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 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 474 369
Rank change year-on-year +91 -105 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 517 214 531
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.43% 0.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.48% 0.72%
Number of salaries quoted 317 123 376
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,400 £31,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £30,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £45,000 £45,000
75th Percentile £58,750 £56,875 £53,750
90th Percentile £72,500 £69,500 £66,875
UK excluding London median annual salary £43,500 £42,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year +2.35% -5.56% +11.33%

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 106,506 44,266 74,164
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.35% 89.67% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 73,200 26,014 44,625
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £36,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
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 16 September 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 September 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 +87 447 £45,000 - 105
UK excluding London +65 404 £43,500 +2.35% 68
London +9 98 £56,000 +1.82% 42
South East -1 85 £45,000 - 28
Work from Home -26 85 £55,000 +29.41% 30
South West -67 77 £35,000 -22.22% 10
North of England -13 71 £45,000 +16.88% 13
Midlands +17 66 £45,000 +26.76% 12
Scotland - 51 £43,500 - 1
East of England -4 46 £40,000 -11.11% 2
Yorkshire -2 36 £45,000 -5.26% 10
West Midlands -10 34 £55,000 +29.41% 7
East Midlands -13 32 £41,000 +36.67% 5
North West -4 27 £40,000 +3.90% 3
Wales -70 8 £50,000 +5.26%
North East - 8 £47,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 16 September 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.

1 102 (19.73%) Microsoft
2 97 (18.76%) Linux
3 76 (14.70%) Windows
4 70 (13.54%) Active Directory
5 63 (12.19%) Microsoft 365
6 62 (11.99%) Azure
7 61 (11.80%) DevOps
8 59 (11.41%) Entra ID
9 52 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
10 46 (8.90%) Red Hat
11 43 (8.32%) Firewall
11 43 (8.32%) Windows Server
12 42 (8.12%) Bash
12 42 (8.12%) SQL
13 41 (7.93%) CI/CD
13 41 (7.93%) Continuous Improvement
14 40 (7.74%) Ansible
14 40 (7.74%) AWS
15 38 (7.35%) Microsoft Exchange
15 38 (7.35%) Python
16 37 (7.16%) SaaS
17 35 (6.77%) Security Cleared
18 34 (6.58%) DNS
19 33 (6.38%) SharePoint
19 33 (6.38%) Vulnerability Management
20 32 (6.19%) Hyper-V
20 32 (6.19%) Kubernetes
21 29 (5.61%) Terraform
22 27 (5.22%) Mac OS
22 27 (5.22%) PowerShell

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 (7.35%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (6.38%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.55%) OpenStack
4 4 (0.77%) IIS
5 2 (0.39%) nginx
6 1 (0.19%) Apache
6 1 (0.19%) Confluence
6 1 (0.19%) JBoss
6 1 (0.19%) Moodle
6 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.19%) WordPress
Applications
1 20 (3.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 23 (4.45%) Primavera
2 2 (0.39%) Dynamics NAV
2 2 (0.39%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.19%) HFM
3 1 (0.19%) iTrent
3 1 (0.19%) Shopify
3 1 (0.19%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 63 (12.19%) Microsoft 365
2 62 (11.99%) Azure
3 59 (11.41%) Entra ID
4 40 (7.74%) AWS
5 37 (7.16%) SaaS
6 25 (4.84%) OpenShift
7 24 (4.64%) Power Platform
8 22 (4.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 21 (4.06%) Power Automate
10 13 (2.51%) Mimecast
10 13 (2.51%) PaaS
10 13 (2.51%) PowerApps
11 12 (2.32%) GCP
12 11 (2.13%) GitHub
13 10 (1.93%) Amazon ECR
13 10 (1.93%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.74%) Azure Logic Apps
14 9 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
14 9 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (1.74%) Intacct
Communications & Networking
1 43 (8.32%) Firewall
2 34 (6.58%) DNS
3 25 (4.84%) VPN
4 20 (3.87%) TCP/IP
5 18 (3.48%) DHCP
6 13 (2.51%) LAN
7 8 (1.55%) SAN
7 8 (1.55%) WAN
7 8 (1.55%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (1.35%) Network Security
9 5 (0.97%) HTTP
9 5 (0.97%) Internet
9 5 (0.97%) VLAN
10 4 (0.77%) VSAN
11 3 (0.58%) SSH
12 1 (0.19%) Fibre Channel
12 1 (0.19%) iSCSI
12 1 (0.19%) Multicast
12 1 (0.19%) Unified Communications
12 1 (0.19%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.71%) MySQL
2 10 (1.93%) Elasticsearch
2 10 (1.93%) Power BI
3 3 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.58%) GIS
4 2 (0.39%) Big Data
5 1 (0.19%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 25 (4.84%) Git
2 15 (2.90%) GitLab
3 8 (1.55%) JIRA
4 2 (0.39%) 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 81 (15.67%) Finance
2 73 (14.12%) Social Skills
3 36 (6.96%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (5.22%) Retail
5 25 (4.84%) Manufacturing
6 19 (3.68%) Banking
7 14 (2.71%) Billing
8 11 (2.13%) Legal
8 11 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (1.74%) Law
10 6 (1.16%) Automotive
10 6 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.16%) Public Sector
11 5 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (0.97%) Police
12 3 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.58%) Games
13 2 (0.39%) German Language
13 2 (0.39%) Marketing
13 2 (0.39%) Polish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (5.61%) Terraform
2 5 (0.97%) Middleware
2 5 (0.97%) WebSockets
3 3 (0.58%) Boost C++ Libraries
4 2 (0.39%) 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%) LEMP Stack
5 1 (0.19%) Node.js
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 (4.45%) Data Structures
2 17 (3.29%) Clustering
3 14 (2.71%) Social Media
4 12 (2.32%) Operational Technology
5 11 (2.13%) Onboarding
6 10 (1.93%) Private Cloud
7 9 (1.74%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (1.55%) Management Information System
9 6 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.77%) Housing Association
10 4 (0.77%) PMI
11 3 (0.58%) Embedded Systems
11 3 (0.58%) IoT
11 3 (0.58%) Learning Management System
11 3 (0.58%) Replication
11 3 (0.58%) Security Posture
12 2 (0.39%) Educational Technology
12 2 (0.39%) Enterprise Software
13 1 (0.19%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 97 (18.76%) Linux
2 76 (14.70%) Windows
3 43 (8.32%) Windows Server
4 27 (5.22%) Mac OS
5 24 (4.64%) Apple iOS
6 21 (4.06%) Android
7 20 (3.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (3.09%) CentOS
9 12 (2.32%) Ubuntu
10 10 (1.93%) Unix
11 8 (1.55%) Debian
12 6 (1.16%) Rocky
12 6 (1.16%) Windows 10
13 4 (0.77%) CoreOS
13 4 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (11.80%) DevOps
2 52 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
3 41 (7.93%) CI/CD
3 41 (7.93%) Continuous Improvement
4 33 (6.38%) Vulnerability Management
5 26 (5.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 25 (4.84%) ERP
7 20 (3.87%) Configuration Management
7 20 (3.87%) Customer Experience
8 19 (3.68%) Analytics
8 19 (3.68%) Identity Management
8 19 (3.68%) Release Management
8 19 (3.68%) Time Management
9 18 (3.48%) Change Management
10 17 (3.29%) Change Control
10 17 (3.29%) Infrastructure as Code
10 17 (3.29%) ITIL
11 16 (3.09%) AI
11 16 (3.09%) Capacity Planning
11 16 (3.09%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 42 (8.12%) Bash
1 42 (8.12%) SQL
2 38 (7.35%) Python
3 27 (5.22%) PowerShell
4 8 (1.55%) Go
5 7 (1.35%) R
6 5 (0.97%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.58%) C
7 3 (0.58%) C++
7 3 (0.58%) PHP
7 3 (0.58%) Ruby
7 3 (0.58%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.19%) VBA
Qualifications
1 35 (6.77%) Security Cleared
2 26 (5.03%) DV Cleared
2 26 (5.03%) SC Cleared
3 14 (2.71%) Degree
4 9 (1.74%) AWS Certification
5 6 (1.16%) DBS Check
6 5 (0.97%) RHCSA
7 4 (0.77%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.58%) CIPD
8 3 (0.58%) HND
8 3 (0.58%) 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 25 (4.84%) QA
2 16 (3.09%) Data Quality
3 8 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.39%) GDPR
6 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 70 (13.54%) Active Directory
2 32 (6.19%) Hyper-V
3 23 (4.45%) Docker
4 12 (2.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.35%) Ceph
7 5 (0.97%) iptables
8 3 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.58%) vSphere
9 2 (0.39%) Firmware
10 1 (0.19%) NFS
10 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 40 (7.74%) Ansible
2 32 (6.19%) Kubernetes
3 23 (4.45%) Grafana
4 20 (3.87%) Nessus
4 20 (3.87%) Prometheus
5 19 (3.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (3.29%) Nagios
7 15 (2.90%) Proxmox
8 8 (1.55%) Podman
9 7 (1.35%) Argo
9 7 (1.35%) Check_MK
9 7 (1.35%) Istio
10 4 (0.77%) McAfee ePO
10 4 (0.77%) Puppet
10 4 (0.77%) SCCM
10 4 (0.77%) SCVMM
11 3 (0.58%) Failover Clustering
11 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Clustering
11 3 (0.58%) systemd
12 2 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 102 (19.73%) Microsoft
2 46 (8.90%) Red Hat
3 23 (4.45%) VMware
4 19 (3.68%) Salesforce
5 11 (2.13%) Splunk
6 10 (1.93%) Rapid7
6 10 (1.93%) Sage
7 8 (1.55%) CrowdStrike
7 8 (1.55%) SAP
8 7 (1.35%) Dell
8 7 (1.35%) Veeam
9 6 (1.16%) SolarWinds
9 6 (1.16%) SonicWALL
10 5 (0.97%) Concur
10 5 (0.97%) Databricks
10 5 (0.97%) Google
11 4 (0.77%) McAfee
12 2 (0.39%) Cisco
12 2 (0.39%) NetApp
12 2 (0.39%) Sophos