IT Systems Administrator Contracts

IT System Administrator
UK

The median IT System Administrator daily rate in the UK is £363, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 513 564 702
Rank change year-on-year +51 +138 +142
Contract jobs requiring an IT Systems Administrator 7 18 16
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.024% 0.041% 0.027%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.026% 0.045% 0.028%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 15 13
10th Percentile £224 - £210
25th Percentile £275 £250 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £550 £415
Median % change year-on-year -34.09% +32.53% +2.15%
75th Percentile £425 £675 £450
90th Percentile £431 £678 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £308 £550 £415
% change year-on-year -44.09% +32.53% +2.15%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

IT Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured IT Systems Administrator in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for IT Systems Administrator in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing IT Systems Administrator.

Daily rate trend for IT Systems Administrator in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Systems Administrator over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for IT Systems Administrator in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing IT Systems Administrator.

Hourly rate trend for IT Systems Administrator in the UK

IT Systems Administrator
Top 5 Contract 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 1 May 2025. 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 +46 7 £363 -34.09% 17
London +40 4 £363 +19.83% 1
UK excluding London +50 3 £308 -44.09% 15
South East +35 2 £190 -68.33% 3
East of England - 1 £425 - 3

IT Systems Administrator Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, IT Systems Administrator contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring IT Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 6 (85.71%) Azure
1 6 (85.71%) Windows
2 5 (71.43%) Active Directory
2 5 (71.43%) Entra ID
3 4 (57.14%) PowerShell
3 4 (57.14%) DevOps
3 4 (57.14%) Microsoft
4 3 (42.86%) Linux
4 3 (42.86%) SharePoint
4 3 (42.86%) Firewall
4 3 (42.86%) Windows 10
4 3 (42.86%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (42.86%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (42.86%) Application Packaging
5 2 (28.57%) Change Management
5 2 (28.57%) Disaster Recovery
5 2 (28.57%) Social Skills
5 2 (28.57%) Windows Server
5 2 (28.57%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (28.57%) Python
5 2 (28.57%) ITIL
5 2 (28.57%) DNS
6 1 (14.29%) SLA
6 1 (14.29%) Cisco
6 1 (14.29%) SAN
6 1 (14.29%) NetApp
6 1 (14.29%) Red Hat
6 1 (14.29%) LDAP
6 1 (14.29%) LAN
6 1 (14.29%) WAN

IT Systems Administrator Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (42.86%) SharePoint
2 2 (28.57%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 6 (85.71%) Azure
2 5 (71.43%) Entra ID
3 3 (42.86%) Microsoft 365
4 1 (14.29%) AWS
4 1 (14.29%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (42.86%) Firewall
2 2 (28.57%) DNS
3 1 (14.29%) LAN
3 1 (14.29%) NAS
3 1 (14.29%) SAN
3 1 (14.29%) TCP/IP
3 1 (14.29%) VPN
3 1 (14.29%) WAN
3 1 (14.29%) Wi-Fi
General
1 2 (28.57%) Social Skills
2 1 (14.29%) Aerospace
2 1 (14.29%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 1 (14.29%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (14.29%) Distributed Computing
1 1 (14.29%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 6 (85.71%) Windows
2 3 (42.86%) Linux
2 3 (42.86%) Windows 10
3 2 (28.57%) Windows Server
4 1 (14.29%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (57.14%) DevOps
2 3 (42.86%) Application Packaging
3 2 (28.57%) Change Management
3 2 (28.57%) Disaster Recovery
3 2 (28.57%) ITIL
4 1 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
4 1 (14.29%) Data Protection
4 1 (14.29%) Identity Access Management
4 1 (14.29%) Incident Management
4 1 (14.29%) Information Security
4 1 (14.29%) Information Security Management
4 1 (14.29%) Infrastructure Management
4 1 (14.29%) ISMS
4 1 (14.29%) Migration
4 1 (14.29%) Patch Management
4 1 (14.29%) Problem Management
4 1 (14.29%) Regulatory Compliance
4 1 (14.29%) Requirements Gathering
4 1 (14.29%) Resource Management
4 1 (14.29%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (57.14%) PowerShell
2 2 (28.57%) Python
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (14.29%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (71.43%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (42.86%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 4 (57.14%) Microsoft
2 1 (14.29%) Cisco
2 1 (14.29%) NetApp
2 1 (14.29%) Red Hat