Systems Administrator Job Trends

System Administrator (Sysadmin)
UK

The median System Administrator (Sysadmin) salary in the UK is £45,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 387 484 365
Rank change year-on-year +97 -119 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 535 199 524
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.40% 0.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.45% 0.73%
Number of salaries quoted 318 112 358
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £30,000 £35,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.16% +8.89%
75th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £53,750
90th Percentile £70,750 £67,250 £70,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £43,500 £45,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -3.33% - +11.11%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 109,690 44,526 71,445
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.87% 89.77% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 74,912 25,656 41,522
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £40,825 £36,250 £40,013
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,600 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,000 £73,775 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%

Systems Administrator
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Systems Administrator job vacancy trend in the UK

Systems Administrator
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for Systems Administrator job vacancies in the UK

Systems Administrator
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Systems Administrator over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Top 16 Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 2 October 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
England +77 461 £45,000 - 148
UK excluding London +76 417 £43,500 -3.33% 104
London +6 103 £56,000 +1.82% 51
South East +15 92 £45,000 - 35
Work from Home -29 89 £55,000 +29.41% 41
South West -61 80 £35,000 -22.22% 13
North of England -4 72 £45,000 +12.50% 17
Midlands 0 67 £45,000 +26.76% 22
Scotland - 55 £43,500 - 5
East of England -15 43 £40,000 -11.11% 8
Yorkshire +3 38 £45,000 +5.88% 9
West Midlands -9 37 £53,750 +26.47% 19
East Midlands -23 30 £40,000 +33.33% 3
North West -15 26 £40,000 +19.40% 7
Wales -68 8 £50,000 - 5
North East - 8 £47,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 2 October 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 featuring Systems Administrator in the job title.

1 105 (19.63%) Microsoft
2 96 (17.94%) Linux
3 79 (14.77%) Windows
4 72 (13.46%) Active Directory
5 63 (11.78%) DevOps
6 61 (11.40%) Azure
6 61 (11.40%) Entra ID
6 61 (11.40%) Microsoft 365
7 55 (10.28%) Problem-Solving
8 49 (9.16%) Windows Server
9 48 (8.97%) Firewall
10 45 (8.41%) Continuous Improvement
11 44 (8.22%) Ansible
11 44 (8.22%) CI/CD
12 42 (7.85%) Bash
13 41 (7.66%) AWS
13 41 (7.66%) Red Hat
14 39 (7.29%) Security Cleared
15 38 (7.10%) Microsoft Exchange
15 38 (7.10%) SQL
16 37 (6.92%) Python
17 36 (6.73%) DNS
17 36 (6.73%) SaaS
18 32 (5.98%) Kubernetes
18 32 (5.98%) Vulnerability Management
19 31 (5.79%) Hyper-V
19 31 (5.79%) VPN
20 30 (5.61%) SharePoint
21 29 (5.42%) Terraform
22 27 (5.05%) DV Cleared

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 38 (7.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (5.61%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.50%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.75%) IIS
5 1 (0.19%) Apache
5 1 (0.19%) Confluence
5 1 (0.19%) JBoss
5 1 (0.19%) Moodle
5 1 (0.19%) nginx
Applications
1 21 (3.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 25 (4.67%) Primavera
2 2 (0.37%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.19%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.19%) HFM
3 1 (0.19%) Infor CloudSuite
3 1 (0.19%) iTrent
3 1 (0.19%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.19%) Shopify
3 1 (0.19%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 61 (11.40%) Azure
1 61 (11.40%) Entra ID
1 61 (11.40%) Microsoft 365
2 41 (7.66%) AWS
3 36 (6.73%) SaaS
4 25 (4.67%) OpenShift
5 23 (4.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 23 (4.30%) Power Platform
6 21 (3.93%) Power Automate
7 14 (2.62%) GitHub
8 13 (2.43%) PaaS
8 13 (2.43%) PowerApps
9 12 (2.24%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (2.06%) Mimecast
11 10 (1.87%) GCP
12 9 (1.68%) Amazon ECR
12 9 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
12 9 (1.68%) Amazon EKS
12 9 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
12 9 (1.68%) Intacct
Communications & Networking
1 48 (8.97%) Firewall
2 36 (6.73%) DNS
3 31 (5.79%) VPN
4 22 (4.11%) TCP/IP
5 21 (3.93%) DHCP
6 13 (2.43%) LAN
7 8 (1.50%) WAN
8 7 (1.31%) SAN
8 7 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (1.12%) Network Security
10 5 (0.93%) HTTP
11 4 (0.75%) Internet
11 4 (0.75%) VLAN
11 4 (0.75%) VSAN
12 3 (0.56%) Wireless
13 2 (0.37%) Fibre Channel
13 2 (0.37%) SSH
13 2 (0.37%) Unified Communications
14 1 (0.19%) DKIM
14 1 (0.19%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.06%) MySQL
2 9 (1.68%) Elasticsearch
2 9 (1.68%) Power BI
3 5 (0.93%) Big Data
4 3 (0.56%) GIS
5 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (4.30%) Git
2 14 (2.62%) GitLab
3 7 (1.31%) JIRA
4 2 (0.37%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.19%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.19%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.19%) Selenium
5 1 (0.19%) TeamCity
General
1 78 (14.58%) Finance
2 76 (14.21%) Social Skills
3 36 (6.73%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (5.23%) Retail
5 24 (4.49%) Manufacturing
6 17 (3.18%) Banking
7 14 (2.62%) Billing
8 12 (2.24%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (1.87%) Legal
10 8 (1.50%) Automotive
10 8 (1.50%) Law
11 6 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (0.93%) Police
12 5 (0.93%) Public Sector
13 3 (0.56%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (0.56%) Games
14 2 (0.37%) German Language
14 2 (0.37%) Marketing
14 2 (0.37%) Polish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (5.42%) Terraform
2 5 (0.93%) Middleware
2 5 (0.93%) WebSockets
3 3 (0.56%) Boost C++ Libraries
4 2 (0.37%) OpenID
5 1 (0.19%) CSS
5 1 (0.19%) CSS3
5 1 (0.19%) HTML
5 1 (0.19%) HTML5
5 1 (0.19%) Keycloak
5 1 (0.19%) OAuth
5 1 (0.19%) OAuth2
5 1 (0.19%) OpenTofu
5 1 (0.19%) React
5 1 (0.19%) Redfish
5 1 (0.19%) SAML
5 1 (0.19%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 23 (4.30%) Data Structures
2 15 (2.80%) Clustering
3 14 (2.62%) Onboarding
3 14 (2.62%) Operational Technology
3 14 (2.62%) Social Media
4 13 (2.43%) Private Cloud
5 12 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (1.68%) Management Information System
7 8 (1.50%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (0.93%) Housing Association
9 5 (0.93%) Learning Management System
9 5 (0.93%) PMI
10 3 (0.56%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (0.56%) IoT
10 3 (0.56%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.37%) Educational Technology
11 2 (0.37%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.37%) Replication
11 2 (0.37%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 96 (17.94%) Linux
2 79 (14.77%) Windows
3 49 (9.16%) Windows Server
4 26 (4.86%) Mac OS
5 23 (4.30%) Apple iOS
6 22 (4.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 20 (3.74%) Android
8 14 (2.62%) CentOS
9 11 (2.06%) Ubuntu
10 10 (1.87%) Unix
11 8 (1.50%) Debian
12 7 (1.31%) Rocky
13 6 (1.12%) Windows 10
14 4 (0.75%) CoreOS
14 4 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (11.78%) DevOps
2 55 (10.28%) Problem-Solving
3 45 (8.41%) Continuous Improvement
4 44 (8.22%) CI/CD
5 32 (5.98%) Vulnerability Management
6 25 (4.67%) ERP
6 25 (4.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 21 (3.93%) Customer Experience
8 20 (3.74%) Analytics
8 20 (3.74%) ITIL
8 20 (3.74%) Release Management
8 20 (3.74%) Time Management
9 19 (3.55%) Change Management
10 18 (3.36%) AI
10 18 (3.36%) Configuration Management
10 18 (3.36%) Infrastructure as Code
11 17 (3.18%) Change Control
11 17 (3.18%) Identity Management
11 17 (3.18%) Infrastructure Automation
12 16 (2.99%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 42 (7.85%) Bash
2 38 (7.10%) SQL
3 37 (6.92%) Python
4 26 (4.86%) PowerShell
5 9 (1.68%) Go
6 6 (1.12%) R
7 5 (0.93%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.75%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.56%) C
9 3 (0.56%) C++
9 3 (0.56%) PHP
9 3 (0.56%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 39 (7.29%) Security Cleared
2 27 (5.05%) DV Cleared
3 26 (4.86%) SC Cleared
4 15 (2.80%) Degree
5 10 (1.87%) AWS Certification
6 7 (1.31%) DBS Check
7 5 (0.93%) CIPD
7 5 (0.93%) PMI Certification
7 5 (0.93%) RHCSA
8 3 (0.56%) HND
8 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.19%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.19%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (0.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.30%) QA
2 17 (3.18%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (0.75%) GDPR
5 3 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 72 (13.46%) Active Directory
2 31 (5.79%) Hyper-V
3 21 (3.93%) Docker
4 16 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
5 10 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.31%) Ceph
7 6 (1.12%) vSphere
8 5 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (0.75%) iptables
10 2 (0.37%) Firmware
11 1 (0.19%) NFS
11 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.19%) Xen
11 1 (0.19%) XenApp
11 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 44 (8.22%) Ansible
2 32 (5.98%) Kubernetes
3 24 (4.49%) Grafana
4 22 (4.11%) Prometheus
5 19 (3.55%) Nessus
6 18 (3.36%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (2.80%) Nagios
8 14 (2.62%) Proxmox
9 8 (1.50%) Podman
10 7 (1.31%) Argo
10 7 (1.31%) Check_MK
10 7 (1.31%) Istio
11 4 (0.75%) McAfee ePO
11 4 (0.75%) Puppet
11 4 (0.75%) SCCM
11 4 (0.75%) SCVMM
12 3 (0.56%) Failover Clustering
12 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.37%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.37%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 105 (19.63%) Microsoft
2 41 (7.66%) Red Hat
3 27 (5.05%) VMware
4 19 (3.55%) Salesforce
5 10 (1.87%) Sage
5 10 (1.87%) Splunk
6 9 (1.68%) Rapid7
7 8 (1.50%) Dell
7 8 (1.50%) SAP
8 7 (1.31%) CrowdStrike
9 5 (0.93%) Concur
9 5 (0.93%) Databricks
9 5 (0.93%) Google
9 5 (0.93%) SolarWinds
9 5 (0.93%) SonicWALL
9 5 (0.93%) Veeam
10 4 (0.75%) Cisco
10 4 (0.75%) McAfee
11 3 (0.56%) Meraki
11 3 (0.56%) NetApp