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 8 November 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 478 361 416
Rank change year-on-year -117 +55 +231
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 99 190 212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.52% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.31% 0.56% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 62 128
10th Percentile £213 £264 £231
25th Percentile £281 £332 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year - - +20.00%
75th Percentile £524 £538 £571
90th Percentile £548 £619 £608
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +7.22% - +26.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 19 15
10th Percentile - £13.49 £31.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £14.48 £44.06
Median hourly rate £18.00 £20.00 £49.73
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -59.78% +136.81%
75th Percentile £22.76 £57.43 £56.03
90th Percentile £30.57 £57.79 £65.68
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.77 £20.00 £52.15
% change year-on-year +23.83% -61.65% +148.31%

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 31,811 33,985 44,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.91% 92.88% 93.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,179 20,513 30,002
10th Percentile £278 £300 £295
25th Percentile £402 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 1,817 1,273 1,546
10th Percentile £14.03 £15.10 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.10% -17.98% +53.98%
75th Percentile £51.25 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.25 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.65% -20.79% +85.42%

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 8 November 2025.

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 8 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Top 12 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 8 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
England -96 82 £475 +5.56% 117
UK excluding London -123 49 £483 +7.22% 101
Work from Home +2 34 £400 -15.79% 46
London +7 30 £425 - 37
South West -24 17 £490 -10.91% 15
South East -32 11 £515 +40.14% 30
East of England -5 8 £450 +12.50% 22
North of England -44 8 £525 +10.53% 14
North West -23 6 £479 - 7
Northern Ireland -6 3 £350 +16.67% 4
Scotland 0 2 £275 +31.89% 1
Yorkshire -39 2 £525 +10.53% 6

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

For the 6 months to 8 November 2025, 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 36 (36.36%) Windows
2 27 (27.27%) Linux
3 22 (22.22%) Security Cleared
4 20 (20.20%) Network Management
5 18 (18.18%) Change Management
5 18 (18.18%) DV Cleared
6 17 (17.17%) VMware
7 15 (15.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (15.15%) Security Patching
8 14 (14.14%) Microsoft
8 14 (14.14%) Network Security
9 12 (12.12%) Red Hat
9 12 (12.12%) VMware Infrastructure
10 11 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (11.11%) ITIL
10 11 (11.11%) Oracle
10 11 (11.11%) Progress Chef
10 11 (11.11%) SharePoint
11 10 (10.10%) Active Directory
11 10 (10.10%) AWS
11 10 (10.10%) Business Intelligence
11 10 (10.10%) DNS
11 10 (10.10%) ERP
11 10 (10.10%) Firewall
11 10 (10.10%) Power BI
11 10 (10.10%) Power Platform
11 10 (10.10%) SaaS
12 9 (9.09%) Ansible
12 9 (9.09%) Data Management
12 9 (9.09%) JIRA

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 11 (11.11%) SharePoint
2 5 (5.05%) Confluence
3 4 (4.04%) Apache
4 2 (2.02%) CMS
5 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (1.01%) OpenStack
5 1 (1.01%) SAS
5 1 (1.01%) Tomcat
Applications
1 8 (8.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (6.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.01%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 4 (4.04%) ContrOCC
2 2 (2.02%) CA PPM
2 2 (2.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (1.01%) Magento
3 1 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (1.01%) Shopify
3 1 (1.01%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 10 (10.10%) AWS
1 10 (10.10%) Power Platform
1 10 (10.10%) SaaS
2 9 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (5.05%) Azure
4 4 (4.04%) GCP
5 3 (3.03%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (3.03%) SuccessFactors
6 2 (2.02%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (2.02%) Entra ID
6 2 (2.02%) IaaS
6 2 (2.02%) PaaS
7 1 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.01%) IBM Cloud
7 1 (1.01%) OCI
7 1 (1.01%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 14 (14.14%) Network Security
2 10 (10.10%) DNS
2 10 (10.10%) Firewall
3 6 (6.06%) SAN
4 3 (3.03%) SMTP
4 3 (3.03%) VPN
5 2 (2.02%) DHCP
5 2 (2.02%) iSCSI
5 2 (2.02%) Remote Desktop
5 2 (2.02%) VLAN
5 2 (2.02%) Wireless
6 1 (1.01%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (10.10%) Power BI
2 5 (5.05%) MySQL
3 3 (3.03%) MariaDB
4 2 (2.02%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 2 (2.02%) DB2
4 2 (2.02%) Oracle Database
5 1 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (9.09%) JIRA
2 3 (3.03%) Jenkins
2 3 (3.03%) Vagrant
3 2 (2.02%) Bitbucket
3 2 (2.02%) Git
3 2 (2.02%) GitLab
3 2 (2.02%) TeamCity
4 1 (1.01%) Toad
General
1 33 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 14 (14.14%) Finance
3 11 (11.11%) Public Sector
4 10 (10.10%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (6.06%) Legal
6 3 (3.03%) Law
6 3 (3.03%) Police
7 2 (2.02%) Financial Institution
7 2 (2.02%) Military
8 1 (1.01%) Banking
8 1 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.01%) German Language
8 1 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.01%) Investment Banking
8 1 (1.01%) Local Government
8 1 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.03%) LAMP
2 2 (2.02%) CSS
2 2 (2.02%) HTML
2 2 (2.02%) Zend Framework
3 1 (1.01%) HTML5 Canvas
3 1 (1.01%) IDoc
3 1 (1.01%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 14 (14.14%) PKI
2 8 (8.08%) Onboarding
3 3 (3.03%) Clustering
3 3 (3.03%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.03%) Management Information System
4 2 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (2.02%) Data Structures
4 2 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (2.02%) Hedge funds
4 2 (2.02%) Learning Management System
5 1 (1.01%) Cybercrime
5 1 (1.01%) Educational Technology
5 1 (1.01%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.01%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (1.01%) Mainframe
5 1 (1.01%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 36 (36.36%) Windows
2 27 (27.27%) Linux
3 15 (15.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (5.05%) CentOS
4 5 (5.05%) Ubuntu
5 4 (4.04%) Windows Server
6 3 (3.03%) Debian
6 3 (3.03%) Unix
7 2 (2.02%) Solaris
8 1 (1.01%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (20.20%) Network Management
2 18 (18.18%) Change Management
3 15 (15.15%) Security Patching
4 11 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
4 11 (11.11%) ITIL
5 10 (10.10%) Business Intelligence
5 10 (10.10%) ERP
6 9 (9.09%) Data Management
6 9 (9.09%) Knowledge Management
6 9 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (8.08%) DevOps
7 8 (8.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 7 (7.07%) Disaster Recovery
9 6 (6.06%) Time Management
10 5 (5.05%) Containerisation
10 5 (5.05%) Cybersecurity
10 5 (5.05%) Decision-Making
10 5 (5.05%) Infrastructure as Code
10 5 (5.05%) Root Cause Analysis
10 5 (5.05%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 9 (9.09%) Python
1 9 (9.09%) SQL
2 6 (6.06%) Bash
3 5 (5.05%) Shell Script
4 3 (3.03%) Perl
5 2 (2.02%) JavaScript
5 2 (2.02%) PHP
5 2 (2.02%) PowerShell
6 1 (1.01%) Java
Qualifications
1 22 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 18 (18.18%) DV Cleared
3 3 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
4 2 (2.02%) Degree
5 1 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (1.01%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 1 (1.01%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.06%) QA
2 3 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.03%) PMO
2 3 (3.03%) SOC 2
3 2 (2.02%) Accessibility
3 2 (2.02%) Data Quality
3 2 (2.02%) GDPR
3 2 (2.02%) NIST
3 2 (2.02%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.01%) GRC
System Software
1 12 (12.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (10.10%) Active Directory
3 4 (4.04%) Docker
4 3 (3.03%) Hyper-V
4 3 (3.03%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (2.02%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (2.02%) VirtualBox
6 1 (1.01%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 11 (11.11%) Progress Chef
2 9 (9.09%) Ansible
3 5 (5.05%) Puppet
3 5 (5.05%) Terraform
4 4 (4.04%) Salt
5 3 (3.03%) EMC NetWorker
5 3 (3.03%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (2.02%) Icinga
6 2 (2.02%) Kubernetes
6 2 (2.02%) Nagios
6 2 (2.02%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (1.01%) BladeLogic
7 1 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (1.01%) SCCM
Vendors
1 17 (17.17%) VMware
2 14 (14.14%) Microsoft
3 12 (12.12%) Red Hat
4 11 (11.11%) Oracle
5 7 (7.07%) Dell
5 7 (7.07%) IFS
6 6 (6.06%) ServiceNow
7 5 (5.05%) Cisco
7 5 (5.05%) SAP
8 4 (4.04%) Liquidlogic
9 3 (3.03%) Brocade
9 3 (3.03%) EMC
9 3 (3.03%) IBM
9 3 (3.03%) Isilon
9 3 (3.03%) Rackspace
10 2 (2.02%) HP
10 2 (2.02%) Intel
10 2 (2.02%) New Relic
10 2 (2.02%) Trend Micro
10 2 (2.02%) Zend