# Network and Computer Systems Administrators

US SOC code 15-1244. Markdown version of https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/15-1244

Also called: Systems administrator, SysAdmin, Network administrator, IT administrator, Server administrator.

## In brief

In May 2025, [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip) counted **314,340** US network and computer systems administrators, with median pay of **$99,130** a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the highest was **325,930**, in May 2022, close to the May 2025 count. The earliest figure here is [an estimate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_%28organization%29) of **50,000** from 1986, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for network and computer systems administrators: AIOps first generation, 2016 to 2023.

## What the sources say

### Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 4.1% from 2025 to 2035. Source: [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-1244&ioType=o).

### AI exposure studies

- **51.4%** of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. [Eloundou and others, 2023](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv)

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

## Network and Computer Systems Administrators employment and pay by year

- On record since: 1969
- Latest US employment: 314,340 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [3]
- Latest US median pay: $99,130 (May 2025). Source: BLS OEWS May 2025 [9]
- Outlook: -4.1% by 2035. Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 [27]

### In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

- **Canada** (NOC 22220)
  - Employment, 2020: 66,285. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [6]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 22220 Computer network and web technicians, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
  - Median pay, 2020: C$73,500. Source: Statistics Canada Census 2021 [13]. Statistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 22220 Computer network and web technicians, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.

### All 10 years of cited US data

| Year | US employment | Annual pay (median unless marked) | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1986 | 50,000 (estimate) | n/a | Est., USENIX LISA conference history [1] |
| 1993 | 200,000 (estimate) | $34,000 (estimate) | Est., Wikipedia (employment) [1]; Est., Bureau of Labor Statistics (pay) [7] |
| 2000 | 234,040 | $51,280 | BLS OEWS 2000 [2] |
| 2019 | 354,450 | $83,510 | BLS OEWS May 2019 [3] |
| 2020 | 339,560 | $84,810 | BLS OEWS May 2020 [3] |
| 2021 | 316,760 | $80,600 | BLS OEWS May 2021 [3] |
| 2022 | 325,930 | $90,520 | BLS OEWS May 2022 [3] |
| 2023 | 323,020 | $95,360 | BLS OEWS May 2023 [3] |
| 2024 | 318,570 | $96,800 | BLS OEWS May 2024 [3] |
| 2025 | 314,340 | $99,130 | BLS OEWS May 2025 [3] |

## Sources (60)

### Employment series

1. [USENIX LISA conference history — first LISA conference held 1986 (System Administrators Guild founding context)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_%28organization%29), Wikipedia / USENIX
2. [BLS OES 2000 national estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oes00nat.zip), Bureau of Labor Statistics
3. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2019](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm19nat.zip), [2020](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm20nat.zip), [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2024](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
4. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2006, Table 97-563-XCB2006069 (Wage and salary statistics by occupation, NOC-S 2006), income reference year 2005](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&PID=96285), Statistics Canada
5. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2016, Table 98-400-X2016356 (Occupation by employment income statistics, NOC 2016), income reference year 2015](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/98-400-X2016356), Statistics Canada
6. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Wage series

7. [BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook 1992-93 edition — Computer Systems Analysts and Related Occupations (wage reference)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm), Bureau of Labor Statistics
8. [BLS OES 2000 national estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oes00nat.zip), Bureau of Labor Statistics
9. BLS OEWS, national cross-industry estimates (flat file), Bureau of Labor Statistics. Editions: [2019](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm19nat.zip), [2020](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm20nat.zip), [2021](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm21nat.zip), [2022](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm22nat.zip), [2023](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm23nat.zip), [2025](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm25nat.zip)
10. [BLS OEWS May 2024, national cross-industry estimates (flat file)](https://www.bls.gov/oes/special-requests/oesm24nat.zip), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
11. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2006, Table 97-563-XCB2006069 (Wage and salary statistics by occupation, NOC-S 2006), income reference year 2005](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&PID=96285), Statistics Canada
12. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2016, Table 98-400-X2016356 (Occupation by employment income statistics, NOC 2016), income reference year 2015](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/98-400-X2016356), Statistics Canada
13. [Statistics Canada, Census of Population 2021, Table 98-10-0586 (Employment income statistics by occupation unit group, NOC 2021), income reference year 2020](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810058601), Statistics Canada

### Tool eras

14. [O'Reilly — "A Brief History of System Administration" (Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook, 5th ed.)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/unix-and-linux/9780134278308/History.xhtml), O'Reilly Media
15. [Red Hat — "Computer history and modern computers for sysadmins"](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/computer-history-sysadmins), Red Hat
16. [Red Gate Simple Talk — "Network Administrators Past, Present, and Future" (LAN admin era history)](https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/sysadmin/general/network-administrators-past-present-and-future/), Redgate
17. [Wikipedia — Active Directory (history: introduced Windows 2000)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory), Wikipedia
18. [USENIX LISA (organization) — Wikipedia (LISA conference and SAGE history)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_%28organization%29), Wikipedia / USENIX
19. [Amazon press release — "Amazon Web Services Launches" (March 14, 2006: S3 launch)](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2006/3/amazon-web-services-launches), Amazon
20. [BLS OOH — Network and Computer Systems Administrators (cloud computing and DevOps as drivers of employment decline)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm), Bureau of Labor Statistics
21. [The New Stack — "A Brief DevOps History: The Roots of Infrastructure as Code" (Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Terraform timeline)](https://thenewstack.io/a-brief-devops-history-the-roots-of-infrastructure-as-code/), The New Stack
22. [TechTarget — "Networking pros face strong job market, greater demands" (2026: entry-level shrinking, architecture roles rising)](https://web.archive.org/web/20260513153244/https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/feature/Networking-pros-face-strong-job-market-greater-demands), TechTarget
23. [Datadog Bits AI SRE — alert investigation in approximately 3-4 min, GA June 2025 (company founded 2010)](https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/bits-ai-sre/), Datadog
24. [PagerDuty AIOps — up to 98% alert noise reduction; Anaplan MTTR cut from 3 hours to under 30 minutes (Forrester TEI 2024)](https://www.pagerduty.com/platform/aiops/), PagerDuty
25. [Dynatrace — Davis AI preventive operations, 56% faster MTTR (IDC); announced February 2025](https://www.dynatrace.com/news/press-release/dynatrace-advances-aiops-with-preventive-operations/), Dynatrace
26. [Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed — natural-language-to-YAML playbook generation; BYOM LLM support in AAP 2.6 (2025)](https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/ansible/red-hat-lightspeed), Red Hat

### Forecasts and exposure studies

27. [BLS Employment Projections 2025-35, National Employment Matrix: 15-1244 Network and computer systems administrators (2025: 323.6 thousand; 2035: 310.4 thousand; -4.1%)](https://data.bls.gov/projections/nationalMatrix?queryParams=15-1244&ioType=o), Bureau of Labor Statistics
28. [Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), "GPTs are GPTs", occupation-level exposure data occ\_level.csv (O\*NET-SOC 15-1244.00, human-rated β 0.514)](https://github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs/blob/main/data/occ_level.csv), OpenAI

### Historical notes

29. [IEEE Spectrum — "The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix" (Unix history, Bell Labs PDP-7, 1969)](https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix), IEEE Spectrum
30. [USENIX LISA (organization) — Wikipedia (first LISA conference 1986)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_%28organization%29), Wikipedia / USENIX
31. [BLS OOH — Network and Computer Systems Administrators (2000 peak reference)](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm), Bureau of Labor Statistics
32. [Amazon press release — "Amazon Web Services Launches" (March 14, 2006)](https://press.aboutamazon.com/2006/3/amazon-web-services-launches), Amazon
33. [PW Skills — "History of DevOps: How It Is Today" (DevOpsDays Ghent 2009, Patrick Debois)](https://pwskills.com/blog/devops/history-of-devops-how-it-is-today-with-devops), PW Skills

### Predecessors & successors

34. [O'Reilly — "A Brief History of System Administration" (sysadmin emerged from computer operator role)](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/unix-and-linux/9780134278308/History.xhtml), O'Reilly Media

### Present-day analysis

- [O\*NET 30.3 — Network and Computer Systems Administrators (15-1244.00)](https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1244.00), accessed 2026-05-23
- [BLS OOH — Network and Computer Systems Administrators: -4% 2024–2034, 14,300 annual openings](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/network-and-computer-systems-administrators.htm), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Datadog — Introducing Bits AI SRE: alert investigation in ~3-4 min, GA June 2025](https://www.datadoghq.com/blog/bits-ai-sre/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Dynatrace — Davis AI preventive operations, 56% faster MTTR (IDC); announced February 2025](https://www.dynatrace.com/news/press-release/dynatrace-advances-aiops-with-preventive-operations/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [PagerDuty AIOps — up to 98% alert noise reduction; Anaplan MTTR 3 hr → \<30 min (Forrester TEI 2024)](https://www.pagerduty.com/platform/aiops/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [ServiceNow ITOM + Now Assist — AI agents automate alert triage end-to-end; 45% avg MTTR reduction](https://aelumconsulting.com/blogs/servienow-aiops-improves-operational-efficiency/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Red Hat Ansible Lightspeed — natural-language-to-YAML playbook gen; BYOM LLM support in AAP 2.6 (2025)](https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/management/ansible/red-hat-lightspeed), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Pulumi Neo — agentic IaC platform for full infrastructure lifecycle automation (September 2025)](https://www.pulumi.com/product/neo/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Microsoft Azure Copilot agents — Observability, Troubleshooting, Optimization agents (Ignite 2025)](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-azure-copilot-agents-and-ai-infrastructure-innovations/), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Microsoft Intune — Security Copilot Policy Config, Device Offboarding, Vulnerability Remediation agents (Ignite 2025)](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftintuneblog/microsoft-365-adds-advanced-microsoft-intune-solutions-at-scale/4474272), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Juniper Mist AI / Marvis — Gartner MQ Leader 5× consecutive, agentic autonomous network remediation (2025)](https://www.hpe.com/us/en/marvis-ai.html), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Eloundou et al. 2024 — GPTs are GPTs (Science)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130), accessed 2026-05-23
- [TechTarget — Networking pros face strong job market, greater demands (2026): entry-level shrinking, architecture roles rising](https://web.archive.org/web/20260513153244/https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/feature/Networking-pros-face-strong-job-market-greater-demands), accessed 2026-05-23
- [Gartner (via TechFashionSociety) — 40% increase in demand for AI-augmented infrastructure specialists by 2027](https://thefashionsociety.co.uk/github-copilot-transforms-powershell-scripting-for-sysadmins-amid-security-patches-and-ai-breakthroughs), accessed 2026-05-23
- [GitHub Copilot — PowerShell/Bash sysadmin scripting assistance; Gartner: 40% demand growth for AI-augmented infra specialists by 2027](https://4sysops.com/archives/github-copilot-for-the-windows-systems-administrator/), accessed 2026-05-23

How to read these figures: https://futurehistory.earth/methodology. Every figure links to its own source; gaps stay gaps.