS Check
6 8 (3.51%) Degree
7 5 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (2.19%) HND
8 3 (1.32%) CCNA
8 3 (1.32%) CCNP
8 3 (1.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.32%) RHCE
9 1 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (7.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (3.07%) SLA
3 3 (1.32%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.32%) NIST
4 1 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.44%) GDPR
System Software
1 80 (35.09%) Active Directory
2 42 (18.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (13.16%) Hyper-V
4 16 (7.02%) vSphere
5 9 (3.95%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.75%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.32%) Docker
7 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.32%) 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 49 (21.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (4.82%) Kubernetes
3 9 (3.95%) Jamf Pro
3 9 (3.95%) WSUS
4 7 (3.07%) FortiGate
4 7 (3.07%) SCCM
4 7 (3.07%) vCenter Server
5 6 (2.63%) Proxmox
5 6 (2.63%) SCOM
5 6 (2.63%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 4 (1.75%) Ansible
7 3 (1.32%) Terraform
8 2 (0.88%) Autotask
8 2 (0.88%) SCSM
9 1 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 97 (42.54%) Microsoft
2 59 (25.88%) VMware
3 20 (8.77%) Veeam
4 14 (6.14%) CrowdStrike
5 11 (4.82%) McAfee
6 8 (3.51%) Cisco
7 7 (3.07%) HP
8 6 (2.63%) Apple
9 5 (2.19%) Oracle
9 5 (2.19%) SolarWinds
10 4 (1.75%) ConnectWise
10 4 (1.75%) Dell
10 4 (1.75%) Google
10 4 (1.75%) NetApp
11 3 (1.32%) arcserve
11 3 (1.32%) Fortinet
11 3 (1.32%) IFS
11 3 (1.32%) Red Hat
11 3 (1.32%) Trend Micro
11 3 (1.32%) Yealink