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 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 505 503 491
Rank change year-on-year -2 -12 +77
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 222 154 443
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 208 136 398
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 £55,000 £51,500
90th Percentile £60,375 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £42,000
% change year-on-year -10.00% +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 83,558 37,679 90,605
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 89.07% 94.54%
Number of salaries quoted 53,734 23,343 66,736
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,625 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,800 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.03% +12.83% -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 1 May 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 1 May 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 -14 204 £50,000 - 33
UK excluding London -29 173 £45,000 -10.00% 36
Work from Home +3 59 £52,500 +5.00% 10
South East -18 54 £48,000 -8.57% 10
London 0 49 £55,000 -12.00% 2
Yorkshire -20 47 £45,000 +28.57% 6
North of England -40 47 £45,000 +13.92% 9
South West -42 20 £52,209 +22.84% 6
Wales - 18 £45,000 - 3
East of England -20 17 £55,000 +25.71% 6
Midlands -55 17 £50,000 - 3
East Midlands -51 12 £53,750 -6.11% 2
West Midlands -40 5 £47,000 -6.00% 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 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 94 (42.34%) Azure
2 90 (40.54%) Microsoft
3 82 (36.94%) Microsoft 365
4 77 (34.68%) Active Directory
5 73 (32.88%) Windows
6 62 (27.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 55 (24.77%) VMware
8 49 (22.07%) Microsoft Exchange
9 47 (21.17%) Windows Server
10 45 (20.27%) Firewall
11 44 (19.82%) Microsoft Intune
12 43 (19.37%) SharePoint
13 42 (18.92%) Entra ID
14 41 (18.47%) Problem-Solving
15 39 (17.57%) VMware Infrastructure
16 38 (17.12%) PowerShell
17 37 (16.67%) DNS
18 36 (16.22%) Security Cleared
19 30 (13.51%) Hyper-V
20 29 (13.06%) SC Cleared
21 28 (12.61%) Root Cause Analysis
22 27 (12.16%) ITIL
22 27 (12.16%) Technical Leadership
23 24 (10.81%) Linux
24 22 (9.91%) Customer Service
24 22 (9.91%) SaaS
25 21 (9.46%) Change Management
25 21 (9.46%) SQL
26 19 (8.56%) Azure Certification
26 19 (8.56%) IaaS

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 49 (22.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (19.37%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.80%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.80%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.80%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.45%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.35%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.35%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.90%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 94 (42.34%) Azure
2 82 (36.94%) Microsoft 365
3 42 (18.92%) Entra ID
4 22 (9.91%) SaaS
5 19 (8.56%) IaaS
5 19 (8.56%) Mimecast
6 16 (7.21%) Azure AKS
6 16 (7.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (7.21%) Azure Key Vault
6 16 (7.21%) Azure Storage
7 6 (2.70%) Google Workspace
8 5 (2.25%) AWS
8 5 (2.25%) OneDrive
9 4 (1.80%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.45%) Google Docs
10 1 (0.45%) PaaS
10 1 (0.45%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 45 (20.27%) Firewall
2 37 (16.67%) DNS
3 19 (8.56%) VPN
4 13 (5.86%) DHCP
5 12 (5.41%) Wireless
6 9 (4.05%) VLAN
7 8 (3.60%) SAN
7 8 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (3.15%) TCP/IP
9 6 (2.70%) LAN
10 5 (2.25%) WAN
11 3 (1.35%) Ethernet
11 3 (1.35%) Network Security
12 2 (0.90%) BGP
12 2 (0.90%) InfiniBand
12 2 (0.90%) OSPF
12 2 (0.90%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.90%) VoIP
13 1 (0.45%) Internet
13 1 (0.45%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.80%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.90%) Power BI
3 1 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 16 (7.21%) JIRA
General
1 41 (18.47%) Social Skills
2 18 (8.11%) Law
3 14 (6.31%) Legal
4 10 (4.50%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.15%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (3.15%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.80%) Retail
8 3 (1.35%) Advertising
8 3 (1.35%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.35%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.90%) Banking
9 2 (0.90%) Finance
10 1 (0.45%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.35%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.31%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.60%) PKI
3 5 (2.25%) Onboarding
4 4 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (1.80%) Video Conferencing
5 3 (1.35%) CMDB
6 2 (0.90%) Data Centre
6 2 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.90%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.45%) Clustering
7 1 (0.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.45%) Life Science
7 1 (0.45%) Replication
7 1 (0.45%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 73 (32.88%) Windows
2 47 (21.17%) Windows Server
3 24 (10.81%) Linux
4 19 (8.56%) Mac OS
5 9 (4.05%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (3.60%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (3.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (2.70%) Windows 10
9 5 (2.25%) Apple iOS
10 4 (1.80%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (1.35%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.45%) Android
12 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (27.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (18.47%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (12.61%) Root Cause Analysis
4 27 (12.16%) ITIL
4 27 (12.16%) Technical Leadership
5 22 (9.91%) Customer Service
6 21 (9.46%) Change Management
7 18 (8.11%) Incident Management
8 17 (7.66%) High Availability
9 16 (7.21%) Agile
9 16 (7.21%) Containerisation
9 16 (7.21%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (7.21%) Load Balancing
9 16 (7.21%) Project Delivery
10 15 (6.76%) Identity Management
10 15 (6.76%) Workflow
11 14 (6.31%) Disaster Recovery
11 14 (6.31%) Mentoring
12 13 (5.86%) Kalman Filter
12 13 (5.86%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 38 (17.12%) PowerShell
2 21 (9.46%) SQL
3 14 (6.31%) R
4 9 (4.05%) Bash
5 7 (3.15%) Python
6 3 (1.35%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.90%) Bicep
8 1 (0.45%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 36 (16.22%) Security Cleared
2 29 (13.06%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.56%) Azure Certification
4 14 (6.31%) DV Cleared
5 9 (4.05%) DBS Check
6 4 (1.80%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (1.80%) Degree
7 3 (1.35%) RHCE
8 2 (0.90%) CCNA
8 2 (0.90%) CCNP
8 2 (0.90%) HND
8 2 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (0.90%) NIST
3 2 (0.90%) SLA
System Software
1 77 (34.68%) Active Directory
2 39 (17.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (13.51%) Hyper-V
4 11 (4.95%) Virtual Desktop
4 11 (4.95%) vSphere
5 4 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (1.35%) Docker
6 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 3 (1.35%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.90%) Firmware
7 2 (0.90%) Lustre
7 2 (0.90%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.45%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.45%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 44 (19.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (7.21%) Kubernetes
3 9 (4.05%) Jamf Pro
3 9 (4.05%) Proxmox
3 9 (4.05%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
3 9 (4.05%) WSUS
4 7 (3.15%) vCenter Server
5 5 (2.25%) SCCM
6 4 (1.80%) Ansible
6 4 (1.80%) Autotask
6 4 (1.80%) FortiGate
6 4 (1.80%) SCOM
7 3 (1.35%) Terraform
8 1 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 90 (40.54%) Microsoft
2 55 (24.77%) VMware
3 17 (7.66%) Veeam
4 14 (6.31%) CrowdStrike
5 11 (4.95%) McAfee
6 8 (3.60%) HP
7 7 (3.15%) Cisco
8 6 (2.70%) Google
9 5 (2.25%) SolarWinds
9 5 (2.25%) SonicWALL
10 4 (1.80%) Apple
10 4 (1.80%) Aruba
10 4 (1.80%) ConnectWise
10 4 (1.80%) Datto
10 4 (1.80%) Dell
10 4 (1.80%) Meraki
10 4 (1.80%) NetApp
10 4 (1.80%) Ubiquiti
11 3 (1.35%) Oracle
11 3 (1.35%) Red Hat