Network and Computer Systems Administrator
| Median wage (USD) | 99130 |
|---|---|
| Projected employment growth (%) | -4 |
| AI exposure (%) | 51 |
| Maximum exposure (%) | 86 |
| Source | eloundou |
| What AI changes in this occupation | Log monitoring, scheduled backups and network configuration generation are delegated to AI Fault diagnosis, performance analysis and operational documentation become AI-assisted, but validation in the field remains human Accountability for network security, arbitration of infrastructure changes and the relationship with users remain human |
| Key skills | Systems and network administration · infrastructure security · automation and scripting · cloud and virtualisation |
| Courses to get ahead | System Administration and IT Infrastructure Services (Google) · Coursera · 2 weeks · 91 · Backups, disaster recovery, email and directory services: the delegable core of the job, the part AI scripts and you have to supervise. Google IT Support Professional Certificate (Google) · Coursera · 3 months · 88 · Networking, operating systems, troubleshooting and logs: the foundation that lets you validate what AI proposes instead of taking it on trust. Linux Server Management and Security (University of Colorado Boulder) · Coursera · 1 week · 86 · Server hardening, account management and monitoring: the security side, the part the O*NET profile keeps explicitly human. Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User (Google) · Coursera · 3 weeks · 84 IT Automation with Python (Google) · Coursera · 6 months · 82 The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking (Google) · Coursera · 2 weeks · 80 |
| Occupations to pivot toward | Computer Network Architect · 134050 · 8 · 55 Computer Systems Analyst · 105850 · 8 · 47 Computer and Information Systems Manager · 175140 · 16 · 56 |
| Skills to acquire for the pivot | Eloundou's measured exposure is 51% (human β) and rises to 86% (human ζ): data backups and disaster recovery, configuring and monitoring email and antivirus, keeping operational logs and monitoring network performance are largely delegable to AI, but planning security measures, diagnosing hardware faults, general infrastructure administration and the relationship with users remain human. The ζ of 86% says almost the whole job is at least partly transformable; the β of 51% says that today AI does about half of it without supervision. It is one of the few IT occupations whose BLS profile projects a decline: tasks are being automated and shifting to DevOps developers and managed cloud services. BLS growth is −4% from 2025 to 2035, a decline against +3% for all occupations and +6% for the computer occupations group: the 323,600 jobs of 2025 are projected to reach 310,400, a loss of 13,200. About 13,400 openings a year are still projected, all from replacing workers who retire or move to other occupations. BLS attributes the decline explicitly to three causes: some tasks are shifting to DevOps-focused software developers, some are outsourced to Networks-as-a-Service providers, and administrators themselves are automating routine tasks. The median salary is $99,130 (May 2025), from the BLS 'Network and Computer Systems Administrators' profile (SOC 15-1244); the lowest 10% earn less than $62,640 and the highest 10% more than $155,050, against $50,980 for all workers. It sits above computer support specialists ($61,860 for user support, $76,220 for network support), below computer systems analysts ($105,850) and computer network architects ($134,050), and well below computer and information systems managers ($175,140). Consistency note: the site's `devops` card uses these same three neighbouring occupations as pivots, including this administrator itself ($99,130, −4%). |
| GPT-4 exposure — beta / zeta (%) | 73 · 92 |