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 16 October 2026.

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

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	383	485	358
Rank change year-on-year	+102	-127	+76
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator	545	187	490
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK	0.46%	0.38%	0.70%
As % of the Job Titles category	0.49%	0.43%	0.73%
Number of salaries quoted	331	102	337
10^th Percentile	£30,000	£28,750	£31,250
25^th Percentile	£35,000	£30,000	£35,520
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£45,000	£45,000	£50,000
Median % change year-on-year	-	-10.00%	+11.11%
75^th Percentile	£58,750	£57,500	£53,818
90^th Percentile	£75,000	£72,500	£71,000
UK excluding London median annual salary	£40,200	£45,000	£45,000
% change year-on-year	-10.67%	-	+9.13%

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.

	6 months to 16 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title	110,105	43,964	67,208
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title	92.43%	89.90%	95.34%
Number of salaries quoted	74,779	25,831	38,509
10^th Percentile	£30,000	£28,000	£31,250
25^th Percentile	£41,000	£35,000	£41,250
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£58,396	£53,500	£55,000
Median % change year-on-year	+9.15%	-2.73%	-8.33%
75^th Percentile	£76,250	£73,750	£75,000
90^th Percentile	£98,750	£95,000	£95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£46,000	£50,000
% change year-on-year	+19.57%	-8.00%	-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 Salary Trend

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 16 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 16 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	+81	471	£45,000	-	141
UK excluding London	+86	421	£40,200	-10.67%	72
London	-14	105	£56,750	+3.18%	65
South East	+16	95	£45,000	-	18
Work from Home	-39	83	£55,000	+25.71%	54
South West	-54	83	£35,000	-22.22%	21
North of England	+4	76	£45,000	+2.86%	13
Midlands	+6	69	£45,000	+26.76%	10
Scotland	-	51	£43,500	-	1
West Midlands	-6	41	£50,000	+17.65%	10
Yorkshire	+2	40	£45,000	+5.88%	7
East of England	-24	39	£40,000	-11.11%	6
North West	-4	29	£40,000	-11.11%	6
East Midlands	-23	28	£41,000	+36.67%
Wales	-69	8	£50,000	-	3
North East	-	7	£39,250	-

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

For the 6 months to 16 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.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Microsoft	18.2%	99
2	Linux	17.8%	97
3	Windows	14.5%	79
4	Active Directory	12.8%	70
5	DevOps	11.4%	62
6	Azure	11.2%	61
6	Entra ID	11.2%	61
8	Microsoft 365	10.8%	59
9	Problem-Solving	10.5%	57
10	Windows Server	9.2%	50
11	Firewall	8.6%	47
12	Ansible	8.4%	46
13	CI/CD	8.3%	45
13	Continuous Improvement	8.3%	45
15	Bash	7.9%	43
15	Security Cleared	7.9%	43
17	DNS	7.3%	40
18	AWS	7.2%	39
18	Red Hat	7.2%	39
20	Python	7.0%	38
21	Microsoft Exchange	6.8%	37
22	SaaS	6.6%	36
23	SQL	6.4%	35
24	DV Cleared	6.1%	33
24	Kubernetes	6.1%	33
26	Vulnerability Management	5.9%	32
27	Hyper-V	5.5%	30
27	Terraform	5.5%	30
27	VPN	5.5%	30
30	ERP	5.1%	28

Systems Administrator Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Job Titles

Rank	Job Title	Share	Job Ads
1	Administrator	99.8%	544
2	IT Systems Administrator	23.5%	128
3	Senior Systems Administrator	14.1%	77
4	Linux Systems Administrator	9.5%	52
5	Systems Support	5.7%	31
6	Systems Engineer	5.0%	27
7	DevOps Administrator	4.2%	23
8	Network Administrator	4.0%	22
9	Senior IT Administrator	3.9%	21
10	Business Systems Administrator	3.7%	20
11	Technical Administrator	3.5%	19
12	Senior Linux Systems Administrator	3.1%	17
13	Systems Support Engineer	2.8%	15
14	Linux Systems Engineer	2.6%	14
15	Dynamics 365 Administrator	2.4%	13
16	DevOps Systems Engineer	2.2%	12
16	Linux DevOps Administrator	2.2%	12
16	Linux DevOps Engineer	2.2%	12
16	Linux/Unix DevOps	2.2%	12
20	Assistant Systems Administrator	1.8%	10