3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £47,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 September 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 516 538 492
Rank change year-on-year +22 -46 +261
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 155 254 294
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.32% 0.33% 0.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.34% 0.51%
Number of salaries quoted 147 212 259
10th Percentile £34,500 £33,850 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,375 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £41,750 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.77% -7.22% -
75th Percentile £53,500 £50,063 £52,750
90th Percentile £57,500 £55,000 £56,720
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,000 £40,591 £42,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -4.49% -5.56%

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 44,026 73,874 58,090
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.61% 95.25% 93.95%
Number of salaries quoted 25,758 44,964 44,983
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

3rd Line Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured 3rd Line Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for 3rd Line Engineer 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 15 September 2025.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd 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 3rd Line Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 15 September 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 +30 150 £47,500 +13.10% 44
UK excluding London +5 127 £47,000 +15.79% 41
Work from Home +53 46 £50,000 +22.70% 15
East of England +5 39 £45,000 - 5
South East +16 34 £50,000 +19.05% 19
Midlands +43 28 £50,000 +25.00% 5
London +79 25 £51,500 +5.64% 6
East Midlands +31 18 £50,000 +17.65% 3
North of England -12 16 £40,000 +14.29% 8
North West +8 15 £40,000 - 3
West Midlands +41 10 £50,000 +26.58% 2
South West +39 7 £42,500 - 6
Wales +19 2 - -
Scotland +54 1 £35,000 -19.54% 1
Yorkshire +8 1 £47,500 +35.71% 2

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 September 2025, 3rd Line Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring 3rd Line Engineer in the job title.

1 107 (69.03%) Microsoft
2 99 (63.87%) Azure
3 84 (54.19%) Windows
4 74 (47.74%) Microsoft 365
5 69 (44.52%) Windows Server
6 59 (38.06%) Active Directory
7 53 (34.19%) PowerShell
8 50 (32.26%) VMware
9 48 (30.97%) Firewall
10 47 (30.32%) ITIL
11 46 (29.68%) Hyper-V
12 44 (28.39%) Microsoft Exchange
12 44 (28.39%) Cisco
13 43 (27.74%) VMware Infrastructure
14 38 (24.52%) Microsoft Intune
15 37 (23.87%) DNS
16 35 (22.58%) Social Skills
17 34 (21.94%) Security Cleared
18 28 (18.06%) DHCP
18 28 (18.06%) Entra ID
19 27 (17.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 27 (17.42%) Windows Server 2019
19 27 (17.42%) Veeam
20 26 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
21 24 (15.48%) Task Automation
22 22 (14.19%) SharePoint
23 20 (12.90%) Linux
23 20 (12.90%) SC Cleared
24 19 (12.26%) Cisco Certification
24 19 (12.26%) Mentoring

3rd Line Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 44 (28.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 22 (14.19%) SharePoint
3 10 (6.45%) IIS
4 3 (1.94%) Exchange Server 2003
5 2 (1.29%) Apache
5 2 (1.29%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.65%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.65%) Office Communications Server
6 1 (0.65%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 3 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (3.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 99 (63.87%) Azure
2 74 (47.74%) Microsoft 365
3 28 (18.06%) Entra ID
4 16 (10.32%) AWS
5 10 (6.45%) Azure Storage
5 10 (6.45%) GCP
6 9 (5.81%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (5.81%) Azure Monitor
7 5 (3.23%) Azure App Service
7 5 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
8 4 (2.58%) Azure Table
9 3 (1.94%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.94%) OneDrive
9 3 (1.94%) Power Platform
10 2 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.29%) PowerApps
10 2 (1.29%) Serverless
11 1 (0.65%) Amazon ECS
11 1 (0.65%) Dynamics 365
11 1 (0.65%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 48 (30.97%) Firewall
2 37 (23.87%) DNS
3 28 (18.06%) DHCP
4 18 (11.61%) SAN
4 18 (11.61%) Wireless
5 16 (10.32%) VLAN
6 15 (9.68%) WAN
7 13 (8.39%) VPN
8 11 (7.10%) LAN
8 11 (7.10%) TCP/IP
9 10 (6.45%) iSCSI
10 8 (5.16%) Cisco IOS
10 8 (5.16%) IPsec
10 8 (5.16%) VoIP
10 8 (5.16%) Wi-Fi
11 7 (4.52%) OSPF
12 6 (3.87%) BGP
12 6 (3.87%) Internet
12 6 (3.87%) SD-WAN
12 6 (3.87%) Wireless Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (9.68%) SQL Server
2 6 (3.87%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (1.94%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.94%) Oracle Database 10g
4 1 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
General
1 35 (22.58%) Social Skills
2 13 (8.39%) Public Sector
3 11 (7.10%) Manufacturing
3 11 (7.10%) Telecoms
4 10 (6.45%) Marketing
5 9 (5.81%) Electronics
5 9 (5.81%) Finance
6 7 (4.52%) Automotive
7 6 (3.87%) Advertising
8 5 (3.23%) Billing
9 4 (2.58%) Analytical Skills
10 3 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (1.29%) Games
11 2 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (1.29%) Law
11 2 (1.29%) Retail
12 1 (0.65%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.65%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.65%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.94%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.65%) .NET
2 1 (0.65%) LAMP
Miscellaneous
1 10 (6.45%) Driving Licence
1 10 (6.45%) Hybrid Cloud
2 8 (5.16%) Onboarding
2 8 (5.16%) Replication
3 7 (4.52%) Clustering
4 3 (1.94%) Data Centre
4 3 (1.94%) iPad
4 3 (1.94%) PKI
4 3 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (1.94%) Social Media
5 2 (1.29%) Video Conferencing
6 1 (0.65%) BYOD
6 1 (0.65%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.65%) Smartphone
6 1 (0.65%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 84 (54.19%) Windows
2 69 (44.52%) Windows Server
3 27 (17.42%) Windows Server 2019
4 20 (12.90%) Linux
5 12 (7.74%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (7.10%) Windows 10
7 7 (4.52%) Android
8 6 (3.87%) Mac OS
8 6 (3.87%) VMS
9 5 (3.23%) Unix
10 4 (2.58%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (1.94%) Apple iOS
11 3 (1.94%) Solaris
12 2 (1.29%) CentOS
12 2 (1.29%) HPUX
13 1 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.65%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (30.32%) ITIL
2 27 (17.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 26 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (15.48%) Task Automation
5 19 (12.26%) Mentoring
5 19 (12.26%) Patch Management
6 16 (10.32%) Change Management
6 16 (10.32%) Migration
7 15 (9.68%) Customer Service
8 12 (7.74%) ITSM
9 11 (7.10%) DevOps
9 11 (7.10%) Disaster Recovery
9 11 (7.10%) Network Monitoring
9 11 (7.10%) Root Cause Analysis
9 11 (7.10%) Storage Management
10 10 (6.45%) Business Intelligence
10 10 (6.45%) CI/CD
10 10 (6.45%) Cloud Security
10 10 (6.45%) High Availability
10 10 (6.45%) Remote Monitoring and Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (34.19%) PowerShell
2 17 (10.97%) SQL
3 9 (5.81%) C#
4 2 (1.29%) Bash
4 2 (1.29%) Python
5 1 (0.65%) Java
5 1 (0.65%) PHP
Qualifications
1 34 (21.94%) Security Cleared
2 20 (12.90%) SC Cleared
3 19 (12.26%) Cisco Certification
4 16 (10.32%) DV Cleared
5 15 (9.68%) CCNA
5 15 (9.68%) Degree
6 14 (9.03%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (8.39%) DBS Check
8 6 (3.87%) CCNP
8 6 (3.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (3.87%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 5 (3.23%) ACMT
9 5 (3.23%) Azure Certification
10 3 (1.94%) MCSE
11 2 (1.29%) MCP
11 2 (1.29%) MCSA
12 1 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.65%) Linux+ Certification
12 1 (0.65%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.65%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.45%) Cyber Essentials
2 3 (1.94%) ISO 9000
2 3 (1.94%) SLA
3 1 (0.65%) GDPR
3 1 (0.65%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.65%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (38.06%) Active Directory
2 46 (29.68%) Hyper-V
3 43 (27.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (8.39%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (4.52%) Docker
6 5 (3.23%) vSphere
6 5 (3.23%) XenApp
7 4 (2.58%) Terminal Services
7 4 (2.58%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (1.29%) Firmware
8 2 (1.29%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (1.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (1.29%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.65%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.65%) Dovecot
9 1 (0.65%) ISA Server
9 1 (0.65%) Postfix
9 1 (0.65%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 38 (24.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (9.68%) Backup Exec
3 12 (7.74%) SCCM
4 10 (6.45%) Autotask
5 9 (5.81%) Terraform
5 9 (5.81%) vCenter Server
6 6 (3.87%) Kubernetes
7 5 (3.23%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (1.94%) Ansible
9 2 (1.29%) Grafana
9 2 (1.29%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.65%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.65%) Podman
10 1 (0.65%) Puppet
10 1 (0.65%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.65%) SCOrch
10 1 (0.65%) SCSM
10 1 (0.65%) WhatsUp Gold
10 1 (0.65%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 107 (69.03%) Microsoft
2 50 (32.26%) VMware
3 44 (28.39%) Cisco
4 27 (17.42%) Veeam
5 14 (9.03%) Juniper
6 13 (8.39%) Citrix
6 13 (8.39%) Datto
6 13 (8.39%) HP
6 13 (8.39%) Meraki
7 12 (7.74%) Apple
8 11 (7.10%) Sophos
9 10 (6.45%) Aruba
9 10 (6.45%) SAP
10 9 (5.81%) Google
11 8 (5.16%) Oracle
12 7 (4.52%) SolarWinds
13 6 (3.87%) Dell
13 6 (3.87%) Fortinet
14 5 (3.23%) NetApp
14 5 (3.23%) Remedy