Network and Computer Systems Administrators Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

Read the ladder vertically: each row is the wage of the Network and Computer Systems Administrators worker at that point in the distribution, so $123,390 at the 75th percentile means three quarters of the occupation earns less. Figures BLS cannot publish appear as n/p, and its top code prints as $239,200+.

Employment and concentration

BLS counted 318,570 Network and Computer Systems Administrators jobs in May 2024, which is 0.21% of all U.S. employment in the survey. Work is most concentrated in South Dakota, where the location quotient is 1.83, meaning the occupation holds 1.83 times its national share of local jobs. Texas employs the most people outright, 34,640 of them, and the three largest state employers together account for 26.9% of the national total.

Pay inside the occupation is wide: $90,000 separates the ends of its ladder. The 90th percentile ($150,320) is 2.5 times the 10th percentile ($60,320), a gap of $90,000 a year. The mean of $101,190 sitting above the median of $96,800 tells you the top end pulls the average up: most workers cluster below the mean, and the high tail is thin.

Pay by state

The state spread for Network and Computer Systems Administrators runs from the $114,140 median in District of Columbia down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in Texas (34,640 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Network and Computer Systems Administrators stands number 114 by employment and number 142 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Computer and Mathematical Occupations, the group median wage is $103,790 across 21 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 7% less than its group median, and it supplies 6.1% of the group's 5,192,870 jobs. In 14 of the 51 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $96,800, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ is the largest metro employer with 19,080 jobs, 6.0% of the national total. Two rankings follow across the 379 metros BLS publishes for this occupation: where the jobs are, then where the money is, with the pay ranking restricted to metros employing at least 500 people in this occupation to keep small samples out of the lead.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, San Juan-Bayamon-Caguas, PR posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $57,860 a year, against $133,560 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. The lowest-paying large metro and the highest are both real markets for this occupation; the difference between them is the geography premium, or penalty, in cash terms.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $8,067 a month before tax, $3,723 biweekly, $1,862 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($75,860) to the 75th ($123,390) is worth $47,530 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $106,480 would sit between the median ($96,800) and the 75th percentile ($123,390), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $75,860, is $20,940 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Computer and Mathematical Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers, Information Security Analysts, Computer Network Architects, Computer Network Support Specialists, Web and Digital Interface Designers, Computer Programmers. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.