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 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 595 527 545
Rank change year-on-year -68 +18 -72
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 204 145 234
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.29% 0.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.33% 0.33%
Number of salaries quoted 185 141 194
10th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £34,750
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 £57,500 £53,250 £51,250
90th Percentile £62,500 £57,500 £55,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £49,500 £47,000 £41,000
% change year-on-year +5.32% +14.63% -3.53%

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 109,576 44,426 71,253
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.91% 89.79% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,908 25,599 41,366
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £40,875 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £74,258 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 1 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 1 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 -77 186 £50,000 +5.26% 112
UK excluding London -65 183 £49,500 +5.32% 92
South East -29 60 £50,000 - 20
Work from Home -42 46 £47,500 - 35
Midlands -33 38 £45,000 -10.00% 28
East of England -35 34 £60,000 +33.33% 13
London -61 21 £55,000 +6.80% 15
East Midlands -30 20 £50,000 -4.76% 11
South West -65 20 £50,000 +17.65% 10
West Midlands -38 18 £45,000 -7.69% 17
Wales -56 18 £45,000 - 2
North of England -72 13 £47,500 +18.75% 20
Yorkshire -26 9 £47,500 - 4
North West -36 4 £50,000 +25.00% 13

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 100 (49.02%) Microsoft
2 85 (41.67%) Azure
3 82 (40.20%) Microsoft 365
4 80 (39.22%) Windows
5 71 (34.80%) Active Directory
5 71 (34.80%) Entra ID
6 66 (32.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 58 (28.43%) DNS
7 58 (28.43%) Microsoft Exchange
8 54 (26.47%) Firewall
9 50 (24.51%) Windows Server
10 45 (22.06%) Hyper-V
11 42 (20.59%) Microsoft Intune
12 41 (20.10%) Root Cause Analysis
12 41 (20.10%) SharePoint
13 40 (19.61%) Mentoring
13 40 (19.61%) VMware
14 39 (19.12%) VMware Infrastructure
15 36 (17.65%) DHCP
16 35 (17.16%) Security Cleared
17 34 (16.67%) PowerShell
18 33 (16.18%) Cisco
18 33 (16.18%) VPN
19 31 (15.20%) VLAN
20 30 (14.71%) SaaS
21 27 (13.24%) Problem-Solving
22 26 (12.75%) Azure Certification
22 26 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
23 23 (11.27%) Fortinet
24 22 (10.78%) Disaster Recovery

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 58 (28.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 41 (20.10%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.49%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.49%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.49%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 85 (41.67%) Azure
2 82 (40.20%) Microsoft 365
3 71 (34.80%) Entra ID
4 30 (14.71%) SaaS
5 21 (10.29%) IaaS
6 17 (8.33%) Azure AKS
6 17 (8.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (8.33%) Azure Key Vault
6 17 (8.33%) Azure Storage
7 11 (5.39%) AWS
8 10 (4.90%) Mimecast
9 9 (4.41%) Google Workspace
10 5 (2.45%) OneDrive
11 4 (1.96%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.47%) Power Platform
13 2 (0.98%) Azure Sentinel
13 2 (0.98%) Microsoft Purview
14 1 (0.49%) Dynamics 365
14 1 (0.49%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 58 (28.43%) DNS
2 54 (26.47%) Firewall
3 36 (17.65%) DHCP
4 33 (16.18%) VPN
5 31 (15.20%) VLAN
6 19 (9.31%) TCP/IP
7 15 (7.35%) Wireless
8 10 (4.90%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (4.41%) Network Security
10 7 (3.43%) LAN
10 7 (3.43%) WAN
11 4 (1.96%) DMZ
11 4 (1.96%) SAN
11 4 (1.96%) Wireshark
12 3 (1.47%) Remote Desktop
12 3 (1.47%) VoIP
13 2 (0.98%) BGP
14 1 (0.49%) Internet
14 1 (0.49%) OSPF
14 1 (0.49%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (5.88%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 9 (4.41%) JIRA
2 1 (0.49%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 49 (24.02%) Social Skills
2 19 (9.31%) Law
3 13 (6.37%) Legal
4 12 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (4.41%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.49%) Finance
8 1 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.49%) Retail
8 1 (0.49%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.94%) .NET
2 3 (1.47%) Web Services
3 1 (0.49%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 12 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 10 (4.90%) Video Conferencing
3 7 (3.43%) Clustering
3 7 (3.43%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (2.94%) Driving Licence
5 4 (1.96%) Cyber Threat
6 3 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (1.47%) Management Information System
6 3 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.49%) CMDB
7 1 (0.49%) iPhone
7 1 (0.49%) Life Science
7 1 (0.49%) PKI
7 1 (0.49%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 80 (39.22%) Windows
2 50 (24.51%) Windows Server
3 19 (9.31%) Mac OS
4 15 (7.35%) Linux
5 10 (4.90%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (4.41%) Windows Server 2012
6 9 (4.41%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.98%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.98%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (32.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (20.10%) Root Cause Analysis
3 40 (19.61%) Mentoring
4 27 (13.24%) Problem-Solving
5 26 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
6 22 (10.78%) Disaster Recovery
7 21 (10.29%) Cybersecurity
7 21 (10.29%) ITIL
8 20 (9.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 19 (9.31%) Problem Management
10 18 (8.82%) High Availability
10 18 (8.82%) Project Delivery
11 17 (8.33%) Agile
11 17 (8.33%) Containerisation
11 17 (8.33%) Load Balancing
12 16 (7.84%) Incident Management
13 15 (7.35%) Remote Monitoring and Management
14 13 (6.37%) Kalman Filter
14 13 (6.37%) Server Management
15 12 (5.88%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 34 (16.67%) PowerShell
2 17 (8.33%) SQL
3 8 (3.92%) R
4 7 (3.43%) T-SQL
5 6 (2.94%) C#
6 2 (0.98%) Bash
7 1 (0.49%) Python
7 1 (0.49%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 35 (17.16%) Security Cleared
2 26 (12.75%) Azure Certification
3 22 (10.78%) SC Cleared
4 15 (7.35%) Degree
5 13 (6.37%) CCNA
5 13 (6.37%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (6.37%) DV Cleared
5 13 (6.37%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (1.96%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.96%) MCSA
6 4 (1.96%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 2 (0.98%) CCNP
7 2 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.49%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.35%) Cyber Essentials
2 11 (5.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.96%) SLA
4 3 (1.47%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 71 (34.80%) Active Directory
2 45 (22.06%) Hyper-V
3 39 (19.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (6.37%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (5.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (1.47%) Firmware
7 2 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.49%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.49%) Docker
8 1 (0.49%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 42 (20.59%) Microsoft Intune
2 17 (8.33%) Kubernetes
3 14 (6.86%) Autotask
4 11 (5.39%) Jamf Pro
5 8 (3.92%) Proxmox
5 8 (3.92%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 6 (2.94%) Failover Clustering
6 6 (2.94%) Microsoft Clustering
7 4 (1.96%) Iperf
8 2 (0.98%) MaaS360
8 2 (0.98%) SCCM
8 2 (0.98%) WSUS
9 1 (0.49%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.49%) Nessus
9 1 (0.49%) SCOM
9 1 (0.49%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 100 (49.02%) Microsoft
2 40 (19.61%) VMware
3 33 (16.18%) Cisco
4 23 (11.27%) Fortinet
5 17 (8.33%) SonicWALL
6 14 (6.86%) Veeam
7 11 (5.39%) Datto
7 11 (5.39%) Meraki
8 10 (4.90%) Google
8 10 (4.90%) HP
8 10 (4.90%) Palo Alto
9 9 (4.41%) Aruba
9 9 (4.41%) Ubiquiti
10 8 (3.92%) CrowdStrike
10 8 (3.92%) WatchGuard
11 7 (3.43%) Sophos
12 6 (2.94%) Apple
12 6 (2.94%) Citrix
12 6 (2.94%) Juniper
13 5 (2.45%) ConnectWise