Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 February 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 496 414 370
Rank change year-on-year -82 -44 +182
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 112 119 235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.39% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.42% 0.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 57 123
10th Percentile £325 £192 £250
25th Percentile £417 £275 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +14.71% -5.56% +5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £614 £623 £580
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £432 £532
% change year-on-year +21.53% -18.80% +28.97%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 35
10th Percentile £13.90 £21.05 £11.77
25th Percentile £17.50 £21.38 £17.50
Median hourly rate £18.00 £23.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.74% -47.73% -15.93%
75th Percentile £18.50 £57.62 £59.95
90th Percentile £26.80 - £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £13.50 £56.75 £48.40
% change year-on-year -76.21% +17.24% -7.52%

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 37,309 28,353 41,398
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.77% 92.89% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,419 17,689 27,239
10th Percentile £306 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,278 825 2,334
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £31.76 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.27% - -12.01%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.80
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.22% -0.98%

Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Systems Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK

Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Systems Administrator
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Systems Administrator over the 6 months to 23 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Systems Administrator
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Systems Administrator over the 6 months to 23 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Systems Administrator within the UK over the 6 months to 23 February 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 -87 92 £500 +11.11% 79
UK excluding London -89 57 £525 +21.53% 70
London -33 39 £445 +11.25% 21
Work from Home -9 34 £477 +19.25% 36
South West -22 15 £600 +4.35% 6
East of England -23 14 £450 +4.65% 11
Midlands -51 13 £440 -12.00% 13
East Midlands -16 11 £475 -11.30% 3
South East -43 6 £388 -25.12% 24
North of England -54 4 £525 +10.53% 12
Yorkshire -58 3 £525 +10.53% 9
Northern Ireland 0 2 £375 +25.00%
West Midlands -64 2 £408 -16.41% 10
Wales - 2 - - 1
Scotland 0 1 - - 4
North West -31 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 23 February 2026, 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 Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 32 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 30 (26.79%) Linux
3 28 (25.00%) Windows
4 26 (23.21%) Microsoft
5 20 (17.86%) DV Cleared
6 18 (16.07%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (15.18%) SC Cleared
8 16 (14.29%) Microsoft Excel
9 15 (13.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 13 (11.61%) Active Directory
10 13 (11.61%) Change Management
10 13 (11.61%) Security Patching
11 12 (10.71%) Firewall
11 12 (10.71%) Network Management
11 12 (10.71%) Network Security
12 11 (9.82%) DNS
13 10 (8.93%) Problem-Solving
13 10 (8.93%) Red Hat
13 10 (8.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (8.93%) SharePoint
14 9 (8.04%) Azure
14 9 (8.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
14 9 (8.04%) PowerShell
14 9 (8.04%) Time Management
14 9 (8.04%) Unix
14 9 (8.04%) VMware
15 8 (7.14%) Knowledge Management
15 8 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 8 (7.14%) Windows Server
16 7 (6.25%) Collaborative Working

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 10 (8.93%) SharePoint
2 4 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 16 (14.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (8.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (5.36%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.89%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.89%) iTrent
1 1 (0.89%) Magento
1 1 (0.89%) Sage 200
1 1 (0.89%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 18 (16.07%) Microsoft 365
2 9 (8.04%) Azure
3 6 (5.36%) AWS
3 6 (5.36%) Entra ID
3 6 (5.36%) IaaS
4 5 (4.46%) GCP
4 5 (4.46%) SaaS
5 3 (2.68%) PaaS
6 1 (0.89%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (0.89%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (0.89%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 12 (10.71%) Firewall
1 12 (10.71%) Network Security
2 11 (9.82%) DNS
3 7 (6.25%) DHCP
4 4 (3.57%) VPN
5 3 (2.68%) Wireless
6 2 (1.79%) SAN
6 2 (1.79%) VLAN
7 1 (0.89%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.89%) LAN
7 1 (0.89%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.36%) Oracle Database
2 2 (1.79%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.89%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
3 1 (0.89%) DB2
3 1 (0.89%) MySQL
3 1 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.89%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.79%) Git
General
1 21 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 16 (14.29%) Finance
3 13 (11.61%) Banking
3 13 (11.61%) Public Sector
4 8 (7.14%) Legal
5 5 (4.46%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (3.57%) Aerospace
6 4 (3.57%) Fire and Rescue
6 4 (3.57%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.68%) Local Government
8 2 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.79%) Military
9 1 (0.89%) Electronics
9 1 (0.89%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.89%) German Language
9 1 (0.89%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.89%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.89%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (10.71%) PKI
2 8 (7.14%) Onboarding
3 5 (4.46%) Data Centre
4 3 (2.68%) Clustering
5 2 (1.79%) Data Structures
5 2 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.79%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.89%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (0.89%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.89%) Mainframe
6 1 (0.89%) NHS
6 1 (0.89%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.89%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 30 (26.79%) Linux
2 28 (25.00%) Windows
3 10 (8.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (8.04%) Unix
5 8 (7.14%) Windows Server
6 4 (3.57%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.79%) Debian
7 2 (1.79%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.89%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.89%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (13.39%) Continuous Improvement
2 13 (11.61%) Change Management
2 13 (11.61%) Security Patching
3 12 (10.71%) Network Management
4 10 (8.93%) Problem-Solving
5 9 (8.04%) Time Management
6 8 (7.14%) Knowledge Management
6 8 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 7 (6.25%) Collaborative Working
8 6 (5.36%) High Availability
9 5 (4.46%) Infrastructure as Code
10 4 (3.57%) Performance Management
10 4 (3.57%) Performance Optimisation
10 4 (3.57%) Root Cause Analysis
11 3 (2.68%) Configuration Management
11 3 (2.68%) Data Cleansing
11 3 (2.68%) Data Management
11 3 (2.68%) Disaster Recovery
11 3 (2.68%) Information Security
11 3 (2.68%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (8.04%) PowerShell
2 5 (4.46%) Bash
3 4 (3.57%) SQL
4 3 (2.68%) Python
5 1 (0.89%) C++
5 1 (0.89%) Perl
5 1 (0.89%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 32 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 20 (17.86%) DV Cleared
3 17 (15.18%) SC Cleared
4 6 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.68%) Data Quality
1 3 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (2.68%) NIST
2 1 (0.89%) GDPR
2 1 (0.89%) JSP 440
2 1 (0.89%) PMO
2 1 (0.89%) QA
System Software
1 13 (11.61%) Active Directory
2 7 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.46%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.79%) QEMU
4 2 (1.79%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 2 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.89%) Firmware
5 1 (0.89%) GPFS
5 1 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 5 (4.46%) Ansible
1 5 (4.46%) Microsoft Intune
2 3 (2.68%) SCCM
2 3 (2.68%) Single Sign-On
2 3 (2.68%) Terraform
3 2 (1.79%) EMC NetWorker
3 2 (1.79%) EMC VPLEX
3 2 (1.79%) Grafana
3 2 (1.79%) Podman
3 2 (1.79%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.89%) BladeLogic
4 1 (0.89%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.89%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 26 (23.21%) Microsoft
2 10 (8.93%) Red Hat
3 9 (8.04%) VMware
4 7 (6.25%) Dell
5 6 (5.36%) Oracle
6 5 (4.46%) Palo Alto
7 4 (3.57%) Cisco
7 4 (3.57%) Fortinet
7 4 (3.57%) Google
8 3 (2.68%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.68%) Trend Micro
9 2 (1.79%) Brocade
9 2 (1.79%) EMC
9 2 (1.79%) HP
9 2 (1.79%) Intel
9 2 (1.79%) Isilon
9 2 (1.79%) NetApp
9 2 (1.79%) NVIDIA
9 2 (1.79%) SAP
10 1 (0.89%) Citrix