3rd Line Support Contract Job Trends

Third Line Support
UK

The median Third Line Support daily rate in the UK is £300, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

 6 months to
16 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 615 486 485
Rank change year-on-year -129 -1 +62
Contract jobs requiring a 3rd Line Support 36 51 107
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.068% 0.16% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.074% 0.17% 0.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 45 81
10th Percentile £224 £194 £263
25th Percentile £225 £290 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £450 £375
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +20.00% -
75th Percentile £491 £588 £400
90th Percentile £594 £608 £475
UK excluding London median daily rate £300 £563 £375
% change year-on-year -46.67% +50.00% +15.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 2
10th Percentile - - £24.71
25th Percentile £21.25 - £25.51
Median hourly rate £22.50 - £27.59
75th Percentile £23.75 - £30.42
90th Percentile £45.63 - £31.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 - £27.59

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract 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 contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 48,701 29,792 39,645
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.70% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,482 18,952 25,549
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,274 1,409 2,702
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.27 £17.30 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.21 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.69% -34.48% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.49 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.04 £74.00 £73.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

3rd Line Support
Job Vacancy Trend

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

3rd Line Support job vacancy trend in the UK

3rd Line Support
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Support
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing 3rd Line Support over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for 3rd Line Support job vacancies in the UK

3rd Line Support
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing 3rd Line Support over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for 3rd Line Support in the UK

3rd Line Support
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing 3rd Line Support within the UK over the 6 months to 16 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
Contract
IT Job Ads		 Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months		 Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year		 Live
Jobs
England -114 36 £300 -45.45% 25
UK excluding London -110 29 £300 -46.67% 25
South East -68 12 £250 -58.33% 8
Work from Home -73 8 £450 +70.62% 5
London -76 7 £625 +51.52% 3
Midlands -57 6 £300 -25.00% 6
East of England - 5 - - 5
East Midlands - 5 £300 - 4
South West -27 4 £438 +45.83% 3
North of England - 3 £250 - 1
West Midlands -58 1 £210 -47.46% 2
Yorkshire - 1 £210 - 1
North East - 1 £290 -
North West - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 16 July 2026, 3rd Line Support contract 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 contract job ads featuring 3rd Line Support in the job title.

1 26 (72.22%) Active Directory
1 26 (72.22%) Windows
2 21 (58.33%) Microsoft
3 18 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 16 (44.44%) Windows Server
5 12 (33.33%) DNS
6 11 (30.56%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (30.56%) PowerShell
7 10 (27.78%) Security Cleared
8 9 (25.00%) Degree
8 9 (25.00%) Hyper-V
9 8 (22.22%) Entra ID
9 8 (22.22%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (22.22%) SharePoint
10 7 (19.44%) DHCP
10 7 (19.44%) Privileged Access Management
10 7 (19.44%) TCP/IP
10 7 (19.44%) VMware
10 7 (19.44%) VMware Infrastructure
10 7 (19.44%) Windows 10
11 6 (16.67%) AI
11 6 (16.67%) Azure
11 6 (16.67%) DV Cleared
11 6 (16.67%) LAN
11 6 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
11 6 (16.67%) WAN
12 5 (13.89%) SQL
13 4 (11.11%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (11.11%) BitLocker
13 4 (11.11%) Citrix

3rd Line Support 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 11 (30.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (22.22%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (2.78%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 8 (22.22%) Entra ID
2 6 (16.67%) Azure
2 6 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
3 3 (8.33%) AWS
3 3 (8.33%) GCP
3 3 (8.33%) IaaS
3 3 (8.33%) OpenShift
3 3 (8.33%) PaaS
4 2 (5.56%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (2.78%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (2.78%) Mimecast
5 1 (2.78%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 12 (33.33%) DNS
2 7 (19.44%) DHCP
2 7 (19.44%) TCP/IP
3 6 (16.67%) LAN
3 6 (16.67%) WAN
4 4 (11.11%) Firewall
4 4 (11.11%) VPN
5 3 (8.33%) SMTP
6 2 (5.56%) Skype
7 1 (2.78%) NetScaler
7 1 (2.78%) VLAN
7 1 (2.78%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (11.11%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (11.11%) SQL Server
2 3 (8.33%) Big Data
2 3 (8.33%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (5.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (5.56%) Git
General
1 7 (19.44%) Marketing
2 5 (13.89%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (13.89%) Public Sector
3 4 (11.11%) Social Skills
4 3 (8.33%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (5.56%) Military
6 1 (2.78%) Finance
6 1 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.78%) Pharmaceutical
Miscellaneous
1 5 (13.89%) NHS
2 4 (11.11%) Clustering
3 3 (8.33%) Data Centre
3 3 (8.33%) PKI
4 2 (5.56%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.78%) Client/Server
5 1 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.78%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.78%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 26 (72.22%) Windows
2 16 (44.44%) Windows Server
3 7 (19.44%) Windows 10
4 3 (8.33%) Linux
4 3 (8.33%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (2.78%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 7 (19.44%) Privileged Access Management
3 6 (16.67%) AI
4 4 (11.11%) ITSM
4 4 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
5 3 (8.33%) DevOps
5 3 (8.33%) Information Security
5 3 (8.33%) Machine Learning
5 3 (8.33%) Software Deployment
5 3 (8.33%) Vulnerability Remediation
6 2 (5.56%) Application Packaging
6 2 (5.56%) Change Management
6 2 (5.56%) Collaborative Working
6 2 (5.56%) Data Integration
6 2 (5.56%) ETL
6 2 (5.56%) ITIL
6 2 (5.56%) Kalman Filter
6 2 (5.56%) Server Management
6 2 (5.56%) Web Filtering
7 1 (2.78%) Critical Thinking
Programming Languages
1 11 (30.56%) PowerShell
2 5 (13.89%) SQL
3 1 (2.78%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 10 (27.78%) Security Cleared
2 9 (25.00%) Degree
3 6 (16.67%) DV Cleared
4 4 (11.11%) SC Cleared
5 1 (2.78%) CCA
5 1 (2.78%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.78%) SLA
System Software
1 26 (72.22%) Active Directory
2 9 (25.00%) Hyper-V
3 7 (19.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (11.11%) BitLocker
4 4 (11.11%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (8.33%) Docker
5 3 (8.33%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (8.33%) Terminal Services
6 2 (5.56%) vSphere
7 1 (2.78%) vCloud
7 1 (2.78%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (2.78%) VMware NSX
7 1 (2.78%) XenApp
7 1 (2.78%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 8 (22.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 4 (11.11%) SCCM
2 4 (11.11%) vCenter Server
3 3 (8.33%) Ansible
3 3 (8.33%) Kubernetes
3 3 (8.33%) Nagios
3 3 (8.33%) Puppet
3 3 (8.33%) vMotion
4 1 (2.78%) Backup Exec
4 1 (2.78%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Clustering
4 1 (2.78%) SCOM
4 1 (2.78%) SCVMM
4 1 (2.78%) WSUS
Vendors
1 21 (58.33%) Microsoft
2 7 (19.44%) VMware
3 4 (11.11%) Citrix
3 4 (11.11%) HP
4 3 (8.33%) Google
4 3 (8.33%) ServiceNow
4 3 (8.33%) Symantec
5 1 (2.78%) Adobe
5 1 (2.78%) BMC
5 1 (2.78%) Cisco
5 1 (2.78%) McAfee
5 1 (2.78%) Meraki
5 1 (2.78%) Netskope
5 1 (2.78%) Remedy
5 1 (2.78%) Samsung
27 3rd Line Support jobs Nationwide