What a Systems Administrator does in the UK, typical salary, required skills, and the realistic path in from IT support.
Systems Administrators keep the servers, networks and infrastructure an organisation depends on running reliably, managing everything from user accounts to backups to system updates. It sits between general IT support and specialist cloud engineering, a genuine, realistic next step once you have IT support fundamentals.
People who enjoy working with infrastructure and systems rather than direct user-facing support, methodical and comfortable with responsibility for critical systems.
Rarely a first role. Most systems administrators build up from IT support first, gaining infrastructure exposure before specialising.
IT Support → Systems Administrator → Senior Systems Administrator or Cloud Engineer.