Side-by-side distribution
Azure
$142,011
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 20.3%
- Live roles
- 315
System Administrator
$116,615
median · per year, annualized USD
- Disclosing
- 50.8%
- Live roles
- 1,209
Highest-paying jobs
Senior AVD (Azure Virtual Desktop) Engineer
Lead Azure Cloud & DevOps Platform Engineer
Principal Cloud Engineer Azure
Senior Software Engineer - (C#/Microservices/Azure)
Lead Software Engineer - .Net/Azure
Senior Cloud Engineer (AWS / Azure / GCP) - VP
Azure IaaS Engineer
Azure IaaS Engineer
AVD (Azure Virtual Desktop) Engineer
Staff Partner Engineer, Azure
Highest-paying jobs
Senior Cyber Systems Administrator
Federal HPC Linux System Administrator, (Clearance required TS/SCI with Poly) On-Site, Maryland
Systems Administrator 3
Oracle Linux Systems Administrator - TS/SCI with Polygraph
Windows Systems Administrator - TS/SCI w/Polygraph
Systems Administrator 2 - Linux/CI/CD/Ansible/Terraform/DevOps
Systems Administrator 3 (On-Call) - Linux/Bash/Python/STE/STN/Docker/Kubernetes
System Administrator, Senior
Linux Systems Administrator
Systems Administrator - Level 5 Active Polygraph Required
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
CACI
|
$152,650 | 5 |
Applied Information Sciences
|
$143,000 | 3 |
|
BMO
|
$135,250 | 3 |
SMX
|
$112,500 | 3 |
Accenture
|
$57,950 | 3 |
MetroStar
|
$175,000 | 2 |
| EE Eversource Energy | $160,998 | 2 |
LIGHTFEATHER IO LLC
|
$150,000 | 2 |
Top companies hiring
| Company | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
|
GDIT
|
$115,000 | 60 |
Leidos
|
$129,575 | 50 |
|
CACI
|
$116,650 | 41 |
Booz Allen Hamilton
|
$126,800 | 24 |
Amentum
|
$142,500 | 22 |
|
Northrop Grumman
|
$117,700 | 21 |
Saalex
|
$92,500 | 20 |
| PA Parsons | $142,300 | 17 |
System Administrator salary by location
| Location | Median | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Denver | $152,500 | 3 |
| Seattle | $139,410 | 6 |
| San Francisco | $130,000 | 8 |
| Boston | $124,252 | 5 |
| Los Angeles | $112,500 | 5 |
| Atlanta | $102,860 | 3 |
| Chicago | $102,500 | 11 |
| New York | $97,500 | 13 |
| Austin | $95,000 | 3 |
| Toronto | $89,065 | 6 |
Azure vs System Administrator: which pays more?
The median for Azure is $142,011 per year (typically $123,025–$156,693), versus $116,615 for System Administrator ($94,800–$139,515). That puts Azure about 22% ahead at the median.
Both figures are computed live from active listings on JobsRadar and normalized to annualized USD, so Azure and System Administrator are compared on equal terms regardless of the currency each role was originally posted in. Only roles that publish a salary range feed the medians; numbers refresh every few hours as new roles post and older ones close, so this comparison reflects the market right now rather than a fixed survey. Use it as a directional benchmark when weighing one path against the other.