IT Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

IT System Administrator
UK

The median IT System Administrator daily rate in the UK is £350, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 8 June 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 628 516 572
Rank change year-on-year -112 +56 +101
Contract jobs requiring an IT Systems Administrator 10 6 18
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.020% 0.021% 0.041%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.022% 0.022% 0.045%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 5 14
10th Percentile £271 £283 £250
25th Percentile - £313 £283
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £400 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -27.27% +32.53%
75th Percentile £386 £425 £675
90th Percentile £387 £433 £679
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £425 £550
% change year-on-year -17.65% -22.73% +49.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £44.86 - £12.13
Median hourly rate £48.72 - £12.25
75th Percentile £52.58 - £12.38
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 - £12.25
% change year-on-year - - -55.45%

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 45,699 27,029 40,373
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.35% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,837 17,405 26,000
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,047 1,117 2,898
10th Percentile £15.11 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.93% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.69 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -5.88%

IT Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'IT Systems Administrator' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

IT Systems Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Systems Administrator over the 6 months to 8 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IT Systems Administrator in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Top 6 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IT Systems Administrator within the UK over the 6 months to 8 June 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 -123 9 £350 -12.50% 14
UK excluding London -97 4 £350 -17.65% 13
London -68 2 - - 1
South West - 2 £350 - 1
East of England -24 1 £235 -44.71% 2
South East -64 1 - - 7

IT Systems Administrator Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 8 June 2026, IT Systems Administrator 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 IT Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 8 (80.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (60.00%) ITIL
2 6 (60.00%) SC Cleared
3 5 (50.00%) Active Directory
3 5 (50.00%) DNS
3 5 (50.00%) Windows
3 5 (50.00%) Windows Server
4 4 (40.00%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (40.00%) DHCP
4 4 (40.00%) Hyper-V
4 4 (40.00%) Infrastructure Management
4 4 (40.00%) Patch Management
4 4 (40.00%) Problem Management
4 4 (40.00%) VMware
4 4 (40.00%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (20.00%) Remote Monitoring and Management
6 1 (10.00%) Cisco
6 1 (10.00%) COBIT
6 1 (10.00%) Confluence
6 1 (10.00%) Containerisation
6 1 (10.00%) Customer Requirements
6 1 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
6 1 (10.00%) Facilities Management
6 1 (10.00%) Firewall
6 1 (10.00%) FortiGate
6 1 (10.00%) HL7
6 1 (10.00%) Identity Access Management
6 1 (10.00%) Identity Management
6 1 (10.00%) JIRA
6 1 (10.00%) JSP 440

IT Systems Administrator 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 1 (10.00%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 1 (10.00%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (50.00%) DNS
2 4 (40.00%) DHCP
3 1 (10.00%) Firewall
3 1 (10.00%) LAN
3 1 (10.00%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (10.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (10.00%) JIRA
1 1 (10.00%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 4 (40.00%) Finance
1 4 (40.00%) Law
1 4 (40.00%) Police
1 4 (40.00%) Public Sector
2 1 (10.00%) Organisational Skills
2 1 (10.00%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (10.00%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 1 (10.00%) Enterprise Software
1 1 (10.00%) LIMS
1 1 (10.00%) Management Information System
1 1 (10.00%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 5 (50.00%) Windows
1 5 (50.00%) Windows Server
2 1 (10.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (60.00%) ITIL
2 4 (40.00%) Infrastructure Management
2 4 (40.00%) Patch Management
2 4 (40.00%) Problem Management
3 2 (20.00%) Remote Monitoring and Management
4 1 (10.00%) Containerisation
4 1 (10.00%) Customer Requirements
4 1 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
4 1 (10.00%) Facilities Management
4 1 (10.00%) Identity Access Management
4 1 (10.00%) Identity Management
4 1 (10.00%) Observability
4 1 (10.00%) Service Delivery
4 1 (10.00%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 1 (10.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (80.00%) Security Cleared
2 6 (60.00%) SC Cleared
3 4 (40.00%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (10.00%) COBIT
1 1 (10.00%) HL7
1 1 (10.00%) JSP 440
System Software
1 5 (50.00%) Active Directory
2 4 (40.00%) Hyper-V
2 4 (40.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (10.00%) FortiGate
1 1 (10.00%) Single Sign-On
1 1 (10.00%) WSUS
Vendors
1 4 (40.00%) VMware
2 1 (10.00%) Cisco
2 1 (10.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (10.00%) Okta
2 1 (10.00%) SolarWinds
2 1 (10.00%) Splunk