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 17 July 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 534 511 518
Rank change year-on-year -23 +7 +26
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Engineer 234 172 398
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.24% 0.35% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.39% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 221 154 343
10th Percentile £40,000 £35,000 £32,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £40,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £42,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +13.10% -8.70%
75th Percentile £58,750 £53,750 £50,000
90th Percentile £62,500 £63,000 £53,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £47,500 £42,000
% change year-on-year +5.26% +13.10% -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 93,213 44,199 93,038
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.22% 89.97% 94.76%
Number of salaries quoted 63,958 26,129 66,038
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £39,390
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,550
Median % change year-on-year - +4.66% -12.42%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.66%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 -34 213 £52,500 +10.53% 34
UK excluding London -24 191 £50,000 +5.26% 36
South East +29 87 £52,500 +3.45% 17
Work from Home -27 61 £55,000 +10.00% 7
London -9 43 £55,000 - 4
Midlands -35 31 £50,000 - 4
East Midlands -12 21 £50,000 - 2
East of England -20 21 £49,000 +3.16% 7
Wales -32 21 £45,000 - 3
Yorkshire -24 18 £47,500 +35.71% 2
North of England -37 18 £47,500 +18.75% 4
South West -50 13 £50,000 +17.65% 1
West Midlands -25 10 £45,000 -10.00% 2

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

For the 6 months to 17 July 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.

1 115 (49.15%) Azure
1 115 (49.15%) Microsoft
2 101 (43.16%) Microsoft 365
3 91 (38.89%) Windows
4 90 (38.46%) Active Directory
5 73 (31.20%) Microsoft Exchange
6 70 (29.91%) Entra ID
7 64 (27.35%) DNS
8 57 (24.36%) SharePoint
9 56 (23.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 54 (23.08%) Microsoft Intune
10 54 (23.08%) Windows Server
11 52 (22.22%) Firewall
12 50 (21.37%) VMware
13 49 (20.94%) Root Cause Analysis
14 47 (20.09%) PowerShell
15 46 (19.66%) SaaS
16 42 (17.95%) Hyper-V
16 42 (17.95%) VMware Infrastructure
17 36 (15.38%) Azure Certification
17 36 (15.38%) Security Cleared
18 35 (14.96%) Technical Leadership
19 31 (13.25%) IaaS
20 30 (12.82%) High Availability
21 29 (12.39%) Change Management
21 29 (12.39%) Mac OS
22 28 (11.97%) Agile
22 28 (11.97%) Azure AKS
22 28 (11.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
22 28 (11.97%) 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 73 (31.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 57 (24.36%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2007
3 4 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2010
3 4 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 5 (2.14%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.28%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.28%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.43%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 115 (49.15%) Azure
2 101 (43.16%) Microsoft 365
3 70 (29.91%) Entra ID
4 46 (19.66%) SaaS
5 31 (13.25%) IaaS
6 28 (11.97%) Azure AKS
6 28 (11.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 28 (11.97%) Azure Key Vault
6 28 (11.97%) Azure Storage
7 23 (9.83%) Mimecast
8 11 (4.70%) Google Workspace
9 7 (2.99%) AWS
9 7 (2.99%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.28%) Power Automate
10 3 (1.28%) Power Platform
11 1 (0.43%) Azure Sentinel
11 1 (0.43%) GCP
11 1 (0.43%) Google Docs
11 1 (0.43%) PaaS
11 1 (0.43%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 64 (27.35%) DNS
2 52 (22.22%) Firewall
3 28 (11.97%) DHCP
4 24 (10.26%) VPN
5 21 (8.97%) VLAN
6 15 (6.41%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (5.98%) TCP/IP
8 13 (5.56%) Wireless
9 11 (4.70%) SAN
10 10 (4.27%) LAN
11 9 (3.85%) WAN
12 6 (2.56%) Network Security
13 4 (1.71%) DMZ
13 4 (1.71%) Wireshark
14 3 (1.28%) Remote Desktop
15 2 (0.85%) BGP
16 1 (0.43%) Internet
16 1 (0.43%) IPsec
16 1 (0.43%) OSPF
16 1 (0.43%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.85%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 21 (8.97%) JIRA
2 1 (0.43%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 45 (19.23%) Social Skills
2 30 (12.82%) Law
3 21 (8.97%) Legal
4 14 (5.98%) Public Sector
5 6 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (2.14%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (0.85%) Finance
7 2 (0.85%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.43%) Banking
8 1 (0.43%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (2.56%) .NET
2 3 (1.28%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.28%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (4.27%) Video Conferencing
2 9 (3.85%) Driving Licence
3 8 (3.42%) PKI
4 7 (2.99%) Clustering
4 7 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
4 7 (2.99%) Onboarding
5 4 (1.71%) Cyber Threat
5 4 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (0.85%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.85%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.43%) CMDB
8 1 (0.43%) Life Science
8 1 (0.43%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 91 (38.89%) Windows
2 54 (23.08%) Windows Server
3 29 (12.39%) Mac OS
4 27 (11.54%) Linux
5 16 (6.84%) Windows Server 2016
6 13 (5.56%) Windows Server 2012
7 11 (4.70%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (2.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (2.56%) Apple iOS
10 5 (2.14%) Windows 10
11 4 (1.71%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.43%) Android
12 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (23.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 49 (20.94%) Root Cause Analysis
3 35 (14.96%) Technical Leadership
4 30 (12.82%) High Availability
5 29 (12.39%) Change Management
6 28 (11.97%) Agile
6 28 (11.97%) Containerisation
6 28 (11.97%) Incident Management
6 28 (11.97%) Load Balancing
7 27 (11.54%) Mentoring
8 26 (11.11%) ITIL
9 25 (10.68%) Problem-Solving
10 23 (9.83%) Identity Management
11 22 (9.40%) Project Delivery
12 21 (8.97%) Workflow
13 16 (6.84%) Customer Service
13 16 (6.84%) Kalman Filter
13 16 (6.84%) Problem Management
14 15 (6.41%) Continuous Improvement
15 14 (5.98%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 47 (20.09%) PowerShell
2 24 (10.26%) SQL
3 20 (8.55%) R
4 7 (2.99%) Bash
4 7 (2.99%) T-SQL
5 6 (2.56%) C#
6 5 (2.14%) Python
7 3 (1.28%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.85%) Bicep
9 1 (0.43%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 36 (15.38%) Azure Certification
1 36 (15.38%) Security Cleared
2 28 (11.97%) SC Cleared
3 11 (4.70%) CCNA
3 11 (4.70%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (3.42%) DV Cleared
6 6 (2.56%) Degree
7 4 (1.71%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.71%) DBS Check
7 4 (1.71%) MCSA
7 4 (1.71%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 2 (0.85%) CCNP
9 1 (0.43%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (9.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (4.27%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.28%) SLA
4 2 (0.85%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 90 (38.46%) Active Directory
2 42 (17.95%) Hyper-V
2 42 (17.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (5.13%) Virtual Desktop
4 10 (4.27%) vSphere
5 5 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (1.71%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.28%) Docker
8 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 54 (23.08%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (11.97%) Kubernetes
3 16 (6.84%) Jamf Pro
4 14 (5.98%) Autotask
5 12 (5.13%) Proxmox
5 12 (5.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 8 (3.42%) WSUS
7 6 (2.56%) Failover Clustering
7 6 (2.56%) Microsoft Clustering
8 4 (1.71%) Iperf
9 3 (1.28%) Terraform
9 3 (1.28%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.85%) SCCM
11 1 (0.43%) Ansible
11 1 (0.43%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.43%) MaaS360
11 1 (0.43%) SCOM
11 1 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 115 (49.15%) Microsoft
2 50 (21.37%) VMware
3 27 (11.54%) Cisco
4 20 (8.55%) CrowdStrike
5 16 (6.84%) Fortinet
6 15 (6.41%) HP
6 15 (6.41%) SonicWALL
7 12 (5.13%) Google
8 11 (4.70%) Datto
8 11 (4.70%) Meraki
8 11 (4.70%) Veeam
9 10 (4.27%) Aruba
9 10 (4.27%) Ubiquiti
10 7 (2.99%) Apple
10 7 (2.99%) McAfee
11 6 (2.56%) ConnectWise
12 4 (1.71%) Dell
12 4 (1.71%) Ruckus Wireless
12 4 (1.71%) ServiceNow
13 3 (1.28%) Remedy