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 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 492 510 488
Rank change year-on-year +18 -22 +87
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 251 159 461
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.36% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.40% 0.45%
Number of salaries quoted 236 142 397
10th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £49,000 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +16.67% -11.58%
75th Percentile £58,750 £53,750 £50,000
90th Percentile £62,500 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £47,500 £40,500
% change year-on-year +5.26% +17.28% -14.29%

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 87,667 39,868 102,544
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.98% 89.44% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 60,134 22,590 73,956
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £39,000 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,501 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -17 226 £52,500 +5.00% 41
UK excluding London +22 207 £50,000 +5.26% 33
South East +29 79 £52,500 +1.94% 8
Work from Home -2 60 £52,500 +5.00% 21
London -12 44 £55,000 -10.20% 10
Yorkshire -2 42 £46,250 +32.14% 3
North of England -12 42 £46,250 +15.63% 4
Wales - 25 £45,000 -
East of England -18 23 £49,000 +8.89% 4
Midlands -34 19 £57,500 +15.00% 14
South West -43 19 £50,000 +11.11% 3
East Midlands -31 14 £60,000 +14.29% 4
West Midlands -34 5 £45,000 -10.00% 10

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

For the 6 months to 16 June 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.

1 108 (43.03%) Azure
2 107 (42.63%) Microsoft
3 91 (36.25%) Microsoft 365
4 79 (31.47%) Windows
5 74 (29.48%) Active Directory
6 66 (26.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 57 (22.71%) Microsoft Exchange
8 53 (21.12%) VMware
9 52 (20.72%) Entra ID
10 49 (19.52%) DNS
11 48 (19.12%) Firewall
12 47 (18.73%) Root Cause Analysis
12 47 (18.73%) SharePoint
13 44 (17.53%) Security Cleared
13 44 (17.53%) VMware Infrastructure
14 43 (17.13%) Microsoft Intune
15 42 (16.73%) PowerShell
15 42 (16.73%) Windows Server
16 38 (15.14%) SaaS
17 37 (14.74%) SC Cleared
18 35 (13.94%) Hyper-V
19 33 (13.15%) Azure Certification
19 33 (13.15%) Technical Leadership
20 32 (12.75%) IaaS
21 30 (11.95%) ITIL
21 30 (11.95%) Mac OS
22 29 (11.55%) High Availability
22 29 (11.55%) Problem-Solving
23 28 (11.16%) Agile
23 28 (11.16%) Azure AKS

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 57 (22.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 47 (18.73%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.59%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.59%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.59%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 5 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.20%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.20%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (1.20%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.40%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 108 (43.03%) Azure
2 91 (36.25%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (20.72%) Entra ID
4 38 (15.14%) SaaS
5 32 (12.75%) IaaS
6 28 (11.16%) Azure AKS
6 28 (11.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 28 (11.16%) Azure Key Vault
6 28 (11.16%) Azure Storage
7 19 (7.57%) Mimecast
8 11 (4.38%) Google Workspace
9 6 (2.39%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.20%) AWS
11 2 (0.80%) Power Platform
12 1 (0.40%) GCP
12 1 (0.40%) Google Docs
12 1 (0.40%) PaaS
12 1 (0.40%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 49 (19.52%) DNS
2 48 (19.12%) Firewall
3 21 (8.37%) VPN
4 15 (5.98%) VLAN
5 14 (5.58%) DHCP
6 13 (5.18%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (3.98%) SAN
7 10 (3.98%) Wireless
8 9 (3.59%) TCP/IP
9 6 (2.39%) LAN
10 5 (1.99%) WAN
11 4 (1.59%) Network Security
12 2 (0.80%) Ethernet
13 1 (0.40%) BGP
13 1 (0.40%) DMZ
13 1 (0.40%) Internet
13 1 (0.40%) IPsec
13 1 (0.40%) Junos
13 1 (0.40%) OSPF
13 1 (0.40%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.59%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (6.37%) JIRA
General
1 44 (17.53%) Social Skills
2 30 (11.95%) Law
3 15 (5.98%) Legal
4 14 (5.58%) Public Sector
5 7 (2.79%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (2.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (1.59%) Telecoms
7 2 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (0.80%) Finance
8 1 (0.40%) Banking
8 1 (0.40%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (1.99%) .NET
2 3 (1.20%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 14 (5.58%) Driving Licence
2 10 (3.98%) Video Conferencing
3 8 (3.19%) PKI
4 5 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.20%) CMDB
6 3 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (1.20%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.80%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.80%) Security Posture
7 2 (0.80%) YubiKey
8 1 (0.40%) Clustering
8 1 (0.40%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (0.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.40%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 79 (31.47%) Windows
2 42 (16.73%) Windows Server
3 30 (11.95%) Mac OS
4 28 (11.16%) Linux
5 12 (4.78%) Windows Server 2012
5 12 (4.78%) Windows Server 2016
6 7 (2.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (2.79%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (1.99%) Apple iOS
7 5 (1.99%) Windows 10
8 4 (1.59%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.40%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (26.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 47 (18.73%) Root Cause Analysis
3 33 (13.15%) Technical Leadership
4 30 (11.95%) ITIL
5 29 (11.55%) High Availability
5 29 (11.55%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (11.16%) Agile
6 28 (11.16%) Containerisation
6 28 (11.16%) Load Balancing
7 25 (9.96%) Change Management
8 23 (9.16%) Mentoring
9 22 (8.76%) Incident Management
9 22 (8.76%) Project Delivery
10 18 (7.17%) Customer Service
11 16 (6.37%) Identity Management
11 16 (6.37%) Problem Management
11 16 (6.37%) Workflow
12 15 (5.98%) Kalman Filter
12 15 (5.98%) Web Filtering
13 14 (5.58%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 42 (16.73%) PowerShell
2 21 (8.37%) SQL
3 15 (5.98%) R
4 8 (3.19%) Bash
5 6 (2.39%) Python
6 5 (1.99%) C#
6 5 (1.99%) T-SQL
7 3 (1.20%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.80%) Bicep
9 1 (0.40%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 44 (17.53%) Security Cleared
2 37 (14.74%) SC Cleared
3 33 (13.15%) Azure Certification
4 10 (3.98%) DV Cleared
5 7 (2.79%) DBS Check
6 4 (1.59%) CCNA
6 4 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (1.59%) Degree
7 3 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.40%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.40%) CCNP
8 1 (0.40%) MCSA
8 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.40%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (1.99%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.20%) SLA
4 2 (0.80%) NIST
4 2 (0.80%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 74 (29.48%) Active Directory
2 44 (17.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (13.94%) Hyper-V
4 15 (5.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (4.38%) vSphere
6 4 (1.59%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.20%) Docker
7 3 (1.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.20%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.40%) Firmware
8 1 (0.40%) Lustre
8 1 (0.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.40%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.40%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 43 (17.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (11.16%) Kubernetes
3 16 (6.37%) Jamf Pro
4 14 (5.58%) Autotask
5 13 (5.18%) Proxmox
5 13 (5.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 9 (3.59%) WSUS
7 3 (1.20%) Terraform
7 3 (1.20%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.80%) Ansible
9 1 (0.40%) Iperf
9 1 (0.40%) SCCM
9 1 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 107 (42.63%) Microsoft
2 53 (21.12%) VMware
3 24 (9.56%) Cisco
4 15 (5.98%) CrowdStrike
4 15 (5.98%) HP
5 14 (5.58%) Veeam
6 12 (4.78%) Fortinet
6 12 (4.78%) Google
6 12 (4.78%) SonicWALL
7 11 (4.38%) Datto
8 10 (3.98%) Aruba
8 10 (3.98%) Meraki
8 10 (3.98%) Ubiquiti
9 7 (2.79%) McAfee
10 5 (1.99%) Apple
10 5 (1.99%) ConnectWise
11 4 (1.59%) Dell
12 3 (1.20%) IFS
12 3 (1.20%) NetApp
12 3 (1.20%) Oracle