3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £47,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 12 November 2025.

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

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 510 556 433
Rank change year-on-year +46 -123 +301
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 142 197 318
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.29% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.31% 0.63%
Number of salaries quoted 137 163 296
10th Percentile £33,750 £34,800 £32,500
25th Percentile £39,250 £36,250 £36,875
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% -5.56% -
75th Percentile £53,250 £52,500 £52,500
90th Percentile £57,500 £56,000 £57,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £42,000 £43,500
% change year-on-year +13.10% -3.45% -3.33%

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 47,047 63,901 50,390
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.87% 94.87% 95.50%
Number of salaries quoted 28,947 35,849 38,981
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,350 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.30% -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 12 November 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 12 November 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 +40 136 £47,000 +10.59% 74
UK excluding London +33 119 £47,500 +13.10% 69
Work from Home +46 38 £50,000 +25.00% 22
East of England +26 37 £47,000 +10.59% 5
South East +11 33 £47,500 +5.56% 33
London +46 20 £42,500 -12.82% 19
Midlands +48 19 £49,479 +9.95% 10
South West +24 19 £52,500 +20.00% 9
East Midlands +32 12 £52,239 +9.98% 4
North of England -20 8 £40,000 +12.68% 5
West Midlands +32 7 £47,500 +13.10% 6
North West +22 6 £36,000 -10.00% 2
Wales +10 2 - - 6
Yorkshire +2 2 £49,250 +21.06% 3
Scotland -3 2 £45,000 +3.45% 1

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

For the 6 months to 12 November 2025, 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 91 (64.08%) Microsoft
2 85 (59.86%) Azure
3 79 (55.63%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (55.63%) Windows
4 72 (50.70%) PowerShell
5 64 (45.07%) Windows Server
6 52 (36.62%) ITIL
7 44 (30.99%) Microsoft Exchange
7 44 (30.99%) VMware
8 43 (30.28%) Active Directory
8 43 (30.28%) Hyper-V
9 42 (29.58%) Problem-Solving
10 40 (28.17%) Firewall
11 39 (27.46%) Microsoft Intune
12 38 (26.76%) Cisco
13 36 (25.35%) VMware Infrastructure
14 35 (24.65%) Entra ID
14 35 (24.65%) Veeam
15 28 (19.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 28 (19.72%) Security Cleared
16 25 (17.61%) DNS
17 23 (16.20%) SharePoint
18 22 (15.49%) Customer Service
19 21 (14.79%) Windows Server 2019
20 20 (14.08%) Task Automation
21 19 (13.38%) ITSM
21 19 (13.38%) Patch Management
22 17 (11.97%) Apple
22 17 (11.97%) DHCP
22 17 (11.97%) Mentoring

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 44 (30.99%) Microsoft Exchange
2 23 (16.20%) SharePoint
3 5 (3.52%) IIS
4 4 (2.82%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 6 (4.23%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (3.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 85 (59.86%) Azure
2 79 (55.63%) Microsoft 365
3 35 (24.65%) Entra ID
4 12 (8.45%) AWS
5 8 (5.63%) Power Platform
6 5 (3.52%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (2.11%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.41%) OneDrive
8 2 (1.41%) PowerApps
9 1 (0.70%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.70%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.70%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.70%) Azure App Service
9 1 (0.70%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.70%) GCP
9 1 (0.70%) SaaS
9 1 (0.70%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 40 (28.17%) Firewall
2 25 (17.61%) DNS
3 17 (11.97%) DHCP
4 14 (9.86%) VLAN
5 12 (8.45%) Wireless
6 11 (7.75%) VPN
7 10 (7.04%) VoIP
8 9 (6.34%) Cisco IOS
8 9 (6.34%) LAN
8 9 (6.34%) WAN
9 8 (5.63%) SAN
10 7 (4.93%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (4.23%) Internet
11 6 (4.23%) iSCSI
12 5 (3.52%) IP Telephony
12 5 (3.52%) IPsec
12 5 (3.52%) TCP/IP
13 4 (2.82%) Junos
13 4 (2.82%) X.400
13 4 (2.82%) X.500
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.63%) SQL Server
2 5 (3.52%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (3.52%) Oracle Database
2 5 (3.52%) Oracle Database 10g
2 5 (3.52%) Power BI
3 3 (2.11%) Data Mining
4 1 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 1 (0.70%) JIRA
General
1 35 (24.65%) Social Skills
2 15 (10.56%) Finance
2 15 (10.56%) Marketing
3 11 (7.75%) Telecoms
4 10 (7.04%) Law
4 10 (7.04%) Manufacturing
4 10 (7.04%) Public Sector
5 9 (6.34%) Electronics
6 7 (4.93%) Automotive
7 5 (3.52%) Billing
8 3 (2.11%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (1.41%) Advertising
9 2 (1.41%) Games
9 2 (1.41%) Retail
10 1 (0.70%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.70%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.70%) LAMP
Miscellaneous
1 19 (13.38%) Onboarding
2 11 (7.75%) Driving Licence
3 6 (4.23%) Clustering
4 4 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.82%) Replication
5 3 (2.11%) iPad
5 3 (2.11%) PKI
6 1 (0.70%) BYOD
6 1 (0.70%) FMCG
6 1 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.70%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.70%) NHS
6 1 (0.70%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 79 (55.63%) Windows
2 64 (45.07%) Windows Server
3 21 (14.79%) Windows Server 2019
4 16 (11.27%) Linux
5 12 (8.45%) Windows 10
6 11 (7.75%) Android
7 7 (4.93%) Apple iOS
7 7 (4.93%) Unix
7 7 (4.93%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (4.23%) Mac OS
9 5 (3.52%) Solaris
10 4 (2.82%) HPUX
10 4 (2.82%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.70%) CentOS
11 1 (0.70%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.70%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (36.62%) ITIL
2 42 (29.58%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (19.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 22 (15.49%) Customer Service
5 20 (14.08%) Task Automation
6 19 (13.38%) ITSM
6 19 (13.38%) Patch Management
7 17 (11.97%) Mentoring
8 16 (11.27%) Migration
8 16 (11.27%) Service Delivery
9 15 (10.56%) Business Intelligence
10 14 (9.86%) Project Delivery
11 12 (8.45%) Cloud Security
12 11 (7.75%) Disaster Recovery
13 10 (7.04%) Remote Monitoring and Management
13 10 (7.04%) Server Management
14 9 (6.34%) Digital Marketing
14 9 (6.34%) Incident Management
14 9 (6.34%) Programme Management
14 9 (6.34%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 72 (50.70%) PowerShell
2 3 (2.11%) Bash
3 2 (1.41%) Python
3 2 (1.41%) SQL
Qualifications
1 28 (19.72%) Security Cleared
2 17 (11.97%) SC Cleared
3 16 (11.27%) Cisco Certification
3 16 (11.27%) Degree
4 15 (10.56%) CCNA
5 12 (8.45%) DV Cleared
6 9 (6.34%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (4.23%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 6 (4.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 5 (3.52%) ACMT
8 5 (3.52%) Azure Certification
8 5 (3.52%) DBS Check
8 5 (3.52%) HND
9 3 (2.11%) CCNP
9 3 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.41%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (1.41%) Network+ Certification
11 1 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.70%) HP APS
11 1 (0.70%) Linux+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (9.86%) SLA
2 11 (7.75%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (1.41%) GDPR
4 1 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.70%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.70%) NIST
System Software
1 43 (30.28%) Active Directory
1 43 (30.28%) Hyper-V
2 36 (25.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (5.63%) vSphere
4 7 (4.93%) Docker
5 5 (3.52%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (2.11%) XenApp
8 2 (1.41%) Firmware
8 2 (1.41%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.70%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.70%) Dovecot
9 1 (0.70%) Postfix
9 1 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 39 (27.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (10.56%) Backup Exec
3 14 (9.86%) SCCM
4 10 (7.04%) Autotask
5 9 (6.34%) vCenter Server
6 7 (4.93%) Jamf Pro
7 6 (4.23%) FortiGate
7 6 (4.23%) Kubernetes
8 3 (2.11%) SCOM
9 2 (1.41%) Grafana
9 2 (1.41%) Prometheus
9 2 (1.41%) SCSM
10 1 (0.70%) Ansible
10 1 (0.70%) Avamar
10 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.70%) Podman
10 1 (0.70%) Puppet
10 1 (0.70%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.70%) WhatsUp Gold
10 1 (0.70%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 91 (64.08%) Microsoft
2 44 (30.99%) VMware
3 38 (26.76%) Cisco
4 35 (24.65%) Veeam
5 17 (11.97%) Apple
6 14 (9.86%) Datto
7 11 (7.75%) Sophos
8 10 (7.04%) Aruba
8 10 (7.04%) HP
8 10 (7.04%) Oracle
8 10 (7.04%) SAP
9 7 (4.93%) Juniper
9 7 (4.93%) SolarWinds
10 6 (4.23%) arcserve
10 6 (4.23%) Meraki
11 5 (3.52%) Citrix
11 5 (3.52%) Remedy
11 5 (3.52%) ServiceNow
12 4 (2.82%) Fortinet
12 4 (2.82%) Ubiquiti