Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 March 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 488 413 366
Rank change year-on-year -75 -47 +165
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 113 107 233
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.35% 0.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.38% 0.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 52 124
10th Percentile £350 £192 £250
25th Percentile £421 £274 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -5.56% +2.86%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £614 £645 £586
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £430 £532
% change year-on-year +22.09% -19.17% +33.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 34
10th Percentile £13.90 £21.05 £11.77
25th Percentile £17.50 £21.38 £17.50
Median hourly rate £18.00 £23.00 £46.20
Median % change year-on-year -21.74% -50.22% -11.72%
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 38,005 28,021 41,486
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.82% 92.83% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,844 17,678 27,270
10th Percentile £310 £288 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,343 846 2,411
10th Percentile £14.82 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.06 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -1.63% -0.57% -14.38%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.74 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.38 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -7.03%

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 2 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 2 March 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 2 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 -94 91 £500 +15.74% 117
UK excluding London -87 58 £525 +22.09% 109
London -43 39 £445 +11.25% 21
Work from Home -22 34 £477 +17.42% 48
South West -17 14 £605 +9.95% 7
East of England -22 14 £450 +4.65% 17
Midlands -54 13 £440 -12.00% 25
East Midlands -22 11 £475 -11.30% 10
South East -48 6 £500 -3.38% 29
North of England -62 4 £525 +10.53% 25
Scotland +5 3 - - 6
Yorkshire -63 3 £525 +10.53% 14
Northern Ireland -1 2 £375 +25.00%
West Midlands -58 2 £408 -16.41% 15
Wales - 2 - - 2
North West -34 1 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 32 (28.32%) Security Cleared
2 31 (27.43%) Linux
3 27 (23.89%) Windows
4 25 (22.12%) Microsoft
5 19 (16.81%) DV Cleared
6 18 (15.93%) Microsoft 365
6 18 (15.93%) SC Cleared
7 15 (13.27%) Continuous Improvement
7 15 (13.27%) Microsoft Excel
8 13 (11.50%) Active Directory
8 13 (11.50%) Firewall
9 12 (10.62%) Change Management
9 12 (10.62%) Security Patching
10 11 (9.73%) DNS
10 11 (9.73%) Network Management
10 11 (9.73%) Network Security
11 10 (8.85%) Red Hat
11 10 (8.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 9 (7.96%) Azure
12 9 (7.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
12 9 (7.96%) PowerShell
12 9 (7.96%) Problem-Solving
12 9 (7.96%) SharePoint
12 9 (7.96%) Time Management
12 9 (7.96%) Unix
12 9 (7.96%) VMware
13 8 (7.08%) High Availability
13 8 (7.08%) Knowledge Management
13 8 (7.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 8 (7.08%) Windows Server

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 (7.96%) SharePoint
2 4 (3.54%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 15 (13.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (7.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (5.31%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.88%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.88%) iTrent
1 1 (0.88%) Magento
1 1 (0.88%) Sage 200
1 1 (0.88%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 18 (15.93%) Microsoft 365
2 9 (7.96%) Azure
3 6 (5.31%) AWS
3 6 (5.31%) Entra ID
3 6 (5.31%) IaaS
4 5 (4.42%) GCP
4 5 (4.42%) SaaS
5 3 (2.65%) PaaS
6 1 (0.88%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (0.88%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 13 (11.50%) Firewall
2 11 (9.73%) DNS
2 11 (9.73%) Network Security
3 7 (6.19%) DHCP
4 4 (3.54%) VPN
5 3 (2.65%) Wireless
6 2 (1.77%) SAN
6 2 (1.77%) VLAN
7 1 (0.88%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.88%) LAN
7 1 (0.88%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (5.31%) Oracle Database
2 3 (2.65%) DB2
3 2 (1.77%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.88%) MySQL
4 1 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (1.77%) Git
General
1 20 (17.70%) Social Skills
2 15 (13.27%) Finance
3 13 (11.50%) Banking
3 13 (11.50%) Public Sector
4 8 (7.08%) Legal
5 4 (3.54%) Aerospace
5 4 (3.54%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (3.54%) Fire and Rescue
5 4 (3.54%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.65%) Local Government
7 2 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.77%) Military
8 1 (0.88%) Electronics
8 1 (0.88%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.88%) German Language
8 1 (0.88%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.88%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (9.73%) PKI
2 8 (7.08%) Onboarding
3 5 (4.42%) Data Centre
4 3 (2.65%) Clustering
4 3 (2.65%) Mainframe
5 2 (1.77%) Data Structures
5 2 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.77%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.88%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (0.88%) Hedge funds
6 1 (0.88%) NHS
6 1 (0.88%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.88%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 31 (27.43%) Linux
2 27 (23.89%) Windows
3 10 (8.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (7.96%) Unix
5 8 (7.08%) Windows Server
6 4 (3.54%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.77%) Debian
7 2 (1.77%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (1.77%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.77%) zOS
8 1 (0.88%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.88%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (13.27%) Continuous Improvement
2 12 (10.62%) Change Management
2 12 (10.62%) Security Patching
3 11 (9.73%) Network Management
4 9 (7.96%) Problem-Solving
4 9 (7.96%) Time Management
5 8 (7.08%) High Availability
5 8 (7.08%) Knowledge Management
5 8 (7.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 7 (6.19%) Collaborative Working
7 5 (4.42%) Infrastructure as Code
8 4 (3.54%) Disaster Recovery
8 4 (3.54%) Performance Management
8 4 (3.54%) Performance Optimisation
8 4 (3.54%) Root Cause Analysis
9 3 (2.65%) Configuration Management
9 3 (2.65%) ERP
9 3 (2.65%) Information Security
9 3 (2.65%) ITIL
9 3 (2.65%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (7.96%) PowerShell
2 6 (5.31%) Bash
3 4 (3.54%) Python
4 3 (2.65%) SQL
5 2 (1.77%) C++
6 1 (0.88%) Perl
6 1 (0.88%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 32 (28.32%) Security Cleared
2 19 (16.81%) DV Cleared
3 18 (15.93%) SC Cleared
4 6 (5.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.65%) Data Quality
1 3 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 3 (2.65%) NIST
2 2 (1.77%) JSP 440
3 1 (0.88%) GDPR
3 1 (0.88%) PMO
System Software
1 13 (11.50%) Active Directory
2 7 (6.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.42%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.77%) QEMU
4 2 (1.77%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 2 (1.77%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.88%) ACF2
5 1 (0.88%) Firmware
5 1 (0.88%) GPFS
5 1 (0.88%) RACF
5 1 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (5.31%) Ansible
2 5 (4.42%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (2.65%) SCCM
3 3 (2.65%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (2.65%) Terraform
4 2 (1.77%) EMC NetWorker
4 2 (1.77%) EMC VPLEX
4 2 (1.77%) Grafana
4 2 (1.77%) Podman
4 2 (1.77%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.88%) BladeLogic
5 1 (0.88%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.88%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.88%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 25 (22.12%) Microsoft
2 10 (8.85%) Red Hat
3 9 (7.96%) VMware
4 7 (6.19%) Dell
5 6 (5.31%) Oracle
6 5 (4.42%) Palo Alto
7 4 (3.54%) Cisco
7 4 (3.54%) Fortinet
7 4 (3.54%) Google
8 3 (2.65%) ServiceNow
8 3 (2.65%) Trend Micro
9 2 (1.77%) Broadcom
9 2 (1.77%) Brocade
9 2 (1.77%) EMC
9 2 (1.77%) F5
9 2 (1.77%) HP
9 2 (1.77%) Intel
9 2 (1.77%) Isilon
9 2 (1.77%) NetApp
9 2 (1.77%) NVIDIA