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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 561 515 519
Rank change year-on-year -46 +4 -31
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 214 164 313
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.33% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.37% 0.40%
Number of salaries quoted 201 156 262
10th Percentile £38,750 £33,750 £32,050
25th Percentile £45,000 £39,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +13.10% -6.67%
75th Percentile £58,750 £52,500 £51,000
90th Percentile £62,500 £57,500 £55,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £47,500 £41,250
% change year-on-year +5.26% +15.15% -8.33%

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 100,959 44,891 79,128
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.99% 89.94% 95.07%
Number of salaries quoted 69,008 26,549 52,423
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,679 £47,863 £50,000
% change year-on-year +10.06% -4.27% -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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -50 195 £51,250 +7.89% 38
UK excluding London -38 183 £50,000 +5.26% 36
South East +16 80 £52,500 +5.00% 14
Work from Home -24 51 £52,500 +10.53% 14
Midlands -32 36 £45,000 -10.00% 9
London -36 31 £55,000 +6.80% 5
East of England -34 25 £50,000 +11.11% 7
East Midlands -11 24 £50,000 - 4
Wales -41 19 £45,000 -
North of England -49 14 £51,250 +28.13% 6
Yorkshire -17 13 £50,000 +33.33%
West Midlands -29 12 £45,000 -10.00% 5
South West -64 9 £50,000 +17.65% 2
North West -29 1 £52,500 +31.25% 4

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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.

1 113 (52.80%) Microsoft
2 106 (49.53%) Azure
3 95 (44.39%) Microsoft 365
4 82 (38.32%) Windows
5 81 (37.85%) Active Directory
6 74 (34.58%) Entra ID
7 66 (30.84%) Microsoft Exchange
8 57 (26.64%) DNS
8 57 (26.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 51 (23.83%) Firewall
9 51 (23.83%) SharePoint
10 50 (23.36%) Microsoft Intune
11 49 (22.90%) PowerShell
12 47 (21.96%) Root Cause Analysis
13 46 (21.50%) Windows Server
14 44 (20.56%) SaaS
15 41 (19.16%) Hyper-V
15 41 (19.16%) VMware
16 38 (17.76%) Azure Certification
17 35 (16.36%) VMware Infrastructure
18 33 (15.42%) Cisco
19 32 (14.95%) IaaS
20 30 (14.02%) Mentoring
21 29 (13.55%) High Availability
22 28 (13.08%) Agile
22 28 (13.08%) Azure AKS
22 28 (13.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
22 28 (13.08%) Azure Key Vault
22 28 (13.08%) Azure Storage
22 28 (13.08%) Containerisation

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 66 (30.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 51 (23.83%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.87%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.87%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.87%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.47%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.40%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.40%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.93%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 106 (49.53%) Azure
2 95 (44.39%) Microsoft 365
3 74 (34.58%) Entra ID
4 44 (20.56%) SaaS
5 32 (14.95%) IaaS
6 28 (13.08%) Azure AKS
6 28 (13.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 28 (13.08%) Azure Key Vault
6 28 (13.08%) Azure Storage
7 19 (8.88%) Mimecast
8 11 (5.14%) Google Workspace
9 10 (4.67%) AWS
10 8 (3.74%) OneDrive
11 4 (1.87%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.40%) Power Platform
13 2 (0.93%) Azure Sentinel
14 1 (0.47%) GCP
14 1 (0.47%) Google Docs
14 1 (0.47%) PaaS
14 1 (0.47%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 57 (26.64%) DNS
2 51 (23.83%) Firewall
3 27 (12.62%) DHCP
4 26 (12.15%) VPN
5 24 (11.21%) VLAN
6 15 (7.01%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (6.54%) Wireless
8 13 (6.07%) TCP/IP
9 10 (4.67%) LAN
10 9 (4.21%) Network Security
10 9 (4.21%) WAN
11 5 (2.34%) SAN
12 4 (1.87%) DMZ
12 4 (1.87%) Wireshark
13 3 (1.40%) Remote Desktop
14 2 (0.93%) BGP
15 1 (0.47%) Internet
15 1 (0.47%) IPsec
15 1 (0.47%) OSPF
15 1 (0.47%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 19 (8.88%) JIRA
2 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 43 (20.09%) Social Skills
2 30 (14.02%) Law
3 18 (8.41%) Legal
4 10 (4.67%) Public Sector
5 8 (3.74%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.93%) Finance
9 1 (0.47%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.80%) .NET
2 3 (1.40%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.40%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (4.67%) Video Conferencing
2 9 (4.21%) Driving Licence
3 7 (3.27%) Clustering
3 7 (3.27%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (3.27%) Onboarding
3 7 (3.27%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (1.87%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (0.93%) Data Centre
5 2 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (0.93%) Management Information System
5 2 (0.93%) PKI
5 2 (0.93%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 82 (38.32%) Windows
2 46 (21.50%) Windows Server
3 26 (12.15%) Mac OS
4 22 (10.28%) Linux
5 16 (7.48%) Windows Server 2016
6 14 (6.54%) Windows Server 2012
7 10 (4.67%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (2.80%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.87%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.93%) VMS
11 1 (0.47%) Android
11 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.47%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (26.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 47 (21.96%) Root Cause Analysis
3 30 (14.02%) Mentoring
4 29 (13.55%) High Availability
5 28 (13.08%) Agile
5 28 (13.08%) Containerisation
5 28 (13.08%) Load Balancing
5 28 (13.08%) Technical Leadership
6 25 (11.68%) ITIL
7 23 (10.75%) Change Management
7 23 (10.75%) Incident Management
7 23 (10.75%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (9.81%) Identity Management
9 19 (8.88%) Continuous Improvement
10 18 (8.41%) Project Delivery
11 17 (7.94%) Cybersecurity
11 17 (7.94%) Workflow
12 16 (7.48%) Disaster Recovery
13 15 (7.01%) Customer Service
13 15 (7.01%) Remote Monitoring and Management
Programming Languages
1 49 (22.90%) PowerShell
2 18 (8.41%) SQL
3 17 (7.94%) R
4 7 (3.27%) T-SQL
5 6 (2.80%) Bash
5 6 (2.80%) C#
6 4 (1.87%) Python
7 3 (1.40%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.47%) Bicep
8 1 (0.47%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 38 (17.76%) Azure Certification
2 28 (13.08%) Security Cleared
3 25 (11.68%) SC Cleared
4 14 (6.54%) CCNA
4 14 (6.54%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (6.07%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (4.67%) Degree
7 4 (1.87%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.87%) MCSA
7 4 (1.87%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 3 (1.40%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.93%) CCNP
9 2 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (9.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (6.07%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.40%) SLA
4 2 (0.93%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 81 (37.85%) Active Directory
2 41 (19.16%) Hyper-V
3 35 (16.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (4.67%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (3.27%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (1.40%) Docker
6 3 (1.40%) Firmware
6 3 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (1.40%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 50 (23.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (13.08%) Kubernetes
3 16 (7.48%) Jamf Pro
4 14 (6.54%) Autotask
5 9 (4.21%) Proxmox
5 9 (4.21%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 6 (2.80%) Failover Clustering
6 6 (2.80%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (1.87%) Iperf
8 2 (0.93%) MaaS360
8 2 (0.93%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.93%) WSUS
9 1 (0.47%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.47%) SCCM
9 1 (0.47%) SCOM
9 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.47%) Terraform
Vendors
1 113 (52.80%) Microsoft
2 41 (19.16%) VMware
3 33 (15.42%) Cisco
4 19 (8.88%) Fortinet
5 18 (8.41%) SonicWALL
6 17 (7.94%) CrowdStrike
7 15 (7.01%) HP
8 14 (6.54%) Veeam
9 12 (5.61%) Google
9 12 (5.61%) Meraki
10 11 (5.14%) Datto
11 10 (4.67%) Aruba
11 10 (4.67%) Ubiquiti
12 8 (3.74%) Apple
13 6 (2.80%) Palo Alto
14 5 (2.34%) ConnectWise
15 4 (1.87%) Dell
15 4 (1.87%) Ruckus Wireless
15 4 (1.87%) ServiceNow
16 3 (1.40%) WatchGuard