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 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 389 467 389
Rank change year-on-year +78 -78 +104
Permanent jobs requiring a Systems Administrator 420 198 673
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.44% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.47% 0.49% 0.66%
Number of salaries quoted 285 138 554
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,000 £28,000
25th Percentile £36,011 £32,027 £33,966
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £45,000 £47,500 £41,500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +14.46% -12.63%
75th Percentile £61,250 £57,500 £52,500
90th Percentile £70,000 £70,375 £64,625
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £46,250 £40,000
% change year-on-year -13.51% +15.63% -

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 89,394 40,455 102,187
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.02% 89.45% 94.75%
Number of salaries quoted 61,374 23,051 73,787
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,750 £38,620
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -12.50%
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,474 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - - -6.54%

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 24 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Systems Administrator in the UK

Systems Administrator
Top 15 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 24 June 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 +78 378 £45,000 -8.16% 66
UK excluding London +68 299 £40,000 -13.51% 59
London +47 105 £60,000 +9.09% 11
Work from Home +33 86 £55,000 +15.79% 20
Midlands +40 73 £37,720 +6.25% 7
North of England -5 55 £45,000 +16.88% 11
East of England +17 52 £40,000 -30.43% 6
East Midlands +18 51 £32,500 -8.45% 4
South East -12 46 £53,750 +9.69% 17
South West -78 43 £39,250 -21.50% 16
Yorkshire -22 31 £45,000 -14.29% 7
Scotland +38 30 - - 2
West Midlands +5 22 £45,000 +16.88% 3
North West +3 19 £40,000 +18.64% 4
North East - 5 £47,500 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 24 June 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 90 (21.43%) Linux
2 88 (20.95%) Microsoft
3 64 (15.24%) Microsoft 365
4 61 (14.52%) DevOps
5 59 (14.05%) Problem-Solving
6 56 (13.33%) Windows
7 52 (12.38%) Azure
8 51 (12.14%) Active Directory
8 51 (12.14%) SQL
9 45 (10.71%) Red Hat
10 44 (10.48%) Entra ID
11 40 (9.52%) Firewall
12 39 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 38 (9.05%) Bash
14 35 (8.33%) ERP
14 35 (8.33%) Python
15 32 (7.62%) AWS
16 31 (7.38%) Microsoft Exchange
16 31 (7.38%) VMware
17 30 (7.14%) CI/CD
17 30 (7.14%) Hyper-V
18 27 (6.43%) SharePoint
18 27 (6.43%) Vulnerability Management
19 26 (6.19%) Ansible
20 25 (5.95%) Analytics
20 25 (5.95%) Security Cleared
20 25 (5.95%) Windows Server
21 24 (5.71%) Terraform
22 23 (5.48%) Configuration Management
22 23 (5.48%) 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 31 (7.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 27 (6.43%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.95%) WordPress
4 3 (0.71%) Apache
4 3 (0.71%) CMS
5 2 (0.48%) nginx
5 2 (0.48%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.24%) Confluence
6 1 (0.24%) Moodle
6 1 (0.24%) Site Server
Applications
1 14 (3.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.90%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 17 (4.05%) iTrent
2 11 (2.62%) Primavera
3 3 (0.71%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.48%) Shopify
5 1 (0.24%) HFM
5 1 (0.24%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 64 (15.24%) Microsoft 365
2 52 (12.38%) Azure
3 44 (10.48%) Entra ID
4 32 (7.62%) AWS
5 22 (5.24%) Power Platform
6 19 (4.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 19 (4.52%) SaaS
7 17 (4.05%) Power Automate
8 13 (3.10%) PowerApps
9 12 (2.86%) GCP
9 12 (2.86%) Intacct
9 12 (2.86%) Mimecast
10 10 (2.38%) GitHub
11 9 (2.14%) Azure Logic Apps
12 8 (1.90%) Amazon ECR
12 8 (1.90%) Amazon ECS
12 8 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
13 4 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 40 (9.52%) Firewall
2 22 (5.24%) DNS
3 16 (3.81%) VPN
4 14 (3.33%) LAN
4 14 (3.33%) TCP/IP
5 10 (2.38%) SAN
6 9 (2.14%) HTTP
6 9 (2.14%) Network Security
6 9 (2.14%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (1.67%) Internet
8 5 (1.19%) DHCP
8 5 (1.19%) WAN
9 4 (0.95%) Wireless
10 3 (0.71%) NAS
10 3 (0.71%) SSH
10 3 (0.71%) VLAN
11 2 (0.48%) Multicast
11 2 (0.48%) VoIP
12 1 (0.24%) DKIM
12 1 (0.24%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.10%) MySQL
2 9 (2.14%) Power BI
3 8 (1.90%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.71%) GIS
5 1 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.24%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (4.05%) Git
2 13 (3.10%) GitLab
3 7 (1.67%) JIRA
General
1 90 (21.43%) Finance
2 66 (15.71%) Social Skills
3 24 (5.71%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (5.24%) Banking
4 22 (5.24%) Manufacturing
5 21 (5.00%) Retail
6 17 (4.05%) Billing
7 11 (2.62%) Law
7 11 (2.62%) Legal
8 9 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.71%) Games
12 3 (0.71%) Public Sector
13 1 (0.24%) Digital Health
13 1 (0.24%) Local Government
13 1 (0.24%) Marketing
13 1 (0.24%) Police
13 1 (0.24%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.14%) Middleware
1 9 (2.14%) WebSockets
2 2 (0.48%) Boost C++ Libraries
2 2 (0.48%) LEMP Stack
2 2 (0.48%) Node.js
3 1 (0.24%) HTML
3 1 (0.24%) LAMP
3 1 (0.24%) OpenID
3 1 (0.24%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (5.71%) Data Structures
2 17 (4.05%) Clustering
3 12 (2.86%) Data Centre
4 9 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (1.90%) Management Information System
5 8 (1.90%) Onboarding
5 8 (1.90%) Private Cloud
6 5 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.71%) Replication
7 3 (0.71%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.48%) Educational Technology
8 2 (0.48%) Embedded Systems
8 2 (0.48%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.48%) IoT
8 2 (0.48%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.24%) CCTV
9 1 (0.24%) Distributed Computing
9 1 (0.24%) Life Science
9 1 (0.24%) Video Conferencing
9 1 (0.24%) VLE
Operating Systems
1 90 (21.43%) Linux
2 56 (13.33%) Windows
3 25 (5.95%) Windows Server
4 21 (5.00%) Mac OS
5 20 (4.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (4.29%) Android
6 18 (4.29%) Apple iOS
7 13 (3.10%) CentOS
8 12 (2.86%) Ubuntu
9 7 (1.67%) Debian
10 4 (0.95%) Rocky
10 4 (0.95%) Unix
11 3 (0.71%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (14.52%) DevOps
2 59 (14.05%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
4 35 (8.33%) ERP
5 30 (7.14%) CI/CD
6 27 (6.43%) Vulnerability Management
7 25 (5.95%) Analytics
8 23 (5.48%) Configuration Management
9 22 (5.24%) Infrastructure as Code
9 22 (5.24%) Process Improvement
10 19 (4.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 18 (4.29%) Release Management
12 17 (4.05%) Change Management
13 16 (3.81%) Change Control
13 16 (3.81%) Identity Management
14 15 (3.57%) CRM
15 14 (3.33%) High Availability
15 14 (3.33%) Service Delivery
16 13 (3.10%) Patch Management
16 13 (3.10%) Revenue Recognition
Programming Languages
1 51 (12.14%) SQL
2 38 (9.05%) Bash
3 35 (8.33%) Python
4 18 (4.29%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.90%) Go
6 6 (1.43%) PHP
7 5 (1.19%) JavaScript
8 4 (0.95%) R
9 3 (0.71%) Ruby
9 3 (0.71%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.48%) C
10 2 (0.48%) C++
10 2 (0.48%) VBA
Qualifications
1 25 (5.95%) Security Cleared
2 17 (4.05%) DV Cleared
3 15 (3.57%) SC Cleared
4 12 (2.86%) Degree
5 10 (2.38%) CIPD
5 10 (2.38%) RHCSA
6 8 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.48%) HND
7 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.24%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.24%) CCNA
8 1 (0.24%) CCNP
8 1 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.24%) Linux+ Certification
8 1 (0.24%) MCSE
8 1 (0.24%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.48%) QA
2 15 (3.57%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.62%) GDPR
4 5 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 51 (12.14%) Active Directory
2 30 (7.14%) Hyper-V
3 20 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (3.81%) Docker
5 5 (1.19%) iptables
6 3 (0.71%) Firmware
7 2 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.24%) KVM
Systems Management
1 26 (6.19%) Ansible
2 24 (5.71%) Terraform
3 22 (5.24%) Kubernetes
4 21 (5.00%) Microsoft Intune
5 20 (4.76%) Nagios
6 19 (4.52%) Grafana
7 18 (4.29%) Proxmox
8 17 (4.05%) Nessus
9 12 (2.86%) Prometheus
10 8 (1.90%) Puppet
11 3 (0.71%) SCCM
11 3 (0.71%) systemd
12 2 (0.48%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.48%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.24%) Failover Clustering
13 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
13 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Clustering
13 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.24%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 88 (20.95%) Microsoft
2 45 (10.71%) Red Hat
3 31 (7.38%) VMware
4 22 (5.24%) Salesforce
5 13 (3.10%) Sage
6 12 (2.86%) SolarWinds
7 11 (2.62%) Veeam
8 9 (2.14%) Splunk
9 8 (1.90%) Rapid7
9 8 (1.90%) SAP
9 8 (1.90%) SonicWALL
10 6 (1.43%) Cisco
10 6 (1.43%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.19%) Concur
11 5 (1.19%) CrowdStrike
11 5 (1.19%) Databricks
11 5 (1.19%) Meraki
12 4 (0.95%) Google
13 3 (0.71%) Dell
13 3 (0.71%) Palo Alto