Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 March 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 473 446 372
Rank change year-on-year -27 -74 +153
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 142 74 218
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.25% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.27% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 51 116
10th Percentile £354 £192 £235
25th Percentile £419 £266 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £420 £450
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -6.67% +2.86%
75th Percentile £538 £518 £575
90th Percentile £614 £600 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £430 £500
% change year-on-year +5.12% -14.00% +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 5 32
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.95 £11.77
25th Percentile £17.50 £21.25 £17.43
Median hourly rate £18.00 £23.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.74% -47.73% -25.11%
75th Percentile £23.43 £24.50 £59.95
90th Percentile £32.43 £44.37 £61.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.48 £23.00 £48.40
% change year-on-year +28.17% -52.48% -17.62%

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 39,980 27,191 41,155
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.93% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,004 17,726 26,995
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,473 892 2,490
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% - -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.99
90th Percentile £76.25 £77.10 £71.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.50% -1.54% -19.92%

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 20 March 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 20 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Top 17 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 20 March 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 -43 113 £450 +4.65% 85
UK excluding London -53 75 £452 +5.12% 81
London -31 46 £441 +10.31% 20
Work from Home -14 44 £454 +11.75% 37
Midlands -54 16 £438 -12.50% 15
North of England -61 16 £438 -7.89% 23
East of England -13 14 £450 +4.65% 10
South West -19 13 £610 +10.82% 4
East Midlands -26 11 £475 -11.30% 5
Yorkshire -54 9 £525 +10.53% 14
South East -60 7 £475 +8.20% 18
Scotland +2 5 - - 10
West Midlands -64 5 £438 -10.26% 10
North West -30 4 £438 - 6
North East - 3 £438 - 4
Wales - 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 2 £375 -

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

For the 6 months to 20 March 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 33 (23.24%) Security Cleared
2 29 (20.42%) Linux
3 26 (18.31%) Microsoft
4 25 (17.61%) Windows
5 20 (14.08%) SC Cleared
6 19 (13.38%) Microsoft 365
7 18 (12.68%) DV Cleared
8 17 (11.97%) Workflow
9 15 (10.56%) Avature
9 15 (10.56%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (10.56%) Microsoft Excel
10 14 (9.86%) Active Directory
11 12 (8.45%) Firewall
11 12 (8.45%) High Availability
12 11 (7.75%) Change Management
12 11 (7.75%) DNS
12 11 (7.75%) Security Patching
13 10 (7.04%) Azure
13 10 (7.04%) Network Security
13 10 (7.04%) PowerShell
13 10 (7.04%) Problem-Solving
13 10 (7.04%) Time Management
14 9 (6.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
14 9 (6.34%) Red Hat
14 9 (6.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 9 (6.34%) SharePoint
14 9 (6.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 8 (5.63%) AWS
15 8 (5.63%) IaaS
15 8 (5.63%) Knowledge Management

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 9 (6.34%) SharePoint
2 4 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.70%) Confluence
Applications
1 15 (10.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (6.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (4.23%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.70%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.70%) iTrent
1 1 (0.70%) Magento
1 1 (0.70%) Sage 200
1 1 (0.70%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 19 (13.38%) Microsoft 365
2 10 (7.04%) Azure
3 8 (5.63%) AWS
3 8 (5.63%) IaaS
4 7 (4.93%) Entra ID
5 6 (4.23%) SaaS
6 5 (3.52%) GCP
7 3 (2.11%) Amazon S3
7 3 (2.11%) PaaS
8 1 (0.70%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.70%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 12 (8.45%) Firewall
2 11 (7.75%) DNS
3 10 (7.04%) Network Security
4 7 (4.93%) DHCP
5 4 (2.82%) VPN
6 2 (1.41%) SAN
7 1 (0.70%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.70%) LAN
7 1 (0.70%) SSL
7 1 (0.70%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.93%) DB2
2 5 (3.52%) Oracle Database
3 3 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.41%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.70%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 2 (1.41%) Git
2 1 (0.70%) JIRA
General
1 19 (13.38%) Social Skills
2 14 (9.86%) Finance
2 14 (9.86%) Public Sector
3 13 (9.15%) Banking
4 8 (5.63%) Legal
5 4 (2.82%) Aerospace
5 4 (2.82%) Fire and Rescue
5 4 (2.82%) Local Government
5 4 (2.82%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.11%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.41%) Military
8 1 (0.70%) Electronics
8 1 (0.70%) German Language
8 1 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.70%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.70%) Marketing
8 1 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.41%) YAML
2 1 (0.70%) CSS
2 1 (0.70%) HTML
2 1 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 12 (8.45%) Onboarding
2 10 (7.04%) PKI
3 7 (4.93%) Mainframe
4 5 (3.52%) Data Centre
5 3 (2.11%) Clustering
5 3 (2.11%) NHS
6 2 (1.41%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.41%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.41%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.70%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.70%) Learning Management System
7 1 (0.70%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 29 (20.42%) Linux
2 25 (17.61%) Windows
3 9 (6.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (5.63%) Unix
4 8 (5.63%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.82%) Ubuntu
6 3 (2.11%) zOS
7 2 (1.41%) Debian
7 2 (1.41%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (1.41%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.70%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (11.97%) Workflow
2 15 (10.56%) Continuous Improvement
3 12 (8.45%) High Availability
4 11 (7.75%) Change Management
4 11 (7.75%) Security Patching
5 10 (7.04%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (7.04%) Time Management
6 9 (6.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 8 (5.63%) Knowledge Management
7 8 (5.63%) Network Management
8 6 (4.23%) Collaborative Working
9 5 (3.52%) ITIL
9 5 (3.52%) Service Delivery
10 4 (2.82%) Configuration Management
10 4 (2.82%) Disaster Recovery
10 4 (2.82%) Infrastructure as Code
10 4 (2.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 4 (2.82%) Performance Management
11 3 (2.11%) Performance Tuning
11 3 (2.11%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 10 (7.04%) PowerShell
2 5 (3.52%) Bash
3 3 (2.11%) Python
3 3 (2.11%) SQL
4 2 (1.41%) C++
5 1 (0.70%) Perl
Qualifications
1 33 (23.24%) Security Cleared
2 20 (14.08%) SC Cleared
3 18 (12.68%) DV Cleared
4 6 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.70%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.11%) Data Quality
1 3 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (2.11%) NIST
2 2 (1.41%) JSP 440
3 1 (0.70%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.70%) COBIT
3 1 (0.70%) GDPR
3 1 (0.70%) PMO
3 1 (0.70%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (9.86%) Active Directory
2 5 (3.52%) Hyper-V
2 5 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.41%) Firmware
3 2 (1.41%) QEMU
3 2 (1.41%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.70%) ACF2
4 1 (0.70%) GPFS
4 1 (0.70%) RACF
4 1 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (4.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (3.52%) Ansible
2 5 (3.52%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (2.11%) SCCM
3 3 (2.11%) Terraform
4 2 (1.41%) EMC NetWorker
4 2 (1.41%) EMC VPLEX
4 2 (1.41%) Grafana
4 2 (1.41%) Podman
4 2 (1.41%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.70%) BladeLogic
5 1 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.70%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.70%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 26 (18.31%) Microsoft
2 15 (10.56%) Avature
3 9 (6.34%) Red Hat
4 7 (4.93%) VMware
5 6 (4.23%) Oracle
6 5 (3.52%) Dell
6 5 (3.52%) Google
7 4 (2.82%) Fortinet
8 3 (2.11%) Broadcom
8 3 (2.11%) Palo Alto
8 3 (2.11%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.11%) Trend Micro
9 2 (1.41%) Brocade
9 2 (1.41%) EMC
9 2 (1.41%) F5
9 2 (1.41%) HP
9 2 (1.41%) Isilon
9 2 (1.41%) NVIDIA
9 2 (1.41%) Okta
9 2 (1.41%) Thales