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 12 October 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 602 529 546
Rank change year-on-year -73 +17 -79
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 210 143 222
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.29% 0.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.32% 0.32%
Number of salaries quoted 188 139 182
10th Percentile £40,000 £34,750 £33,850
25th Percentile £43,000 £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 £57,500 £53,750 £51,750
90th Percentile £62,500 £57,500 £56,925
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,500 £47,000 £41,250
% change year-on-year +5.32% +13.94% -2.94%

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 109,200 44,128 68,675
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 89.77% 95.37%
Number of salaries quoted 74,173 25,691 39,257
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,500 £53,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.35% -2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £45,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +20.22% -8.50% -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 October 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 12 October 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 -84 195 £50,000 +5.26% 113
UK excluding London -69 192 £49,500 +5.32% 93
South East -18 61 £50,000 +5.26% 21
Work from Home -44 48 £47,500 -5.00% 39
Midlands -26 41 £45,000 -10.00% 30
East of England -43 35 £60,000 +30.43% 10
South West -60 25 £50,000 +11.11% 13
West Midlands -27 21 £45,000 -5.26% 20
East Midlands -25 20 £50,000 -9.09% 10
London -68 18 £55,000 +6.80% 19
North of England -52 15 £45,000 +12.50% 17
Wales -55 15 £45,000 - 2
Yorkshire -33 9 £42,500 -10.53% 2
North West -32 6 £45,000 +12.50% 12

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

For the 6 months to 12 October 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.

1 103 (49.05%) Microsoft
2 91 (43.33%) Azure
3 85 (40.48%) Windows
4 84 (40.00%) Microsoft 365
5 77 (36.67%) Active Directory
6 75 (35.71%) Entra ID
7 74 (35.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 65 (30.95%) DNS
9 59 (28.10%) Microsoft Exchange
10 55 (26.19%) Windows Server
11 52 (24.76%) Firewall
12 45 (21.43%) Hyper-V
12 45 (21.43%) Microsoft Intune
13 44 (20.95%) Root Cause Analysis
14 41 (19.52%) DHCP
15 39 (18.57%) SharePoint
15 39 (18.57%) VMware
15 39 (18.57%) VMware Infrastructure
16 38 (18.10%) Mentoring
16 38 (18.10%) PowerShell
16 38 (18.10%) VPN
17 35 (16.67%) Security Cleared
18 32 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
19 31 (14.76%) Cisco
19 31 (14.76%) VLAN
20 28 (13.33%) SaaS
21 26 (12.38%) Azure Certification
21 26 (12.38%) Technical Leadership
22 23 (10.95%) Fortinet
22 23 (10.95%) 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 59 (28.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 39 (18.57%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.48%) Confluence
Business Applications
1 3 (1.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.95%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 91 (43.33%) Azure
2 84 (40.00%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (35.71%) Entra ID
4 28 (13.33%) SaaS
5 23 (10.95%) IaaS
6 17 (8.10%) Azure AKS
6 17 (8.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (8.10%) Azure Key Vault
6 17 (8.10%) Azure Storage
7 11 (5.24%) AWS
8 10 (4.76%) Mimecast
9 7 (3.33%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.38%) OneDrive
11 4 (1.90%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.43%) Power Platform
13 2 (0.95%) Azure Sentinel
13 2 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
14 1 (0.48%) Dynamics 365
14 1 (0.48%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 65 (30.95%) DNS
2 52 (24.76%) Firewall
3 41 (19.52%) DHCP
4 38 (18.10%) VPN
5 31 (14.76%) VLAN
6 21 (10.00%) TCP/IP
7 16 (7.62%) Wireless
8 10 (4.76%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (4.29%) Network Security
10 7 (3.33%) LAN
10 7 (3.33%) WAN
11 4 (1.90%) DMZ
11 4 (1.90%) SAN
11 4 (1.90%) Wireshark
12 3 (1.43%) Remote Desktop
12 3 (1.43%) SSL
12 3 (1.43%) VoIP
13 2 (0.95%) BGP
14 1 (0.48%) Cisco ISE
14 1 (0.48%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (6.67%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 9 (4.29%) JIRA
2 1 (0.48%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 55 (26.19%) Social Skills
2 20 (9.52%) Law
3 14 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (6.19%) Legal
5 8 (3.81%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.48%) Finance
8 1 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.48%) Retail
8 1 (0.48%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.86%) .NET
2 3 (1.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 12 (5.71%) Onboarding
2 11 (5.24%) Driving Licence
3 8 (3.81%) Video Conferencing
4 7 (3.33%) Clustering
4 7 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (2.38%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.90%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (0.95%) Life Science
9 1 (0.48%) CMDB
9 1 (0.48%) iPhone
9 1 (0.48%) PKI
9 1 (0.48%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 85 (40.48%) Windows
2 55 (26.19%) Windows Server
3 15 (7.14%) macOS
4 13 (6.19%) Linux
5 11 (5.24%) Windows Server 2016
6 10 (4.76%) Windows Server 2012
7 9 (4.29%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.95%) Android
8 2 (0.95%) VMS
9 1 (0.48%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (35.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 44 (20.95%) Root Cause Analysis
3 38 (18.10%) Mentoring
4 32 (15.24%) Problem-Solving
5 26 (12.38%) Technical Leadership
6 22 (10.48%) Disaster Recovery
6 22 (10.48%) Problem Management
7 20 (9.52%) Continuous Improvement
7 20 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
7 20 (9.52%) ITIL
8 18 (8.57%) High Availability
9 17 (8.10%) Agile
9 17 (8.10%) Containerisation
9 17 (8.10%) Load Balancing
10 16 (7.62%) Incident Management
10 16 (7.62%) Project Delivery
11 15 (7.14%) Remote Monitoring and Management
12 14 (6.67%) Customer Service
13 12 (5.71%) Change Management
13 12 (5.71%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 38 (18.10%) PowerShell
2 17 (8.10%) SQL
3 8 (3.81%) R
4 7 (3.33%) T-SQL
5 6 (2.86%) C#
6 1 (0.48%) Bash
6 1 (0.48%) Python
Qualifications
1 35 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 26 (12.38%) Azure Certification
3 19 (9.05%) SC Cleared
4 17 (8.10%) Degree
5 16 (7.62%) DV Cleared
6 13 (6.19%) CCNA
6 13 (6.19%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (6.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.90%) MCSA
7 4 (1.90%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 3 (1.43%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.95%) CCNP
9 2 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.14%) Cyber Essentials
2 11 (5.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (2.86%) SLA
4 3 (1.43%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 77 (36.67%) Active Directory
2 45 (21.43%) Hyper-V
3 39 (18.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (6.19%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (4.76%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (1.43%) Firmware
7 2 (0.95%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.48%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.48%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 45 (21.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 17 (8.10%) Kubernetes
3 14 (6.67%) Autotask
4 8 (3.81%) Jamf Pro
5 7 (3.33%) Proxmox
5 7 (3.33%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 6 (2.86%) Failover Clustering
6 6 (2.86%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (1.90%) Iperf
8 2 (0.95%) MaaS360
8 2 (0.95%) SCCM
8 2 (0.95%) WSUS
9 1 (0.48%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.48%) Nessus
9 1 (0.48%) SCOM
9 1 (0.48%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 103 (49.05%) Microsoft
2 39 (18.57%) VMware
3 31 (14.76%) Cisco
4 23 (10.95%) Fortinet
5 15 (7.14%) SonicWALL
5 15 (7.14%) Veeam
6 11 (5.24%) Datto
7 10 (4.76%) Palo Alto
7 10 (4.76%) WatchGuard
8 9 (4.29%) Meraki
9 8 (3.81%) Citrix
9 8 (3.81%) CrowdStrike
9 8 (3.81%) Google
9 8 (3.81%) HP
10 7 (3.33%) Aruba
10 7 (3.33%) Sophos
10 7 (3.33%) Ubiquiti
11 6 (2.86%) Juniper
12 5 (2.38%) Apple
12 5 (2.38%) ConnectWise