Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £438, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 442 449 363
Rank change year-on-year +7 -86 +107
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 190 69 212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.24% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.42% 0.26% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 56 113
10th Percentile £350 £229 £276
25th Percentile £419 £309 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £425 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -15.00% +17.65%
75th Percentile £525 £488 £575
90th Percentile £600 £542 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £450 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -18.18% +32.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 0 41
10th Percentile £14.30 - £11.77
25th Percentile £17.63 - £15.48
Median hourly rate £22.00 - £20.00
75th Percentile £32.43 - £58.49
90th Percentile £35.00 - £59.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.50 - £22.00
% change year-on-year - - -58.10%

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 45,172 26,906 39,903
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.35% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,538 17,432 25,857
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -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 3,009 1,072 2,824
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.23 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.80 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.32 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.55% -36.70% -6.98%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 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 -15 148 £438 +1.74% 67
UK excluding London +5 130 £438 -2.78% 68
London -54 42 £438 +9.38% 12
Work from Home -31 33 £525 +28.05% 31
Midlands -34 25 £438 -10.26% 12
North of England - 24 £438 - 9
East of England -19 22 £450 +5.26% 16
South West -12 21 £605 +27.32% 13
Scotland +5 14 £500 +25.00% 3
East Midlands -14 14 £319 -40.48% 7
Wales - 14 £468 - 4
Yorkshire - 12 £438 - 3
West Midlands -49 11 £438 -7.89% 5
South East -58 10 £413 -15.82% 13
North West - 7 £438 - 5
North East - 5 £438 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 June 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 37 (19.47%) Security Cleared
2 32 (16.84%) Microsoft
3 31 (16.32%) Windows
3 31 (16.32%) Workflow
4 29 (15.26%) Avature
4 29 (15.26%) Linux
4 29 (15.26%) SC Cleared
5 25 (13.16%) Active Directory
6 21 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
7 19 (10.00%) Windows Server
8 18 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
9 17 (8.95%) Collaborative Working
10 15 (7.89%) DV Cleared
10 15 (7.89%) High Availability
10 15 (7.89%) ITIL
11 13 (6.84%) Change Management
11 13 (6.84%) DNS
11 13 (6.84%) Hyper-V
12 12 (6.32%) VMware
12 12 (6.32%) VMware Infrastructure
13 11 (5.79%) BPSS Clearance
13 11 (5.79%) DHCP
14 10 (5.26%) DB2
14 10 (5.26%) ERP
15 9 (4.74%) Dynamics 365
15 9 (4.74%) Validation
16 8 (4.21%) Continuous Improvement
16 8 (4.21%) Degree
16 8 (4.21%) Microsoft 365
17 7 (3.68%) AWS

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 7 (3.68%) Microsoft Exchange
1 7 (3.68%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.05%) Confluence
Applications
1 18 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (3.16%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 9 (4.74%) Dynamics 365
2 8 (4.21%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (3.68%) AWS
3 7 (3.68%) Azure
4 5 (2.63%) GCP
5 3 (1.58%) Veeva
6 2 (1.05%) Amazon S3
6 2 (1.05%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.05%) IaaS
7 1 (0.53%) Google Workspace
7 1 (0.53%) Power Platform
7 1 (0.53%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (6.84%) DNS
2 11 (5.79%) DHCP
3 7 (3.68%) Network Security
4 6 (3.16%) Firewall
4 6 (3.16%) WAN
5 5 (2.63%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (1.05%) iSCSI
6 2 (1.05%) LAN
6 2 (1.05%) NAS
6 2 (1.05%) SAN
6 2 (1.05%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.53%) GSM
7 1 (0.53%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.53%) SSL
7 1 (0.53%) VPN
7 1 (0.53%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.26%) DB2
2 7 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.63%) Oracle Database
4 2 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.53%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (1.05%) Git
1 2 (1.05%) JIRA
2 1 (0.53%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 17 (8.95%) Finance
1 17 (8.95%) Public Sector
1 17 (8.95%) Social Skills
2 12 (6.32%) Banking
3 11 (5.79%) Organisational Skills
4 7 (3.68%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.11%) Aerospace
5 4 (2.11%) Fire and Rescue
5 4 (2.11%) Law
5 4 (2.11%) Local Government
5 4 (2.11%) Police
6 3 (1.58%) Retail
7 1 (0.53%) Electronics
7 1 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.53%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.53%) Marketing
7 1 (0.53%) Military
7 1 (0.53%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.05%) Oracle Fusion
1 2 (1.05%) YAML
2 1 (0.53%) CSS
2 1 (0.53%) HTML
2 1 (0.53%) Middleware
2 1 (0.53%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.26%) Mainframe
1 10 (5.26%) Operational Technology
2 8 (4.21%) Data Centre
3 5 (2.63%) Management Information System
3 5 (2.63%) PKI
3 5 (2.63%) SCADA
4 4 (2.11%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (1.58%) NHS
5 3 (1.58%) Security Posture
6 1 (0.53%) Clustering
6 1 (0.53%) Driving Licence
6 1 (0.53%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.53%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (0.53%) Learning Management System
6 1 (0.53%) LIMS
Operating Systems
1 31 (16.32%) Windows
2 29 (15.26%) Linux
3 19 (10.00%) Windows Server
4 7 (3.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (3.68%) Unix
5 6 (3.16%) zOS
6 4 (2.11%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.05%) Debian
7 2 (1.05%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.53%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (16.32%) Workflow
2 21 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (8.95%) Collaborative Working
4 15 (7.89%) High Availability
4 15 (7.89%) ITIL
5 13 (6.84%) Change Management
6 10 (5.26%) ERP
7 9 (4.74%) Validation
8 8 (4.21%) Continuous Improvement
9 7 (3.68%) Knowledge Transfer
9 7 (3.68%) Time Management
10 6 (3.16%) Configuration Management
10 6 (3.16%) Cybersecurity
10 6 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 6 (3.16%) Problem Management
10 6 (3.16%) Security Patching
10 6 (3.16%) Service Delivery
10 6 (3.16%) System Testing
11 5 (2.63%) Migration
11 5 (2.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 7 (3.68%) SQL
2 4 (2.11%) PowerShell
3 2 (1.05%) Bash
3 2 (1.05%) C++
3 2 (1.05%) Python
Qualifications
1 37 (19.47%) Security Cleared
2 29 (15.26%) SC Cleared
3 15 (7.89%) DV Cleared
4 11 (5.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (4.21%) Degree
6 3 (1.58%) HND
7 2 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.05%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.11%) SLA
2 3 (1.58%) JSP 440
3 1 (0.53%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.53%) COBIT
3 1 (0.53%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.53%) HL7
3 1 (0.53%) NIST
System Software
1 25 (13.16%) Active Directory
2 13 (6.84%) Hyper-V
3 12 (6.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.05%) Firmware
5 2 (1.05%) QEMU
5 2 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.05%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.53%) ACF2
6 1 (0.53%) RACF
6 1 (0.53%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 6 (3.16%) Ansible
2 4 (2.11%) SCCM
2 4 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (1.05%) Grafana
3 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (1.05%) Podman
3 2 (1.05%) Prometheus
3 2 (1.05%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (0.53%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.53%) Network Intrusion Detection System
4 1 (0.53%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.53%) SCOM
4 1 (0.53%) WSUS
Vendors
1 32 (16.84%) Microsoft
2 29 (15.26%) Avature
3 12 (6.32%) VMware
4 7 (3.68%) Oracle
5 6 (3.16%) Broadcom
5 6 (3.16%) Cisco
6 5 (2.63%) Google
6 5 (2.63%) Red Hat
7 4 (2.11%) SAP
8 2 (1.05%) Dell
8 2 (1.05%) F5
8 2 (1.05%) NEC
8 2 (1.05%) NetApp
8 2 (1.05%) NVIDIA
8 2 (1.05%) Okta
8 2 (1.05%) SolarWinds
8 2 (1.05%) Thales
9 1 (0.53%) CyberArk
9 1 (0.53%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.53%) Splunk