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 3 August 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 474 417
Rank change year-on-year +95 -57 +39
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 499 228 487
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.46% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.51% 0.62%
Number of salaries quoted 322 154 402
10th Percentile £31,250 £26,913 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £30,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year - - +1.12%
75th Percentile £58,750 £57,500 £52,500
90th Percentile £70,000 £70,000 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £42,500 £45,000 £45,000
% change year-on-year -5.56% - +12.50%

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 97,698 44,800 78,990
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.23% 90.07% 94.90%
Number of salaries quoted 66,827 26,689 53,699
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,500 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £71,915
90th Percentile £96,250 £95,000 £90,844
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.66%

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 +94 443 £45,000 - 65
UK excluding London +53 372 £42,500 -5.56% 64
London +34 112 £60,000 +9.09% 12
Work from Home +2 90 £55,000 +18.92% 26
Midlands +31 78 £45,000 +50.00% 15
South West -68 74 £35,000 -22.22% 7
North of England +5 64 £45,000 +16.88% 6
South East +2 59 £45,000 - 24
East of England +7 52 £40,000 -11.11% 5
East Midlands +12 44 £40,000 +33.33% 8
Scotland +49 41 £43,500 -27.50% 6
West Midlands -2 34 £50,000 +29.87% 7
Yorkshire -12 33 £45,000 -5.26% 3
North West +13 26 £40,000 +18.64% 3
North East - 5 £47,500 -
Wales -60 4 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 3 August 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.

1 106 (21.24%) Microsoft
2 103 (20.64%) Linux
3 76 (15.23%) Microsoft 365
3 76 (15.23%) Windows
4 70 (14.03%) Active Directory
5 68 (13.63%) Azure
6 67 (13.43%) DevOps
7 57 (11.42%) Entra ID
7 57 (11.42%) Red Hat
8 55 (11.02%) Problem-Solving
9 54 (10.82%) SQL
10 43 (8.62%) Bash
10 43 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
11 42 (8.42%) Firewall
12 41 (8.22%) Microsoft Exchange
12 41 (8.22%) Python
13 40 (8.02%) Hyper-V
13 40 (8.02%) Windows Server
14 39 (7.82%) AWS
15 38 (7.62%) CI/CD
16 36 (7.21%) Ansible
16 36 (7.21%) DNS
16 36 (7.21%) Security Cleared
17 34 (6.81%) ERP
17 34 (6.81%) SharePoint
18 33 (6.61%) SaaS
19 32 (6.41%) Git
19 32 (6.41%) Vulnerability Management
20 31 (6.21%) Kubernetes
21 28 (5.61%) Infrastructure Engineering

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 41 (8.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 34 (6.81%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.60%) OpenStack
4 3 (0.60%) IIS
4 3 (0.60%) nginx
5 2 (0.40%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.20%) Apache
6 1 (0.20%) Confluence
6 1 (0.20%) JBoss
6 1 (0.20%) Moodle
6 1 (0.20%) Site Server
6 1 (0.20%) WordPress
Applications
1 14 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.20%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 14 (2.81%) Primavera
2 6 (1.20%) iTrent
3 3 (0.60%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.40%) Shopify
5 1 (0.20%) HFM
Cloud Services
1 76 (15.23%) Microsoft 365
2 68 (13.63%) Azure
3 57 (11.42%) Entra ID
4 39 (7.82%) AWS
5 33 (6.61%) SaaS
6 24 (4.81%) OpenShift
7 22 (4.41%) Power Platform
8 18 (3.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 18 (3.61%) Power Automate
9 15 (3.01%) GCP
9 15 (3.01%) Mimecast
10 13 (2.61%) PaaS
10 13 (2.61%) PowerApps
11 12 (2.40%) Intacct
12 11 (2.20%) Amazon ECR
12 11 (2.20%) Amazon ECS
13 10 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
14 9 (1.80%) Azure Logic Apps
15 6 (1.20%) Azure DevOps
15 6 (1.20%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 42 (8.42%) Firewall
2 36 (7.21%) DNS
3 22 (4.41%) TCP/IP
4 18 (3.61%) LAN
5 17 (3.41%) VPN
6 15 (3.01%) DHCP
7 12 (2.40%) SAN
8 10 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (1.80%) HTTP
9 9 (1.80%) Network Security
9 9 (1.80%) WAN
10 7 (1.40%) Internet
11 5 (1.00%) VLAN
12 4 (0.80%) VSAN
12 4 (0.80%) Wireless
13 3 (0.60%) NAS
13 3 (0.60%) SSH
14 2 (0.40%) iSCSI
14 2 (0.40%) Multicast
14 2 (0.40%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.21%) MySQL
2 11 (2.20%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.60%) Power BI
4 3 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.60%) GIS
5 1 (0.20%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.20%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 32 (6.41%) Git
2 16 (3.21%) GitLab
3 8 (1.60%) JIRA
4 2 (0.40%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.20%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.20%) Robot Framework
5 1 (0.20%) Selenium
5 1 (0.20%) TeamCity
General
1 95 (19.04%) Finance
2 73 (14.63%) Social Skills
3 41 (8.22%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (5.01%) Banking
5 23 (4.61%) Manufacturing
6 22 (4.41%) Retail
7 17 (3.41%) Billing
8 14 (2.81%) Legal
9 12 (2.40%) Law
10 10 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.60%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
14 3 (0.60%) Games
14 3 (0.60%) Public Sector
15 2 (0.40%) Marketing
16 1 (0.20%) Electronics
16 1 (0.20%) Local Government
16 1 (0.20%) Police
16 1 (0.20%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.80%) WebSockets
2 6 (1.20%) Middleware
3 3 (0.60%) Boost C++ Libraries
4 2 (0.40%) HTML
4 2 (0.40%) LEMP Stack
4 2 (0.40%) Node.js
4 2 (0.40%) OpenID
5 1 (0.20%) CSS
5 1 (0.20%) CSS3
5 1 (0.20%) HTML5
5 1 (0.20%) Keycloak
5 1 (0.20%) OAuth
5 1 (0.20%) OAuth2
5 1 (0.20%) React
5 1 (0.20%) Redfish
5 1 (0.20%) SAML
5 1 (0.20%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.01%) Data Structures
2 21 (4.21%) Clustering
3 14 (2.81%) Data Centre
3 14 (2.81%) Social Media
4 10 (2.00%) Onboarding
5 7 (1.40%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.20%) Operational Technology
6 6 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.00%) Private Cloud
8 4 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (0.60%) Embedded Systems
9 3 (0.60%) IoT
9 3 (0.60%) Replication
9 3 (0.60%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.40%) Educational Technology
10 2 (0.40%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.40%) Housing Association
11 1 (0.20%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.20%) Legacy Applications
11 1 (0.20%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 103 (20.64%) Linux
2 76 (15.23%) Windows
3 40 (8.02%) Windows Server
4 25 (5.01%) Mac OS
5 23 (4.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 22 (4.41%) Apple iOS
7 20 (4.01%) Android
7 20 (4.01%) CentOS
8 13 (2.61%) Ubuntu
9 10 (2.00%) Unix
10 8 (1.60%) Debian
11 6 (1.20%) Windows 10
12 5 (1.00%) Rocky
13 4 (0.80%) CoreOS
13 4 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.80%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (13.43%) DevOps
2 55 (11.02%) Problem-Solving
3 43 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
4 38 (7.62%) CI/CD
5 34 (6.81%) ERP
6 32 (6.41%) Vulnerability Management
7 28 (5.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 25 (5.01%) Configuration Management
9 22 (4.41%) Infrastructure as Code
10 20 (4.01%) Change Management
11 19 (3.81%) Analytics
11 19 (3.81%) Identity Management
11 19 (3.81%) Release Management
12 18 (3.61%) Change Control
12 18 (3.61%) High Availability
13 17 (3.41%) Capacity Planning
13 17 (3.41%) ITIL
13 17 (3.41%) Process Improvement
14 16 (3.21%) Patch Management
14 16 (3.21%) Time Management
Programming Languages
1 54 (10.82%) SQL
2 43 (8.62%) Bash
3 41 (8.22%) Python
4 27 (5.41%) PowerShell
5 7 (1.40%) JavaScript
5 7 (1.40%) R
6 4 (0.80%) Go
7 3 (0.60%) C
7 3 (0.60%) C++
7 3 (0.60%) PHP
7 3 (0.60%) Ruby
7 3 (0.60%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.40%) VBA
Qualifications
1 36 (7.21%) Security Cleared
2 28 (5.61%) SC Cleared
3 27 (5.41%) DV Cleared
4 14 (2.81%) Degree
5 10 (2.00%) RHCSA
6 5 (1.00%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.00%) CIPD
7 3 (0.60%) HND
7 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.40%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.20%) CCNA
9 1 (0.20%) CCNP
9 1 (0.20%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.20%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.20%) Linux+ Certification
9 1 (0.20%) MCSE
9 1 (0.20%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.20%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (5.41%) QA
2 15 (3.01%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.20%) GDPR
5 3 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 70 (14.03%) Active Directory
2 40 (8.02%) Hyper-V
3 27 (5.41%) Docker
4 20 (4.01%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (1.40%) Ceph
6 6 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (1.00%) iptables
8 4 (0.80%) Firmware
9 1 (0.20%) KVM
9 1 (0.20%) NFS
9 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.20%) Xen
Systems Management
1 36 (7.21%) Ansible
2 31 (6.21%) Kubernetes
3 27 (5.41%) Terraform
4 24 (4.81%) Nagios
5 23 (4.61%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (3.81%) Grafana
6 19 (3.81%) Nessus
7 16 (3.21%) Prometheus
8 14 (2.81%) Proxmox
9 9 (1.80%) Puppet
10 8 (1.60%) Podman
11 7 (1.40%) Argo
11 7 (1.40%) Check_MK
11 7 (1.40%) Istio
12 4 (0.80%) McAfee ePO
12 4 (0.80%) SCCM
12 4 (0.80%) SCVMM
13 3 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
13 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
13 3 (0.60%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 106 (21.24%) Microsoft
2 57 (11.42%) Red Hat
3 27 (5.41%) VMware
4 23 (4.61%) Salesforce
5 13 (2.61%) Sage
6 12 (2.40%) Splunk
7 11 (2.20%) Rapid7
7 11 (2.20%) SolarWinds
8 10 (2.00%) Dell
8 10 (2.00%) Veeam
9 9 (1.80%) SAP
10 8 (1.60%) CrowdStrike
10 8 (1.60%) SonicWALL
11 6 (1.20%) Cisco
12 5 (1.00%) Concur
12 5 (1.00%) Databricks
12 5 (1.00%) Google
12 5 (1.00%) Meraki
13 4 (0.80%) McAfee
14 3 (0.60%) Palo Alto