Systems Administrator Job Trends in the UK excluding London

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK > UK excluding London

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) salary in the UK excluding London is £40,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 12 May 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 352 377 357
Rank change year-on-year +25 -20 +109
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 241 167 449
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.37% 0.58% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.39% 0.65% 0.69%
Number of salaries quoted 182 133 362
10th Percentile £28,000 £27,500 £27,500
25th Percentile £31,250 £37,750 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £40,000 £50,000 £40,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +25.00% -0.62%
75th Percentile £48,438 £52,500 £50,000
90th Percentile £65,000 £69,000 £57,500
UK median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £40,400
% change year-on-year -10.00% +23.76% -15.83%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 61,261 25,599 65,135
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.60% 89.06% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 40,321 14,589 47,499
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,750 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,250 £36,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,446
UK median annual salary £55,000 £57,670 £52,550
% change year-on-year -4.63% +9.74% -12.42%

Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Systems Administrator' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Systems Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Systems Administrator
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Systems Administrator
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Systems Administrator in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK excluding London

Systems Administrator
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Systems Administrator within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 12 May 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Midlands +34 74 £32,500 - 6
East Midlands +14 49 £32,500 -3.70% 5
South East -5 42 £56,250 +14.80% 16
North of England -27 39 £40,000 -5.06% 13
East of England +4 37 £44,500 -16.04% 15
South West -72 30 £40,000 -20.00% 5
West Midlands -5 25 £41,250 +26.92% 1
Yorkshire -40 23 £45,000 -14.29% 6
Scotland +10 19 £26,000 -48.00% 2
North West -14 13 £36,500 -7.01% 7
North East - 3 £47,500 -
Systems Administrator
UK

Systems Administrator Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 12 May 2026, Systems Administrator 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 permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 51 (21.16%) Microsoft
2 45 (18.67%) Linux
2 45 (18.67%) Microsoft 365
3 34 (14.11%) Active Directory
3 34 (14.11%) Windows
4 32 (13.28%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (12.86%) Azure
6 30 (12.45%) Firewall
7 25 (10.37%) iTrent
8 24 (9.96%) DevOps
9 23 (9.54%) SQL
10 22 (9.13%) Entra ID
11 21 (8.71%) Analytics
12 20 (8.30%) Process Improvement
13 17 (7.05%) GDPR
14 16 (6.64%) AWS
14 16 (6.64%) Bash
14 16 (6.64%) Hyper-V
14 16 (6.64%) SharePoint
15 15 (6.22%) CI/CD
15 15 (6.22%) CIPD
15 15 (6.22%) ERP
15 15 (6.22%) Infrastructure as Code
15 15 (6.22%) Microsoft Exchange
15 15 (6.22%) Nessus
15 15 (6.22%) VMware
16 14 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
16 14 (5.81%) Mac OS
16 14 (5.81%) Microsoft Intune
16 14 (5.81%) Security Cleared

Systems Administrator Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 16 (6.64%) SharePoint
2 15 (6.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.83%) Confluence
4 1 (0.41%) WordPress
Applications
1 5 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 25 (10.37%) iTrent
2 4 (1.66%) Primavera
3 2 (0.83%) Shopify
4 1 (0.41%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 45 (18.67%) Microsoft 365
2 31 (12.86%) Azure
3 22 (9.13%) Entra ID
4 16 (6.64%) AWS
5 11 (4.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 8 (3.32%) Amazon EKS
6 8 (3.32%) GitHub
6 8 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
6 8 (3.32%) Power Platform
7 7 (2.90%) Mimecast
8 6 (2.49%) Power Automate
9 5 (2.07%) Azure Logic Apps
9 5 (2.07%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.24%) Amazon EC2
10 3 (1.24%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.24%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (1.24%) Veeva
10 3 (1.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 2 (0.83%) GCP
11 2 (0.83%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 30 (12.45%) Firewall
2 13 (5.39%) VPN
3 8 (3.32%) Network Security
4 6 (2.49%) DNS
4 6 (2.49%) Internet
4 6 (2.49%) SAN
4 6 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.66%) LAN
5 4 (1.66%) WAN
6 3 (1.24%) SSH
7 2 (0.83%) VoIP
7 2 (0.83%) Wireless
8 1 (0.41%) DKIM
8 1 (0.41%) DMARC
8 1 (0.41%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.41%) VLAN
8 1 (0.41%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
1 3 (1.24%) MySQL
2 2 (0.83%) GIS
2 2 (0.83%) Power BI
2 2 (0.83%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.83%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.41%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.41%) Oracle Database 12c
3 1 (0.41%) RDBMS
3 1 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 5 (2.07%) JIRA
2 1 (0.41%) Bitbucket
General
1 28 (11.62%) Social Skills
2 13 (5.39%) Retail
3 12 (4.98%) Finance
3 12 (4.98%) Manufacturing
4 8 (3.32%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (1.66%) Law
7 2 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (0.83%) Games
7 2 (0.83%) Military
8 1 (0.41%) Legal
8 1 (0.41%) Local Government
8 1 (0.41%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (0.41%) ODBC
1 1 (0.41%) OpenID
1 1 (0.41%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (4.98%) Clustering
2 8 (3.32%) Hybrid Cloud
2 8 (3.32%) Private Cloud
3 6 (2.49%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.07%) FMCG
4 5 (2.07%) Management Information System
5 4 (1.66%) Replication
6 2 (0.83%) Driving Licence
6 2 (0.83%) Learning Management System
6 2 (0.83%) Onboarding
6 2 (0.83%) Security Posture
6 2 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.41%) Distributed Computing
7 1 (0.41%) iSeries
7 1 (0.41%) Life Science
7 1 (0.41%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 45 (18.67%) Linux
2 34 (14.11%) Windows
3 14 (5.81%) Mac OS
4 13 (5.39%) Android
4 13 (5.39%) Apple iOS
5 12 (4.98%) Windows Server
6 6 (2.49%) Ubuntu
7 3 (1.24%) Unix
8 2 (0.83%) CentOS
8 2 (0.83%) Debian
8 2 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.41%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (13.28%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (9.96%) DevOps
3 21 (8.71%) Analytics
4 20 (8.30%) Process Improvement
5 15 (6.22%) CI/CD
5 15 (6.22%) ERP
5 15 (6.22%) Infrastructure as Code
6 14 (5.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 14 (5.81%) Vulnerability Management
7 11 (4.56%) Patch Management
8 10 (4.15%) Mobile Device Management
9 9 (3.73%) AI
9 9 (3.73%) Disaster Recovery
10 8 (3.32%) Cloud Security
10 8 (3.32%) Configuration Management
10 8 (3.32%) Cybersecurity
10 8 (3.32%) Infrastructure Automation
10 8 (3.32%) Observability
11 7 (2.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 7 (2.90%) Security Hardening
Programming Languages
1 23 (9.54%) SQL
2 16 (6.64%) Bash
3 10 (4.15%) Python
4 8 (3.32%) Go
5 5 (2.07%) PowerShell
6 2 (0.83%) Shell Script
6 2 (0.83%) VBA
7 1 (0.41%) R
7 1 (0.41%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 15 (6.22%) CIPD
2 14 (5.81%) Security Cleared
3 11 (4.56%) DV Cleared
4 8 (3.32%) AWS Certification
4 8 (3.32%) SC Cleared
5 4 (1.66%) Degree
5 4 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.83%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.41%) CCNA
7 1 (0.41%) CCNP
7 1 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.05%) GDPR
2 6 (2.49%) Data Quality
3 5 (2.07%) QA
4 3 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.41%) SOC 2
System Software
1 34 (14.11%) Active Directory
2 16 (6.64%) Hyper-V
3 6 (2.49%) Docker
4 5 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.24%) Firmware
5 3 (1.24%) iptables
Systems Management
1 15 (6.22%) Nessus
2 14 (5.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 13 (5.39%) Terraform
4 12 (4.98%) Kubernetes
5 11 (4.56%) Ansible
5 11 (4.56%) Grafana
5 11 (4.56%) Prometheus
5 11 (4.56%) Proxmox
6 5 (2.07%) Puppet
7 3 (1.24%) systemd
7 3 (1.24%) WSUS
8 2 (0.83%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.83%) SCCM
9 1 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.41%) Podman
9 1 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 51 (21.16%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.22%) VMware
3 13 (5.39%) Red Hat
4 6 (2.49%) SonicWALL
4 6 (2.49%) Veeam
5 4 (1.66%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.24%) Cisco
6 3 (1.24%) Dell
6 3 (1.24%) Meraki
6 3 (1.24%) Palo Alto
7 2 (0.83%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.83%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (0.83%) SAP
8 1 (0.41%) IBM
8 1 (0.41%) Okta
8 1 (0.41%) Oracle
8 1 (0.41%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.41%) Siemens