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 24 May 2026.

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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 500 503 478
Rank change year-on-year +3 -25 +101
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 239 155 447
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.36% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.40% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 223 137 398
10th Percentile £39,500 £37,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,500 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year - +19.05% -11.58%
75th Percentile £58,750 £54,500 £51,250
90th Percentile £62,500 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £41,250
% change year-on-year -5.00% +21.21% -10.33%

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 86,735 38,286 93,021
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.39% 89.27% 94.69%
Number of salaries quoted 57,617 21,482 68,158
10th Percentile £30,000 £29,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £40,931 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £51,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.91% +3.00% -6.10%

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 24 May 2026.

Salary histogram for 3rd Line Engineer in the UK

3rd Line Engineer
Top 13 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 24 May 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 -5 218 £50,000 - 32
UK excluding London -5 194 £47,500 -5.00% 30
South East -3 65 £50,000 -2.91% 15
Work from Home +12 56 £53,459 +6.92% 11
Yorkshire -8 45 £45,000 +28.57% 1
London -16 45 £55,000 -13.73% 4
North of England -20 45 £45,000 +12.50% 3
East of England -10 23 £55,000 +22.22% 7
Midlands -42 21 £55,000 +10.00% 3
Wales - 21 £45,000 - 1
South West -50 19 £50,000 +11.11% 1
East Midlands -32 15 £60,000 +9.09% 1
West Midlands -42 6 £46,000 -8.00% 2

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

For the 6 months to 24 May 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.

1 102 (42.68%) Azure
2 92 (38.49%) Microsoft
3 82 (34.31%) Microsoft 365
4 77 (32.22%) Active Directory
5 76 (31.80%) Windows
6 65 (27.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 56 (23.43%) VMware
8 51 (21.34%) Microsoft Exchange
9 48 (20.08%) DNS
10 47 (19.67%) Windows Server
11 45 (18.83%) PowerShell
12 44 (18.41%) Entra ID
12 44 (18.41%) Security Cleared
13 43 (17.99%) Microsoft Intune
13 43 (17.99%) SharePoint
14 42 (17.57%) Firewall
15 41 (17.15%) VMware Infrastructure
16 38 (15.90%) Problem-Solving
16 38 (15.90%) Root Cause Analysis
17 37 (15.48%) SC Cleared
18 31 (12.97%) Hyper-V
19 30 (12.55%) Azure Certification
19 30 (12.55%) IaaS
20 29 (12.13%) Technical Leadership
21 28 (11.72%) High Availability
21 28 (11.72%) ITIL
22 27 (11.30%) Agile
22 27 (11.30%) Azure AKS
22 27 (11.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
22 27 (11.30%) Azure Key Vault

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 51 (21.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (17.99%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.67%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.67%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.67%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.42%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (2.09%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.26%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.84%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 102 (42.68%) Azure
2 82 (34.31%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (18.41%) Entra ID
4 30 (12.55%) IaaS
5 27 (11.30%) Azure AKS
5 27 (11.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 27 (11.30%) Azure Key Vault
5 27 (11.30%) Azure Storage
6 24 (10.04%) SaaS
7 19 (7.95%) Mimecast
8 8 (3.35%) Google Workspace
9 5 (2.09%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.26%) AWS
11 2 (0.84%) Power Platform
12 1 (0.42%) Amazon S3
12 1 (0.42%) Google Docs
12 1 (0.42%) PaaS
12 1 (0.42%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 48 (20.08%) DNS
2 42 (17.57%) Firewall
3 17 (7.11%) VPN
4 13 (5.44%) DHCP
5 12 (5.02%) Wireless
6 9 (3.77%) VLAN
7 8 (3.35%) SAN
7 8 (3.35%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (2.93%) TCP/IP
9 6 (2.51%) LAN
10 5 (2.09%) WAN
11 3 (1.26%) Ethernet
11 3 (1.26%) Network Security
12 2 (0.84%) InfiniBand
13 1 (0.42%) Cisco Firepower
13 1 (0.42%) Cisco IOS
13 1 (0.42%) Cisco ISE
13 1 (0.42%) Junos
13 1 (0.42%) NX-OS
13 1 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.67%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 16 (6.69%) JIRA
General
1 43 (17.99%) Social Skills
2 29 (12.13%) Law
3 14 (5.86%) Legal
4 11 (4.60%) Public Sector
5 7 (2.93%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (2.93%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.26%) Telecoms
8 2 (0.84%) Banking
8 2 (0.84%) Retail
9 1 (0.42%) Advertising
9 1 (0.42%) Finance
9 1 (0.42%) Front Office
9 1 (0.42%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.26%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 13 (5.44%) Driving Licence
2 8 (3.35%) PKI
3 6 (2.51%) Video Conferencing
4 5 (2.09%) Onboarding
5 4 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.26%) CMDB
6 3 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (0.84%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.84%) YubiKey
8 1 (0.42%) Clustering
8 1 (0.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.42%) Life Science
8 1 (0.42%) Replication
8 1 (0.42%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 76 (31.80%) Windows
2 47 (19.67%) Windows Server
3 26 (10.88%) Linux
4 22 (9.21%) Mac OS
5 11 (4.60%) Windows Server 2016
6 10 (4.18%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (2.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (2.51%) Windows 10
9 5 (2.09%) Apple iOS
9 5 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (1.67%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.42%) Android
11 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (27.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 38 (15.90%) Problem-Solving
2 38 (15.90%) Root Cause Analysis
3 29 (12.13%) Technical Leadership
4 28 (11.72%) High Availability
4 28 (11.72%) ITIL
5 27 (11.30%) Agile
5 27 (11.30%) Containerisation
5 27 (11.30%) Load Balancing
6 21 (8.79%) Change Management
6 21 (8.79%) Customer Service
7 18 (7.53%) Incident Management
8 17 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 17 (7.11%) Project Delivery
9 16 (6.69%) Mentoring
10 15 (6.28%) Identity Management
10 15 (6.28%) Workflow
11 14 (5.86%) Disaster Recovery
12 13 (5.44%) Cybersecurity
12 13 (5.44%) Kalman Filter
Programming Languages
1 45 (18.83%) PowerShell
2 21 (8.79%) SQL
3 14 (5.86%) R
4 9 (3.77%) Bash
5 7 (2.93%) Python
6 3 (1.26%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.84%) Bicep
8 1 (0.42%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 44 (18.41%) Security Cleared
2 37 (15.48%) SC Cleared
3 30 (12.55%) Azure Certification
4 14 (5.86%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.77%) DBS Check
6 4 (1.67%) Degree
7 3 (1.26%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.26%) RHCE
8 2 (0.84%) CCNA
8 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.42%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (1.67%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (0.84%) NIST
System Software
1 77 (32.22%) Active Directory
2 41 (17.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (12.97%) Hyper-V
4 12 (5.02%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (4.60%) vSphere
6 4 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.26%) Docker
7 3 (1.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.26%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.84%) Firmware
8 2 (0.84%) Lustre
8 2 (0.84%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.42%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.42%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 43 (17.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (11.30%) Kubernetes
3 11 (4.60%) Jamf Pro
4 10 (4.18%) Proxmox
4 10 (4.18%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 9 (3.77%) WSUS
6 7 (2.93%) Autotask
6 7 (2.93%) vCenter Server
7 5 (2.09%) SCCM
8 4 (1.67%) Ansible
8 4 (1.67%) SCOM
9 3 (1.26%) Terraform
10 1 (0.42%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 92 (38.49%) Microsoft
2 56 (23.43%) VMware
3 15 (6.28%) Veeam
4 14 (5.86%) CrowdStrike
5 13 (5.44%) Cisco
6 11 (4.60%) McAfee
7 10 (4.18%) HP
8 8 (3.35%) Google
9 7 (2.93%) SonicWALL
10 6 (2.51%) Aruba
10 6 (2.51%) Datto
10 6 (2.51%) Fortinet
10 6 (2.51%) Meraki
10 6 (2.51%) Ubiquiti
11 5 (2.09%) SolarWinds
12 4 (1.67%) Apple
12 4 (1.67%) ConnectWise
12 4 (1.67%) Dell
12 4 (1.67%) NetApp
13 3 (1.26%) Red Hat