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 15 July 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 375 454 408
Rank change year-on-year +79 -46 +84
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 456 227 618
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.46% 0.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.51% 0.65%
Number of salaries quoted 299 158 512
10th Percentile £31,250 £26,963 £28,573
25th Percentile £36,131 £30,000 £34,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £43,000
Median % change year-on-year - +4.65% -4.44%
75th Percentile £59,375 £57,500 £52,500
90th Percentile £70,000 £71,625 £65,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £45,000 £41,500
% change year-on-year -11.11% +8.43% +3.75%

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 93,080 44,133 95,805
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.21% 89.80% 94.72%
Number of salaries quoted 63,762 26,055 68,461
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £37,750 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £75,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.12%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +75 407 £45,000 - 75
UK excluding London +54 330 £40,000 -11.11% 75
London +33 110 £58,750 +6.82% 9
Work from Home +4 90 £55,000 +15.79% 35
Midlands +30 77 £40,500 +35.00% 11
South East -9 56 £45,000 -8.16% 22
North of England -2 55 £40,000 +3.90% 15
South West -74 55 £38,500 -14.44% 17
East Midlands +16 52 £37,720 +25.73% 7
East of England +9 50 £40,000 -11.11% 9
Scotland +51 35 - - 3
Yorkshire -11 32 £45,000 -5.26% 7
West Midlands -7 25 £45,000 +16.88% 4
North West -3 18 £40,000 +18.64% 7
North East - 5 £47,500 - 2
Wales -57 2 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 15 July 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 96 (21.05%) Microsoft
2 87 (19.08%) Linux
3 70 (15.35%) Microsoft 365
4 62 (13.60%) DevOps
5 60 (13.16%) Windows
6 58 (12.72%) Active Directory
7 56 (12.28%) Azure
8 55 (12.06%) Problem-Solving
9 54 (11.84%) SQL
10 49 (10.75%) Entra ID
11 45 (9.87%) Red Hat
12 41 (8.99%) Firewall
13 40 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (8.55%) Bash
15 37 (8.11%) Microsoft Exchange
15 37 (8.11%) Python
16 35 (7.68%) ERP
17 34 (7.46%) Hyper-V
18 32 (7.02%) AWS
19 31 (6.80%) CI/CD
19 31 (6.80%) Security Cleared
20 30 (6.58%) SharePoint
20 30 (6.58%) VMware
21 29 (6.36%) Windows Server
22 27 (5.92%) Ansible
22 27 (5.92%) Vulnerability Management
23 25 (5.48%) Configuration Management
23 25 (5.48%) DNS
23 25 (5.48%) Terraform
24 24 (5.26%) QA

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 37 (8.11%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (6.58%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.88%) WordPress
4 3 (0.66%) Apache
4 3 (0.66%) CMS
5 2 (0.44%) nginx
5 2 (0.44%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.22%) Confluence
6 1 (0.22%) Moodle
6 1 (0.22%) Site Server
Applications
1 13 (2.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 13 (2.85%) Primavera
2 11 (2.41%) iTrent
3 3 (0.66%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.44%) Shopify
5 1 (0.22%) HFM
Cloud Services
1 70 (15.35%) Microsoft 365
2 56 (12.28%) Azure
3 49 (10.75%) Entra ID
4 32 (7.02%) AWS
5 23 (5.04%) Power Platform
6 21 (4.61%) SaaS
7 19 (4.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 19 (4.17%) Power Automate
8 14 (3.07%) Mimecast
8 14 (3.07%) PowerApps
9 12 (2.63%) GCP
9 12 (2.63%) Intacct
10 10 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
10 10 (2.19%) GitHub
11 9 (1.97%) Azure Logic Apps
12 8 (1.75%) Amazon ECR
12 8 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
12 8 (1.75%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (1.75%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 41 (8.99%) Firewall
2 25 (5.48%) DNS
3 16 (3.51%) VPN
4 14 (3.07%) TCP/IP
5 13 (2.85%) LAN
6 10 (2.19%) SAN
6 10 (2.19%) Wi-Fi
7 9 (1.97%) HTTP
7 9 (1.97%) Network Security
8 8 (1.75%) DHCP
9 7 (1.54%) Internet
10 4 (0.88%) WAN
10 4 (0.88%) Wireless
11 3 (0.66%) NAS
11 3 (0.66%) SSH
11 3 (0.66%) VLAN
12 2 (0.44%) Multicast
12 2 (0.44%) VoIP
13 1 (0.22%) DKIM
13 1 (0.22%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.85%) MySQL
2 9 (1.97%) Power BI
3 8 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.66%) GIS
5 1 (0.22%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.22%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (3.73%) Git
2 13 (2.85%) GitLab
3 8 (1.75%) JIRA
4 1 (0.22%) Artifactory
4 1 (0.22%) Jenkins
General
1 91 (19.96%) Finance
2 65 (14.25%) Social Skills
3 25 (5.48%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (5.48%) Retail
4 23 (5.04%) Manufacturing
5 22 (4.82%) Banking
6 17 (3.73%) Billing
7 13 (2.85%) Legal
8 11 (2.41%) Law
9 10 (2.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.66%) Games
12 3 (0.66%) Public Sector
13 1 (0.22%) Digital Health
13 1 (0.22%) Electronics
13 1 (0.22%) Local Government
13 1 (0.22%) Marketing
13 1 (0.22%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.97%) Middleware
1 9 (1.97%) WebSockets
2 3 (0.66%) Boost C++ Libraries
3 2 (0.44%) LEMP Stack
3 2 (0.44%) Node.js
4 1 (0.22%) HTML
4 1 (0.22%) OpenID
4 1 (0.22%) Redfish
4 1 (0.22%) SAML
4 1 (0.22%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.48%) Data Structures
2 21 (4.61%) Clustering
3 12 (2.63%) Data Centre
4 10 (2.19%) Onboarding
5 9 (1.97%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.75%) Private Cloud
7 7 (1.54%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.88%) Operational Technology
10 3 (0.66%) Embedded Systems
10 3 (0.66%) IoT
10 3 (0.66%) Replication
10 3 (0.66%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.44%) Educational Technology
11 2 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
12 1 (0.22%) Cloud Native
12 1 (0.22%) Distributed Computing
12 1 (0.22%) Driving Licence
12 1 (0.22%) Legacy Applications
12 1 (0.22%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 87 (19.08%) Linux
2 60 (13.16%) Windows
3 29 (6.36%) Windows Server
4 21 (4.61%) Mac OS
4 21 (4.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (3.95%) Android
5 18 (3.95%) Apple iOS
6 13 (2.85%) CentOS
6 13 (2.85%) Ubuntu
7 8 (1.75%) Debian
8 7 (1.54%) Unix
9 5 (1.10%) Rocky
10 4 (0.88%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (13.60%) DevOps
2 55 (12.06%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
4 35 (7.68%) ERP
5 31 (6.80%) CI/CD
6 27 (5.92%) Vulnerability Management
7 25 (5.48%) Configuration Management
8 22 (4.82%) Infrastructure as Code
8 22 (4.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 21 (4.61%) Analytics
10 19 (4.17%) Change Management
10 19 (4.17%) Process Improvement
10 19 (4.17%) Release Management
11 18 (3.95%) Identity Management
12 16 (3.51%) Change Control
13 15 (3.29%) CRM
14 14 (3.07%) High Availability
14 14 (3.07%) Service Delivery
15 13 (2.85%) Patch Management
15 13 (2.85%) Revenue Recognition
Programming Languages
1 54 (11.84%) SQL
2 39 (8.55%) Bash
3 37 (8.11%) Python
4 21 (4.61%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.75%) Go
6 6 (1.32%) JavaScript
6 6 (1.32%) PHP
6 6 (1.32%) R
7 3 (0.66%) C
7 3 (0.66%) C++
7 3 (0.66%) Ruby
7 3 (0.66%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 31 (6.80%) Security Cleared
2 23 (5.04%) SC Cleared
3 22 (4.82%) DV Cleared
4 14 (3.07%) Degree
5 10 (2.19%) RHCSA
6 8 (1.75%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.54%) CIPD
8 3 (0.66%) HND
9 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.22%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.22%) CCNA
10 1 (0.22%) CCNP
10 1 (0.22%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.22%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.22%) Linux+ Certification
10 1 (0.22%) MCSE
10 1 (0.22%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.26%) QA
2 15 (3.29%) Data Quality
3 7 (1.54%) GDPR
3 7 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 58 (12.72%) Active Directory
2 34 (7.46%) Hyper-V
3 20 (4.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (3.51%) Docker
5 5 (1.10%) iptables
6 3 (0.66%) Firmware
7 2 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.22%) KVM
8 1 (0.22%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.22%) Xen
Systems Management
1 27 (5.92%) Ansible
2 25 (5.48%) Terraform
3 23 (5.04%) Kubernetes
3 23 (5.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (4.39%) Grafana
4 20 (4.39%) Nagios
5 18 (3.95%) Proxmox
6 17 (3.73%) Nessus
7 13 (2.85%) Prometheus
8 8 (1.75%) Puppet
9 4 (0.88%) SCCM
10 3 (0.66%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (0.66%) systemd
11 2 (0.44%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.44%) Red Hat Satellite
11 2 (0.44%) ZABBIX
12 1 (0.22%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.22%) Rancher
12 1 (0.22%) SCOM
Vendors
1 96 (21.05%) Microsoft
2 45 (9.87%) Red Hat
3 30 (6.58%) VMware
4 23 (5.04%) Salesforce
5 13 (2.85%) Sage
6 12 (2.63%) SolarWinds
7 11 (2.41%) Veeam
8 9 (1.97%) SAP
8 9 (1.97%) Splunk
9 8 (1.75%) Rapid7
9 8 (1.75%) SonicWALL
10 7 (1.54%) CrowdStrike
11 6 (1.32%) Cisco
12 5 (1.10%) Concur
12 5 (1.10%) Databricks
12 5 (1.10%) Google
12 5 (1.10%) Meraki
12 5 (1.10%) ServiceNow
13 3 (0.66%) Dell
13 3 (0.66%) Palo Alto