3rd Line Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Engineer salary in the UK is £48,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 18 April 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 493 485 476
Rank change year-on-year -8 -9 +98
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 224 152 455
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.37% 0.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.41% 0.51%
Number of salaries quoted 211 135 410
10th Percentile £38,250 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £41,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,000 £50,000 £42,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +17.65% -7.61%
75th Percentile £58,750 £56,250 £51,500
90th Percentile £60,000 £67,500 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,000 £50,000 £42,000
% change year-on-year -6.00% +19.05% -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 80,276 37,162 89,418
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.62% 89.30% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 51,387 23,373 66,316
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £53,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +12.15% -10.83%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -10 208 £50,000 - 38
UK excluding London -28 171 £47,000 -6.00% 48
Work from Home +4 58 £54,709 +9.42% 16
South East -23 58 £47,500 -9.95% 9
London +37 53 £52,500 -19.23% 1
Yorkshire -30 45 £45,000 +28.57% 12
North of England -42 45 £45,000 +13.92% 17
South West -34 23 £54,417 +23.68% 4
Midlands -51 16 £49,000 -2.00% 5
Wales - 15 £45,000 - 5
East of England -35 13 £55,000 +29.41% 6
East Midlands -56 9 £50,000 -15.97% 4
West Midlands -31 7 £47,000 -6.00% 1
Scotland - 1 £55,000 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 18 April 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 95 (42.41%) Azure
1 95 (42.41%) Microsoft
2 87 (38.84%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (34.82%) Active Directory
4 76 (33.93%) Windows
5 62 (27.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 57 (25.45%) VMware
7 54 (24.11%) Microsoft Exchange
8 52 (23.21%) Windows Server
9 48 (21.43%) Microsoft Intune
10 45 (20.09%) Entra ID
10 45 (20.09%) SharePoint
11 44 (19.64%) PowerShell
12 43 (19.20%) Firewall
13 41 (18.30%) Problem-Solving
14 40 (17.86%) VMware Infrastructure
15 38 (16.96%) Security Cleared
16 35 (15.63%) DNS
17 32 (14.29%) ITIL
18 31 (13.84%) Hyper-V
19 29 (12.95%) SC Cleared
20 28 (12.50%) Customer Service
21 25 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
22 24 (10.71%) Linux
23 22 (9.82%) Incident Management
23 22 (9.82%) Root Cause Analysis
24 21 (9.38%) Change Management
24 21 (9.38%) SaaS
24 21 (9.38%) SQL
25 20 (8.93%) VPN

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 54 (24.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 45 (20.09%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.79%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.79%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.79%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.45%) Confluence
4 1 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2003
Applications
1 6 (2.68%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.34%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.34%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.89%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 95 (42.41%) Azure
2 87 (38.84%) Microsoft 365
3 45 (20.09%) Entra ID
4 21 (9.38%) SaaS
5 19 (8.48%) Mimecast
6 14 (6.25%) IaaS
7 11 (4.91%) Azure AKS
7 11 (4.91%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 11 (4.91%) Azure Key Vault
7 11 (4.91%) Azure Storage
8 6 (2.68%) AWS
9 5 (2.23%) Google Workspace
9 5 (2.23%) OneDrive
9 5 (2.23%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.45%) Google Docs
10 1 (0.45%) PaaS
10 1 (0.45%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 43 (19.20%) Firewall
2 35 (15.63%) DNS
3 20 (8.93%) VPN
4 16 (7.14%) DHCP
5 9 (4.02%) VLAN
5 9 (4.02%) Wireless
6 8 (3.57%) SAN
6 8 (3.57%) TCP/IP
6 8 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
7 6 (2.68%) LAN
7 6 (2.68%) WAN
8 4 (1.79%) Network Security
9 3 (1.34%) Ethernet
9 3 (1.34%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.89%) BGP
10 2 (0.89%) InfiniBand
10 2 (0.89%) OSPF
10 2 (0.89%) VoIP
11 1 (0.45%) Cisco Firepower
11 1 (0.45%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.23%) Power BI
1 5 (2.23%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle Database
2 2 (0.89%) Oracle Database 10g
3 1 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.45%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 17 (7.59%) JIRA
General
1 42 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 15 (6.70%) Law
3 14 (6.25%) Legal
4 8 (3.57%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (2.23%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.79%) Retail
8 3 (1.34%) Advertising
8 3 (1.34%) Finance
8 3 (1.34%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.34%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.89%) Banking
10 1 (0.45%) Front Office
10 1 (0.45%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (1.34%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.25%) Driving Licence
2 9 (4.02%) Onboarding
3 8 (3.57%) PKI
4 4 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.34%) CMDB
5 3 (1.34%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (0.89%) Data Centre
6 2 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.89%) Replication
6 2 (0.89%) YubiKey
7 1 (0.45%) Clustering
7 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.45%) Life Science
7 1 (0.45%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.45%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 76 (33.93%) Windows
2 52 (23.21%) Windows Server
3 24 (10.71%) Linux
4 16 (7.14%) Mac OS
5 11 (4.91%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (3.57%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (3.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (3.13%) Windows 10
8 6 (2.68%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.79%) Windows Server 2008
9 4 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.89%) Android
10 2 (0.89%) HPUX
10 2 (0.89%) Solaris
10 2 (0.89%) Unix
10 2 (0.89%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (27.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (18.30%) Problem-Solving
3 32 (14.29%) ITIL
4 28 (12.50%) Customer Service
5 25 (11.16%) Technical Leadership
6 22 (9.82%) Incident Management
6 22 (9.82%) Root Cause Analysis
7 21 (9.38%) Change Management
8 18 (8.04%) Project Delivery
9 15 (6.70%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (6.70%) Identity Management
9 15 (6.70%) Workflow
10 14 (6.25%) Mentoring
11 12 (5.36%) Disaster Recovery
11 12 (5.36%) High Availability
11 12 (5.36%) ITSM
11 12 (5.36%) Problem Management
12 11 (4.91%) Agile
12 11 (4.91%) Containerisation
12 11 (4.91%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 44 (19.64%) PowerShell
2 21 (9.38%) SQL
3 14 (6.25%) R
4 10 (4.46%) Bash
5 8 (3.57%) Python
6 3 (1.34%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.89%) Bicep
8 1 (0.45%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 38 (16.96%) Security Cleared
2 29 (12.95%) SC Cleared
3 16 (7.14%) DV Cleared
4 14 (6.25%) Azure Certification
5 9 (4.02%) DBS Check
6 7 (3.13%) Degree
7 5 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (2.23%) HND
8 3 (1.34%) CCNA
8 3 (1.34%) CCNP
8 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.34%) RHCE
9 2 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (0.45%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (0.45%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (2.23%) SLA
3 3 (1.34%) NIST
4 2 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 78 (34.82%) Active Directory
2 40 (17.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (13.84%) Hyper-V
4 13 (5.80%) vSphere
5 10 (4.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.34%) Docker
7 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 3 (1.34%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.89%) Firmware
8 2 (0.89%) Lustre
8 2 (0.89%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.45%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.45%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 48 (21.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (4.91%) Kubernetes
3 9 (4.02%) Jamf Pro
3 9 (4.02%) WSUS
4 7 (3.13%) FortiGate
4 7 (3.13%) Proxmox
4 7 (3.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
4 7 (3.13%) vCenter Server
5 6 (2.68%) SCCM
6 5 (2.23%) SCOM
7 4 (1.79%) Ansible
8 3 (1.34%) Autotask
8 3 (1.34%) Terraform
9 1 (0.45%) SCSM
9 1 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 95 (42.41%) Microsoft
2 57 (25.45%) VMware
3 18 (8.04%) Veeam
4 14 (6.25%) CrowdStrike
5 11 (4.91%) McAfee
6 8 (3.57%) Cisco
6 8 (3.57%) HP
7 5 (2.23%) Apple
7 5 (2.23%) Google
7 5 (2.23%) Oracle
7 5 (2.23%) SolarWinds
8 4 (1.79%) ConnectWise
8 4 (1.79%) Datto
8 4 (1.79%) Dell
8 4 (1.79%) NetApp
8 4 (1.79%) SonicWALL
9 3 (1.34%) IFS
9 3 (1.34%) Logitech
9 3 (1.34%) Meraki
9 3 (1.34%) Red Hat