Systems Administrator Contract Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) daily rate in the UK is £445, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 December 2025.

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

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 479 399 404
Rank change year-on-year -80 +5 +230
Contract jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 103 167 203
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.47% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.31% 0.50% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 59 118
10th Percentile £213 £193 £224
25th Percentile £300 £283 £310
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £425 £468
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -9.19% +21.56%
75th Percentile £538 £581 £575
90th Percentile £548 £650 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £431 £468
% change year-on-year +10.21% -7.91% +17.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 14
10th Percentile - £13.49 £34.06
25th Percentile £17.50 £14.98 £48.40
Median hourly rate £18.00 £22.75 £52.15
Median % change year-on-year -20.88% -56.37% +148.31%
75th Percentile £24.00 £42.90 £59.95
90th Percentile £29.90 £57.62 £67.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.77 £22.25 £55.28
% change year-on-year +11.30% -59.75% +163.24%

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 32,727 33,118 42,499
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 92.81% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,756 20,117 28,647
10th Percentile £284 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £724 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.14% -0.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,905 1,179 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.32 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.96 £20.63 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +44.26%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 December 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 2 December 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 2 December 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 80 £475 +5.56% 57
UK excluding London -121 48 £475 +10.21% 55
Work from Home +4 39 £425 +3.03% 22
London +13 33 £413 +1.54% 8
South West -27 13 £533 -5.33% 6
South East -23 12 £515 +40.14% 10
North of England -59 9 £525 +10.53% 17
East of England -11 7 £450 +12.50% 10
North West -28 6 £479 - 9
Northern Ireland -3 4 £375 +25.00%
Scotland -4 3 £275 +42.12% 4
Yorkshire -40 3 £525 +10.53% 7

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

For the 6 months to 2 December 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 (34.95%) Windows
2 28 (27.18%) Linux
3 22 (21.36%) Security Cleared
4 19 (18.45%) Network Management
5 18 (17.48%) Microsoft
6 17 (16.50%) DV Cleared
6 17 (16.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (15.53%) Change Management
8 15 (14.56%) VMware
9 14 (13.59%) Microsoft 365
9 14 (13.59%) Security Patching
10 13 (12.62%) DNS
10 13 (12.62%) Firewall
10 13 (12.62%) Network Security
10 13 (12.62%) Red Hat
10 13 (12.62%) SharePoint
11 12 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (10.68%) ERP
12 11 (10.68%) Oracle
12 11 (10.68%) Progress Chef
13 10 (9.71%) Active Directory
13 10 (9.71%) Business Intelligence
13 10 (9.71%) ITIL
13 10 (9.71%) Knowledge Management
13 10 (9.71%) Microsoft Excel
13 10 (9.71%) Power BI
13 10 (9.71%) Power Platform
13 10 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 10 (9.71%) VMware Infrastructure
14 9 (8.74%) Bash

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 13 (12.62%) SharePoint
2 4 (3.88%) Apache
2 4 (3.88%) Confluence
3 2 (1.94%) CMS
4 1 (0.97%) SAS
4 1 (0.97%) Tomcat
Applications
1 10 (9.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (7.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.97%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 4 (3.88%) ContrOCC
2 2 (1.94%) CA PPM
2 2 (1.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.97%) iTrent
3 1 (0.97%) Magento
3 1 (0.97%) Sage 200
3 1 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.97%) Shopify
3 1 (0.97%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 14 (13.59%) Microsoft 365
2 10 (9.71%) Power Platform
3 8 (7.77%) AWS
3 8 (7.77%) SaaS
4 6 (5.83%) Azure
4 6 (5.83%) Entra ID
4 6 (5.83%) IaaS
5 3 (2.91%) Dynamics 365
5 3 (2.91%) GCP
5 3 (2.91%) PaaS
5 3 (2.91%) SuccessFactors
6 1 (0.97%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (0.97%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.97%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.97%) IBM Cloud
6 1 (0.97%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 13 (12.62%) DNS
1 13 (12.62%) Firewall
1 13 (12.62%) Network Security
2 5 (4.85%) SAN
3 4 (3.88%) DHCP
3 4 (3.88%) VPN
4 2 (1.94%) Remote Desktop
4 2 (1.94%) SMTP
4 2 (1.94%) VLAN
4 2 (1.94%) Wireless
5 1 (0.97%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (9.71%) Power BI
2 5 (4.85%) MySQL
3 3 (2.91%) MariaDB
4 2 (1.94%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 2 (1.94%) DB2
4 2 (1.94%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.97%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (6.80%) JIRA
2 3 (2.91%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.91%) Vagrant
3 2 (1.94%) Bitbucket
3 2 (1.94%) Git
4 1 (0.97%) GitLab
4 1 (0.97%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.97%) Toad
General
1 37 (35.92%) Social Skills
2 18 (17.48%) Finance
3 12 (11.65%) Public Sector
4 9 (8.74%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (7.77%) Legal
6 3 (2.91%) Law
6 3 (2.91%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.94%) Banking
7 2 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.94%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.94%) Local Government
7 2 (1.94%) Military
7 2 (1.94%) Police
8 1 (0.97%) German Language
8 1 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.97%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.91%) LAMP
2 2 (1.94%) CSS
2 2 (1.94%) HTML
2 2 (1.94%) Zend Framework
3 1 (0.97%) HTML5 Canvas
3 1 (0.97%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 13 (12.62%) PKI
2 10 (9.71%) Onboarding
3 4 (3.88%) Clustering
4 2 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
4 2 (1.94%) Data Centre
4 2 (1.94%) Data Structures
4 2 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
4 2 (1.94%) Hedge funds
4 2 (1.94%) Learning Management System
4 2 (1.94%) Management Information System
5 1 (0.97%) Cybercrime
5 1 (0.97%) Educational Technology
5 1 (0.97%) Mainframe
5 1 (0.97%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 36 (34.95%) Windows
2 28 (27.18%) Linux
3 17 (16.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (4.85%) Windows Server
5 4 (3.88%) CentOS
5 4 (3.88%) Ubuntu
5 4 (3.88%) Unix
6 3 (2.91%) Debian
7 2 (1.94%) Solaris
8 1 (0.97%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (18.45%) Network Management
2 16 (15.53%) Change Management
3 14 (13.59%) Security Patching
4 12 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
5 11 (10.68%) ERP
6 10 (9.71%) Business Intelligence
6 10 (9.71%) ITIL
6 10 (9.71%) Knowledge Management
6 10 (9.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 8 (7.77%) Data Management
7 8 (7.77%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (7.77%) Time Management
8 7 (6.80%) Disaster Recovery
8 7 (6.80%) Infrastructure as Code
9 6 (5.83%) DevOps
9 6 (5.83%) Root Cause Analysis
9 6 (5.83%) Service Delivery
10 5 (4.85%) Decision-Making
10 5 (4.85%) Patch Management
10 5 (4.85%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (8.74%) Bash
1 9 (8.74%) SQL
2 8 (7.77%) Python
3 7 (6.80%) PowerShell
4 4 (3.88%) Perl
4 4 (3.88%) Shell Script
5 2 (1.94%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.94%) PHP
6 1 (0.97%) Java
Qualifications
1 22 (21.36%) Security Cleared
2 17 (16.50%) DV Cleared
3 4 (3.88%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.91%) SC Cleared
5 2 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.97%) Degree
6 1 (0.97%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (4.85%) QA
2 3 (2.91%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.91%) PMO
3 2 (1.94%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.94%) GDPR
3 2 (1.94%) NIST
3 2 (1.94%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.97%) GRC
4 1 (0.97%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 10 (9.71%) Active Directory
1 10 (9.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (3.88%) Docker
3 2 (1.94%) GPFS
3 2 (1.94%) Hyper-V
3 2 (1.94%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 2 (1.94%) VirtualBox
3 2 (1.94%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (10.68%) Progress Chef
2 8 (7.77%) Ansible
3 5 (4.85%) Puppet
3 5 (4.85%) Terraform
4 4 (3.88%) EMC NetWorker
4 4 (3.88%) EMC VPLEX
4 4 (3.88%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (3.88%) Salt
5 3 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.94%) BladeLogic
6 2 (1.94%) Icinga
6 2 (1.94%) Nagios
7 1 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.97%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.97%) SCCM
Vendors
1 18 (17.48%) Microsoft
2 15 (14.56%) VMware
3 13 (12.62%) Red Hat
4 11 (10.68%) Oracle
5 9 (8.74%) Dell
6 6 (5.83%) Cisco
6 6 (5.83%) IFS
7 5 (4.85%) Palo Alto
7 5 (4.85%) SAP
7 5 (4.85%) ServiceNow
8 4 (3.88%) Brocade
8 4 (3.88%) EMC
8 4 (3.88%) IBM
8 4 (3.88%) Isilon
8 4 (3.88%) Liquidlogic
9 3 (2.91%) Fortinet
9 3 (2.91%) HP
9 3 (2.91%) Rackspace
10 2 (1.94%) Mellanox
10 2 (1.94%) Solarflare