Senior Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

Senior System Administrator (Senior Sysadmin)
UK

The median Senior System Administrator (Senior Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £454, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 November 2025.

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

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 575 504 589
Rank change year-on-year -71 +85 +224
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Systems Administrator 1 39 31
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.003% 0.11% 0.067%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.003% 0.12% 0.071%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 14 18
10th Percentile - £326 £221
25th Percentile - £425 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £450 £520
Median % change year-on-year +0.89% -13.38% +15.44%
75th Percentile - £614 £570
90th Percentile - £681 £596
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £450 £514
% change year-on-year +0.89% -12.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 6 5
10th Percentile - £55.81 £55.14
25th Percentile - £55.87 £56.00
Median hourly rate - £56.75 £56.06
Median % change year-on-year - +1.22% -
75th Percentile - £58.27 £61.25
90th Percentile - £58.49 £65.68
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £56.75 £56.06
% change year-on-year - +1.22% -

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 31,989 33,651 43,674
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.92% 92.86% 93.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,308 20,292 29,666
10th Percentile £279 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,833 1,257 1,539
10th Percentile £14.06 £15.10 £14.99
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +60.48%
75th Percentile £51.80 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.92 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +87.37%

Senior Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Systems Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Senior Systems Administrator
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Senior Systems Administrator
Top 4 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Systems Administrator within the UK over the 6 months to 12 November 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
Work from Home +2 1 £454 -27.13% 2
England -62 1 £454 +0.89% 5
UK excluding London -69 1 £454 +0.89% 5
East of England - 1 £454 - 1

Senior Systems Administrator Skill Set
Top 13 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 November 2025, Senior 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 Senior Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 1 (100.00%) Incident Management
1 1 (100.00%) Linux
1 1 (100.00%) Mac OS
1 1 (100.00%) Performance Monitoring
1 1 (100.00%) Process Improvement
1 1 (100.00%) Red Hat
1 1 (100.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 1 (100.00%) Service Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Service Management
1 1 (100.00%) ServiceNow
1 1 (100.00%) Slurm Workload Manager
1 1 (100.00%) SSL
1 1 (100.00%) Stakeholder Management

Senior 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:

Communications & Networking
1 1 (100.00%) SSL
General
1 1 (100.00%) Social Skills
Miscellaneous
1 1 (100.00%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 1 (100.00%) Linux
1 1 (100.00%) Mac OS
1 1 (100.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Incident Management
1 1 (100.00%) Performance Monitoring
1 1 (100.00%) Process Improvement
1 1 (100.00%) Service Delivery
1 1 (100.00%) Service Management
1 1 (100.00%) Stakeholder Management
System Software
1 1 (100.00%) Slurm Workload Manager
Vendors
1 1 (100.00%) Red Hat
1 1 (100.00%) ServiceNow