Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £413, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 455 366 422
Rank change year-on-year -89 +56 +212
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 102 198 214
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.31% 0.51% 0.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.34% 0.55% 0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 75 120
10th Percentile £213 £300 £218
25th Percentile £267 £422 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £500 £446
Median % change year-on-year -17.50% +12.04% +5.00%
75th Percentile £490 £575 £526
90th Percentile £550 £588 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £520 £450
% change year-on-year -5.77% +15.56% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 21 17
10th Percentile £20.90 £13.49 £44.75
25th Percentile £23.08 £15.48 £48.40
Median hourly rate £28.43 £20.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.15% -60.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £31.20 £38.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £31.83 £57.62 £56.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.77 £20.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +23.83% -60.00% +26.58%

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 30,009 35,817 46,695
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 92.96% 94.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,949 22,029 31,957
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,585 1,680 1,499
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.73 £14.99
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.50 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% -3.37% +71.15%
75th Percentile £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year -44.11% +2.86% +98.86%

Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Systems Administrator in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Systems Administrator 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 19 September 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
Top 13 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 19 September 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 -77 83 £445 -14.42% 76
UK excluding London -86 55 £490 -5.77% 63
Work from Home +22 29 £400 -15.79% 41
London +5 29 £375 -16.67% 24
South West -21 17 £490 -10.91% 9
South East -6 15 £503 +16.32% 23
East of England +7 9 £348 - 10
Scotland -11 5 £500 +156.41% 1
North West -14 5 £479 - 14
North of England -38 5 £479 -4.17% 16
Northern Ireland -4 3 £350 +16.67%
West Midlands -16 1 £552 +69.85% 1
Midlands -32 1 £552 +8.45% 3

Systems Administrator Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 September 2025, Systems Administrator contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 38 (37.25%) Windows
2 30 (29.41%) Social Skills
3 26 (25.49%) Linux
4 21 (20.59%) Security Cleared
5 19 (18.63%) Network Management
5 19 (18.63%) VMware
6 18 (17.65%) Change Management
7 17 (16.67%) DV Cleared
8 16 (15.69%) AWS
9 15 (14.71%) Oracle
9 15 (14.71%) Python
9 15 (14.71%) Microsoft
9 15 (14.71%) Active Directory
10 14 (13.73%) Finance
10 14 (13.73%) Security Patching
11 13 (12.75%) Ansible
11 13 (12.75%) Progress Chef
11 13 (12.75%) Network Security
11 13 (12.75%) PKI
11 13 (12.75%) JIRA
11 13 (12.75%) Disaster Recovery
12 12 (11.76%) Shell Script
12 12 (11.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 11 (10.78%) Azure
13 11 (10.78%) VMware Infrastructure
13 11 (10.78%) DevOps
13 11 (10.78%) ITIL
13 11 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
14 10 (9.80%) Public Sector
14 10 (9.80%) Power Platform

Systems Administrator Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (4.90%) Confluence
1 5 (4.90%) SharePoint
2 4 (3.92%) Apache
2 4 (3.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.94%) OpenStack
4 2 (1.96%) CMS
5 1 (0.98%) SAS
5 1 (0.98%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (3.92%) ContrOCC
2 2 (1.96%) CA PPM
2 2 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.98%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 16 (15.69%) AWS
2 11 (10.78%) Azure
3 10 (9.80%) Power Platform
4 8 (7.84%) SaaS
5 5 (4.90%) Cloud Computing
6 4 (3.92%) GCP
6 4 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (2.94%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (2.94%) Entra ID
7 3 (2.94%) SuccessFactors
8 1 (0.98%) IBM Cloud
8 1 (0.98%) OCI
8 1 (0.98%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 13 (12.75%) Network Security
2 9 (8.82%) DNS
3 8 (7.84%) Firewall
3 8 (7.84%) SAN
4 5 (4.90%) iSCSI
5 3 (2.94%) SMTP
6 2 (1.96%) Remote Desktop
6 2 (1.96%) VLAN
6 2 (1.96%) Wireless
7 1 (0.98%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (9.80%) Power BI
2 4 (3.92%) MySQL
3 3 (2.94%) MariaDB
4 2 (1.96%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 2 (1.96%) DB2
4 2 (1.96%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 13 (12.75%) JIRA
2 5 (4.90%) GitLab
2 5 (4.90%) TeamCity
3 3 (2.94%) Jenkins
3 3 (2.94%) Vagrant
4 2 (1.96%) Bitbucket
4 2 (1.96%) Git
5 1 (0.98%) Toad
General
1 30 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 14 (13.73%) Finance
3 10 (9.80%) Public Sector
4 9 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (2.94%) Law
5 3 (2.94%) Police
6 2 (1.96%) Financial Institution
6 2 (1.96%) Local Government
7 1 (0.98%) Banking
7 1 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.98%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.94%) LAMP
1 3 (2.94%) LDAP
1 3 (2.94%) X-Windows
2 2 (1.96%) CSS
2 2 (1.96%) HTML
2 2 (1.96%) Zend Framework
3 1 (0.98%) HTML5 Canvas
3 1 (0.98%) IDoc
3 1 (0.98%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 13 (12.75%) PKI
2 4 (3.92%) PMI
3 3 (2.94%) Data Centre
3 3 (2.94%) Enterprise Storage
3 3 (2.94%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (1.96%) Hedge funds
4 2 (1.96%) Learning Management System
4 2 (1.96%) Management Information System
4 2 (1.96%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.98%) Cloud Native
5 1 (0.98%) Clustering
5 1 (0.98%) Cybercrime
5 1 (0.98%) Educational Technology
5 1 (0.98%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (0.98%) Mainframe
5 1 (0.98%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 38 (37.25%) Windows
2 26 (25.49%) Linux
3 12 (11.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (7.84%) Windows Server
5 7 (6.86%) CentOS
5 7 (6.86%) Ubuntu
6 6 (5.88%) Unix
7 3 (2.94%) Debian
7 3 (2.94%) Mac OS
8 2 (1.96%) Solaris
9 1 (0.98%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (18.63%) Network Management
2 18 (17.65%) Change Management
3 14 (13.73%) Security Patching
4 13 (12.75%) Disaster Recovery
5 11 (10.78%) DevOps
5 11 (10.78%) ITIL
5 11 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (9.80%) Business Intelligence
7 9 (8.82%) Containerisation
7 9 (8.82%) ERP
8 8 (7.84%) Data Management
8 8 (7.84%) ITSM
9 6 (5.88%) Capacity Planning
9 6 (5.88%) Problem Management
9 6 (5.88%) Root Cause Analysis
10 5 (4.90%) Agile
10 5 (4.90%) Decision-Making
10 5 (4.90%) Infrastructure as Code
10 5 (4.90%) Service Delivery
10 5 (4.90%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 15 (14.71%) Python
2 12 (11.76%) Shell Script
3 8 (7.84%) SQL
4 6 (5.88%) Bash
5 5 (4.90%) PowerShell
6 3 (2.94%) Perl
7 2 (1.96%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.96%) PHP
8 1 (0.98%) Java
Qualifications
1 21 (20.59%) Security Cleared
2 17 (16.67%) DV Cleared
3 4 (3.92%) Degree
3 4 (3.92%) PMI Certification
4 3 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.94%) SC Cleared
5 2 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.88%) PCI DSS
1 6 (5.88%) QA
2 3 (2.94%) Cyber Essentials
2 3 (2.94%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 3 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (2.94%) SOC 2
3 2 (1.96%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.96%) PMO
4 1 (0.98%) GDPR
4 1 (0.98%) GRC
System Software
1 15 (14.71%) Active Directory
2 11 (10.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (7.84%) Hyper-V
4 7 (6.86%) Docker
5 4 (3.92%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (2.94%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (1.96%) VirtualBox
8 1 (0.98%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 13 (12.75%) Ansible
1 13 (12.75%) Progress Chef
2 8 (7.84%) Terraform
3 7 (6.86%) Puppet
4 6 (5.88%) Salt
5 3 (2.94%) EMC NetWorker
5 3 (2.94%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (1.96%) Icinga
6 2 (1.96%) Kubernetes
6 2 (1.96%) Nagios
6 2 (1.96%) SCCM
7 1 (0.98%) BladeLogic
7 1 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (18.63%) VMware
2 15 (14.71%) Microsoft
2 15 (14.71%) Oracle
3 9 (8.82%) Red Hat
4 7 (6.86%) Dell
4 7 (6.86%) IFS
4 7 (6.86%) ServiceNow
5 5 (4.90%) Cisco
5 5 (4.90%) SAP
6 4 (3.92%) Liquidlogic
7 3 (2.94%) Brocade
7 3 (2.94%) EMC
7 3 (2.94%) IBM
7 3 (2.94%) Isilon
7 3 (2.94%) Rackspace
8 2 (1.96%) Intel
8 2 (1.96%) New Relic
8 2 (1.96%) Palo Alto
8 2 (1.96%) Zend
9 1 (0.98%) Dynatrace