3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £45,250 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 February 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 476 560 434
Rank change year-on-year +84 -126 +183
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 190 148 415
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.29% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.31% 0.60%
Number of salaries quoted 178 131 392
10th Percentile £37,750 £36,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £41,250 £37,875 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,250 £47,500 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.74% +11.76% -5.56%
75th Percentile £55,000 £54,500 £51,750
90th Percentile £58,750 £65,000 £56,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £47,500 £42,000
% change year-on-year -5.26% +13.10% -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 58,106 47,542 69,388
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.03% 95.01%
Number of salaries quoted 36,180 24,354 54,507
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,600 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,439 £50,000
% change year-on-year -8.15% +8.88% -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 2 February 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 2 February 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 +94 181 £47,000 -1.05% 54
UK excluding London +66 157 £45,000 -5.26% 55
South East +26 47 £45,000 -10.00% 23
Work from Home +62 44 £52,500 +23.53% 20
Yorkshire +15 38 £45,000 -21.74% 9
North of England +8 38 £45,000 +16.88% 12
London +69 33 £47,500 -16.67% 8
South West +14 28 £54,709 +24.34% 5
East of England +21 20 £45,000 +5.88% 7
Midlands +5 16 £52,500 +5.00% 3
East Midlands -3 11 £55,000 -15.38% 1
Wales - 8 £45,000 - 5
West Midlands +13 5 £47,000 -6.00% 2
Scotland - 1 £55,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 2 February 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 77 (40.53%) Microsoft
2 74 (38.95%) Azure
3 63 (33.16%) Microsoft 365
3 63 (33.16%) Windows
4 56 (29.47%) Active Directory
5 53 (27.89%) Problem-Solving
6 50 (26.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 47 (24.74%) Windows Server
8 46 (24.21%) PowerShell
9 44 (23.16%) VMware
10 42 (22.11%) Security Cleared
11 41 (21.58%) ITIL
12 39 (20.53%) Microsoft Exchange
13 37 (19.47%) Microsoft Intune
14 35 (18.42%) Entra ID
15 34 (17.89%) Customer Service
16 33 (17.37%) Firewall
17 32 (16.84%) VMware Infrastructure
18 30 (15.79%) SC Cleared
19 24 (12.63%) SharePoint
20 21 (11.05%) DNS
20 21 (11.05%) Veeam
21 20 (10.53%) Hyper-V
21 20 (10.53%) ITSM
21 20 (10.53%) Project Delivery
22 18 (9.47%) Cisco
23 17 (8.95%) DV Cleared
23 17 (8.95%) Linux
23 17 (8.95%) SQL
24 16 (8.42%) Degree

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 39 (20.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 24 (12.63%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.05%) Exchange Server 2003
4 1 (0.53%) Confluence
4 1 (0.53%) IIS
Applications
1 5 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (2.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (1.58%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.53%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 74 (38.95%) Azure
2 63 (33.16%) Microsoft 365
3 35 (18.42%) Entra ID
4 9 (4.74%) AWS
5 7 (3.68%) Mimecast
6 6 (3.16%) Power Platform
7 3 (1.58%) SaaS
8 2 (1.05%) IaaS
9 1 (0.53%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.53%) Dynamics 365
9 1 (0.53%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 33 (17.37%) Firewall
2 21 (11.05%) DNS
3 16 (8.42%) DHCP
4 13 (6.84%) VPN
5 9 (4.74%) Wireless
6 8 (4.21%) VLAN
6 8 (4.21%) WAN
7 7 (3.68%) LAN
7 7 (3.68%) TCP/IP
7 7 (3.68%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (2.11%) Cisco IOS
8 4 (2.11%) Ethernet
8 4 (2.11%) IP Telephony
8 4 (2.11%) Network Security
8 4 (2.11%) SAN
8 4 (2.11%) VoIP
9 3 (1.58%) SD-WAN
10 2 (1.05%) Cisco ISE
10 2 (1.05%) InfiniBand
10 2 (1.05%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (3.16%) SQL Server
2 5 (2.63%) Power BI
3 3 (1.58%) Data Mining
3 3 (1.58%) Oracle Database
3 3 (1.58%) Oracle Database 10g
4 2 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.63%) JIRA
General
1 37 (19.47%) Social Skills
2 10 (5.26%) Law
3 9 (4.74%) Finance
3 9 (4.74%) Marketing
4 8 (4.21%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.68%) Automotive
6 6 (3.16%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.16%) Manufacturing
6 6 (3.16%) Telecoms
7 5 (2.63%) Retail
8 3 (1.58%) Advertising
8 3 (1.58%) Electronics
8 3 (1.58%) Legal
8 3 (1.58%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.05%) Banking
9 2 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.53%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.53%) Front Office
Miscellaneous
1 20 (10.53%) Onboarding
2 9 (4.74%) Driving Licence
3 6 (3.16%) PKI
4 4 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.58%) CMDB
5 3 (1.58%) iPad
5 3 (1.58%) Replication
6 2 (1.05%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.53%) BYOD
7 1 (0.53%) Clustering
7 1 (0.53%) FMCG
7 1 (0.53%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.53%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.53%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.53%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 63 (33.16%) Windows
2 47 (24.74%) Windows Server
3 17 (8.95%) Linux
4 14 (7.37%) Windows 10
5 10 (5.26%) Android
6 7 (3.68%) Apple iOS
7 6 (3.16%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (2.63%) Mac OS
8 5 (2.63%) Unix
9 4 (2.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (2.11%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (1.58%) HPUX
10 3 (1.58%) Solaris
10 3 (1.58%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (1.58%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (27.89%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (26.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 41 (21.58%) ITIL
4 34 (17.89%) Customer Service
5 20 (10.53%) ITSM
5 20 (10.53%) Project Delivery
6 16 (8.42%) Service Delivery
7 15 (7.89%) Incident Management
8 14 (7.37%) Mentoring
9 13 (6.84%) Disaster Recovery
10 12 (6.32%) Logistics
11 11 (5.79%) Service Management
12 10 (5.26%) Continuous Improvement
12 10 (5.26%) DevOps
12 10 (5.26%) Root Cause Analysis
13 9 (4.74%) Cybersecurity
13 9 (4.74%) Problem Management
13 9 (4.74%) Stakeholder Management
13 9 (4.74%) Technical Leadership
14 8 (4.21%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 46 (24.21%) PowerShell
2 17 (8.95%) SQL
3 5 (2.63%) Bash
3 5 (2.63%) Python
4 3 (1.58%) R
5 1 (0.53%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 42 (22.11%) Security Cleared
2 30 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 17 (8.95%) DV Cleared
4 16 (8.42%) Degree
5 13 (6.84%) DBS Check
6 9 (4.74%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (3.68%) CCNA
7 7 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (3.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 5 (2.63%) HND
10 4 (2.11%) CCNP
11 3 (1.58%) Azure Certification
11 3 (1.58%) RHCE
12 1 (0.53%) ACMT
12 1 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
12 1 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.53%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.89%) SLA
2 6 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.58%) NIST
5 1 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.53%) GDPR
System Software
1 56 (29.47%) Active Directory
2 32 (16.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (10.53%) Hyper-V
4 14 (7.37%) vSphere
5 6 (3.16%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (2.11%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.58%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.58%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (1.05%) Firmware
8 2 (1.05%) Lustre
8 2 (1.05%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 2 (1.05%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.53%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.53%) Docker
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.53%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 37 (19.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (6.32%) SCCM
3 9 (4.74%) vCenter Server
4 7 (3.68%) FortiGate
4 7 (3.68%) Jamf Pro
4 7 (3.68%) SCOM
5 6 (3.16%) WSUS
6 4 (2.11%) Ansible
7 3 (1.58%) Proxmox
7 3 (1.58%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 2 (1.05%) SCSM
8 2 (1.05%) Terraform
9 1 (0.53%) Autotask
9 1 (0.53%) Avamar
9 1 (0.53%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 77 (40.53%) Microsoft
2 44 (23.16%) VMware
3 21 (11.05%) Veeam
4 18 (9.47%) Cisco
5 12 (6.32%) Apple
6 8 (4.21%) McAfee
7 7 (3.68%) Oracle
8 6 (3.16%) arcserve
8 6 (3.16%) SolarWinds
9 5 (2.63%) Juniper
10 4 (2.11%) Fortinet
10 4 (2.11%) Remedy
10 4 (2.11%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.58%) CrowdStrike
11 3 (1.58%) EMC
11 3 (1.58%) IFS
11 3 (1.58%) Red Hat
11 3 (1.58%) SAP
11 3 (1.58%) Sophos
11 3 (1.58%) Trend Micro