3rd Line Network Engineer Job Trends

Third Line Network Engineer
UK

The median Third Line Network Engineer salary in the UK is £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 754 669 789
Rank change year-on-year -85 +120 -37
Permanent jobs requiring a 3rd Line Network Engineer 28 23 23
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.026% 0.046% 0.028%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.028% 0.051% 0.029%
Number of salaries quoted 27 21 13
10th Percentile £44,000 - -
25th Percentile £45,625 £42,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £51,500 £41,250
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +24.85% -25.00%
75th Percentile - £55,000 £51,250
90th Percentile - £57,500 £52,650
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £51,500 £41,250
% change year-on-year -2.91% +24.85% -21.43%

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 99,566 44,909 78,876
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.05% 89.96% 94.99%
Number of salaries quoted 68,087 26,709 53,036
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,650 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £72,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £48,750 £50,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% -2.50% -6.54%

3rd Line Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring '3rd Line Network Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

3rd Line Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

3rd Line Network Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for 3rd Line Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Network Engineer
Top 10 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Network Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 10 August 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 -78 28 £50,000 -3.85% 1
UK excluding London -88 28 £50,000 -2.91%
South East -33 12 £50,000 -4.76%
Midlands -24 11 £45,000 -9.05%
East Midlands -17 6 £50,000 +1.05%
West Midlands -23 5 £45,000 -4.26%
Work from Home -23 4 £47,500 +5.56%
North of England - 3 £47,500 -
Yorkshire - 3 £47,500 -
East of England - 2 £49,000 -

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

For the 6 months to 10 August 2026, 3rd Line Network 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 Network Engineer in the job title.

1 12 (42.86%) Cisco
1 12 (42.86%) Fortinet
2 9 (32.14%) Windows
3 8 (28.57%) Active Directory
3 8 (28.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (25.00%) VPN
4 7 (25.00%) Windows Server
5 6 (21.43%) Azure
5 6 (21.43%) DHCP
5 6 (21.43%) DNS
5 6 (21.43%) Failover Clustering
5 6 (21.43%) Hyper-V
5 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
5 6 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (21.43%) Microsoft Clustering
5 6 (21.43%) SQL
5 6 (21.43%) Virtual Environments
6 5 (17.86%) Firewall
7 4 (14.29%) ITSM
7 4 (14.29%) ServiceNow
7 4 (14.29%) Wireless
8 3 (10.71%) Autotask
8 3 (10.71%) Change Management
8 3 (10.71%) ConnectWise
8 3 (10.71%) Entra ID
8 3 (10.71%) Incident Management
8 3 (10.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 3 (10.71%) ITIL
8 3 (10.71%) Network Virtualisation
8 3 (10.71%) Problem Management

3rd Line Network 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 8 (28.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (10.71%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 3 (10.71%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 6 (21.43%) Azure
1 6 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
2 3 (10.71%) Entra ID
3 1 (3.57%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 7 (25.00%) VPN
2 6 (21.43%) DHCP
2 6 (21.43%) DNS
3 5 (17.86%) Firewall
4 4 (14.29%) Wireless
5 3 (10.71%) VLAN
5 3 (10.71%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (7.14%) BGP
6 2 (7.14%) LAN
6 2 (7.14%) WAN
7 1 (3.57%) IPsec
7 1 (3.57%) Network Security
7 1 (3.57%) OSPF
7 1 (3.57%) SAN
7 1 (3.57%) SD-WAN
7 1 (3.57%) TCP/IP
7 1 (3.57%) VoIP
General
1 2 (7.14%) Social Skills
2 1 (3.57%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (3.57%) Public Sector
2 1 (3.57%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.71%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 6 (21.43%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 9 (32.14%) Windows
2 7 (25.00%) Windows Server
3 1 (3.57%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (21.43%) Virtual Environments
2 4 (14.29%) ITSM
3 3 (10.71%) Change Management
3 3 (10.71%) Incident Management
3 3 (10.71%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 3 (10.71%) ITIL
3 3 (10.71%) Network Virtualisation
3 3 (10.71%) Problem Management
3 3 (10.71%) Project Delivery
4 2 (7.14%) Coaching
4 2 (7.14%) Cybersecurity
4 2 (7.14%) Identity Access Management
4 2 (7.14%) IT Strategy
4 2 (7.14%) Mentoring
4 2 (7.14%) PRINCE2
4 2 (7.14%) Technology Transformation
4 2 (7.14%) Ticket Management
5 1 (3.57%) High Availability
5 1 (3.57%) Network Management
5 1 (3.57%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 6 (21.43%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (7.14%) CCNA
1 2 (7.14%) CCNP
1 2 (7.14%) Cisco Certification
2 1 (3.57%) DV Cleared
2 1 (3.57%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (10.71%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (28.57%) Active Directory
2 6 (21.43%) Hyper-V
3 2 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (21.43%) Failover Clustering
1 6 (21.43%) Microsoft Clustering
2 3 (10.71%) Autotask
3 1 (3.57%) FortiGate
3 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (42.86%) Cisco
1 12 (42.86%) Fortinet
2 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
3 4 (14.29%) ServiceNow
4 3 (10.71%) ConnectWise
4 3 (10.71%) Remedy
5 2 (7.14%) VMware
6 1 (3.57%) HP
6 1 (3.57%) Juniper
6 1 (3.57%) Meraki
6 1 (3.57%) Palo Alto
6 1 (3.57%) Veeam