3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 25 August 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 591 517 512
Rank change year-on-year -74 -5 -23
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 211 163 311
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.19% 0.33% 0.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.36% 0.39%
Number of salaries quoted 197 155 258
10th Percentile £39,500 £33,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £39,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +13.10% -6.67%
75th Percentile £58,750 £52,500 £50,188
90th Percentile £62,500 £57,500 £55,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £46,500 £41,250
% change year-on-year +7.53% +12.73% -8.33%

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 102,188 44,848 79,423
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.93% 89.83% 95.11%
Number of salaries quoted 70,058 26,594 51,910
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,520 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.74% -4.96% -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 25 August 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 25 August 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 -70 193 £50,000 +5.26% 35
UK excluding London -51 181 £50,000 +7.53% 32
South East +4 78 £52,500 +3.45% 11
Work from Home -48 50 £52,500 +10.53% 15
Midlands -22 37 £45,000 -10.00% 8
London -41 30 £55,000 +6.80% 4
East of England -31 26 £50,000 +11.11% 11
East Midlands -14 24 £50,000 - 2
Wales -50 18 £45,000 -
West Midlands -37 13 £45,000 -10.00% 6
North of England -62 13 £50,000 +25.00% 4
Yorkshire -37 12 £48,750 +30.00%
South West -69 9 £50,000 +17.65% 2
North West -33 1 £52,500 +31.25% 3

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

For the 6 months to 25 August 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.

1 111 (52.61%) Microsoft
2 105 (49.76%) Azure
3 92 (43.60%) Microsoft 365
4 81 (38.39%) Windows
5 79 (37.44%) Active Directory
6 73 (34.60%) Entra ID
7 66 (31.28%) Microsoft Exchange
8 58 (27.49%) DNS
8 58 (27.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 51 (24.17%) SharePoint
10 50 (23.70%) Firewall
10 50 (23.70%) Microsoft Intune
11 48 (22.75%) PowerShell
12 46 (21.80%) Root Cause Analysis
12 46 (21.80%) Windows Server
13 42 (19.91%) SaaS
14 41 (19.43%) Hyper-V
15 40 (18.96%) VMware
16 38 (18.01%) Azure Certification
17 34 (16.11%) VMware Infrastructure
18 33 (15.64%) Cisco
19 31 (14.69%) IaaS
20 30 (14.22%) Mentoring
21 29 (13.74%) High Availability
22 28 (13.27%) Agile
22 28 (13.27%) Azure AKS
22 28 (13.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
22 28 (13.27%) Azure Key Vault
22 28 (13.27%) Azure Storage
22 28 (13.27%) Containerisation

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 66 (31.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 51 (24.17%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.90%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.90%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.90%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.47%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.42%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.42%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.95%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 105 (49.76%) Azure
2 92 (43.60%) Microsoft 365
3 73 (34.60%) Entra ID
4 42 (19.91%) SaaS
5 31 (14.69%) IaaS
6 28 (13.27%) Azure AKS
6 28 (13.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 28 (13.27%) Azure Key Vault
6 28 (13.27%) Azure Storage
7 18 (8.53%) Mimecast
8 10 (4.74%) AWS
8 10 (4.74%) Google Workspace
9 8 (3.79%) OneDrive
10 4 (1.90%) Power Automate
11 3 (1.42%) Power Platform
12 2 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
13 1 (0.47%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 58 (27.49%) DNS
2 50 (23.70%) Firewall
3 28 (13.27%) DHCP
4 26 (12.32%) VPN
5 24 (11.37%) VLAN
6 14 (6.64%) Wi-Fi
6 14 (6.64%) Wireless
7 13 (6.16%) TCP/IP
8 9 (4.27%) LAN
8 9 (4.27%) Network Security
8 9 (4.27%) WAN
9 5 (2.37%) SAN
10 4 (1.90%) DMZ
10 4 (1.90%) Wireshark
11 3 (1.42%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (0.95%) BGP
13 1 (0.47%) Internet
13 1 (0.47%) IPsec
13 1 (0.47%) OSPF
13 1 (0.47%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.32%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 17 (8.06%) JIRA
2 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 42 (19.91%) Social Skills
2 30 (14.22%) Law
3 18 (8.53%) Legal
4 9 (4.27%) Public Sector
5 8 (3.79%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (0.95%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.95%) Finance
9 1 (0.47%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.84%) .NET
2 3 (1.42%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.42%) Web Services
3 1 (0.47%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 10 (4.74%) Video Conferencing
2 8 (3.79%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.79%) Onboarding
3 7 (3.32%) Clustering
3 7 (3.32%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (3.32%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (1.90%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (0.95%) Data Centre
5 2 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (0.95%) Management Information System
5 2 (0.95%) PKI
5 2 (0.95%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 81 (38.39%) Windows
2 46 (21.80%) Windows Server
3 25 (11.85%) Mac OS
4 22 (10.43%) Linux
5 16 (7.58%) Windows Server 2016
6 14 (6.64%) Windows Server 2012
7 10 (4.74%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (2.37%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.90%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.95%) VMS
11 1 (0.47%) Android
11 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.47%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (27.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 46 (21.80%) Root Cause Analysis
3 30 (14.22%) Mentoring
4 29 (13.74%) High Availability
5 28 (13.27%) Agile
5 28 (13.27%) Containerisation
5 28 (13.27%) Load Balancing
6 26 (12.32%) Technical Leadership
7 23 (10.90%) ITIL
7 23 (10.90%) Problem-Solving
8 22 (10.43%) Change Management
8 22 (10.43%) Incident Management
9 19 (9.00%) Continuous Improvement
9 19 (9.00%) Identity Management
10 18 (8.53%) Cybersecurity
10 18 (8.53%) Project Delivery
11 16 (7.58%) Disaster Recovery
11 16 (7.58%) Workflow
12 15 (7.11%) Remote Monitoring and Management
13 14 (6.64%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 48 (22.75%) PowerShell
2 18 (8.53%) SQL
3 16 (7.58%) R
4 7 (3.32%) T-SQL
5 6 (2.84%) Bash
5 6 (2.84%) C#
6 3 (1.42%) Python
6 3 (1.42%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.47%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 38 (18.01%) Azure Certification
2 26 (12.32%) Security Cleared
3 23 (10.90%) SC Cleared
4 14 (6.64%) CCNA
4 14 (6.64%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (6.16%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (5.21%) Degree
7 4 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.90%) MCSA
7 4 (1.90%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 3 (1.42%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.95%) CCNP
9 2 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (9.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (6.16%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.42%) SLA
4 2 (0.95%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 79 (37.44%) Active Directory
2 41 (19.43%) Hyper-V
3 34 (16.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (4.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (3.32%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (1.42%) Docker
6 3 (1.42%) Firmware
6 3 (1.42%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (1.42%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 50 (23.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (13.27%) Kubernetes
3 16 (7.58%) Jamf Pro
4 14 (6.64%) Autotask
5 8 (3.79%) Proxmox
5 8 (3.79%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 6 (2.84%) Failover Clustering
6 6 (2.84%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (1.90%) Iperf
8 2 (0.95%) MaaS360
8 2 (0.95%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.95%) WSUS
9 1 (0.47%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.47%) SCCM
9 1 (0.47%) SCOM
Vendors
1 111 (52.61%) Microsoft
2 40 (18.96%) VMware
3 33 (15.64%) Cisco
4 19 (9.00%) Fortinet
5 18 (8.53%) SonicWALL
6 16 (7.58%) CrowdStrike
7 15 (7.11%) HP
8 13 (6.16%) Veeam
9 12 (5.69%) Meraki
10 11 (5.21%) Datto
10 11 (5.21%) Google
11 10 (4.74%) Aruba
11 10 (4.74%) Ubiquiti
12 8 (3.79%) Apple
13 6 (2.84%) Palo Alto
14 5 (2.37%) ConnectWise
15 4 (1.90%) Dell
15 4 (1.90%) Ruckus Wireless
15 4 (1.90%) ServiceNow
16 3 (1.42%) Remedy