Network and Computer Systems Administrators

Moderate Risk
57%

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Vote Comments (21)
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
58%
(Moderate Risk)
POLLING
55%
(Moderate Risk, Based on 814 votes)
Average: 57%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
-2.6%
by year 2033
WAGES
$95,360
or $45.84 per hour
Volume
323,020
as of 2023
SUMMARY
What does this snowflake show?
The Snowflake is a visual summary of the five badges: Automation Risk (calculated), Risk (polled), Growth, Wages and Volume. It gives you an instant snapshot of an occupations profile. The colour of the Snowflake relates to its size. The better the occupation scores in relation to others, the larger and greener the Snowflake becomes.
JOB SCORE
4.4/10
What's this?
Job Score (higher is better):

We rate jobs using four factors. These are:

- Chance of being automated
- Job growth
- Wages
- Volume of available positions

These are some key things to think about when job hunting.

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Calculated automation risk

58% (Moderate Risk)

Moderate Risk (41-60%): Occupations with a moderate risk of automation usually involve routine tasks but still require some human judgment and interaction.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Originality

  • Social Perceptiveness

User poll

55% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted they are unsure if this occupation will be automated. This assessment is further supported by the calculated automation risk level, which estimates 58% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Network and Computer Systems Administrators will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?

Sentiment

The following graph is shown where there are enough votes to produce meaningful data. It displays user poll results over time, providing a clear indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Very slow growth relative to other professions.

The number of 'Network and Computer Systems Administrators' job openings is expected to decline 2.6% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2023 and 2033
Updated projections are due 09-2025.

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Network and Computer Systems Administrators' was $95,360, or $46 per hour

'Network and Computer Systems Administrators' were paid 98.4% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Significantly greater range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 323,020 people employed as 'Network and Computer Systems Administrators' within the United States.

This represents around 0.21% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 470 people are employed as 'Network and Computer Systems Administrators'.

Job description

Install, configure, and maintain an organization's local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), data communications network, operating systems, and physical and virtual servers. Perform system monitoring and verify the integrity and availability of hardware, network, and server resources and systems. Review system and application logs and verify completion of scheduled jobs, including system backups. Analyze network and server resource consumption and control user access. Install and upgrade software and maintain software licenses. May assist in network modeling, analysis, planning, and coordination between network and data communications hardware and software.

SOC Code: 15-1244.00

Comments (21)

Leave a comment
A network guy
01 Feb 2026 04:24
Everyone thinking all systems are going cloud based and companies will not need anyone or anything on site because “AI in cloud” is woefully uninformed on the costs of having everything hosted and ran by those services. They break apart and charge for everything…they’ll do the same for AI the same they’ve done for SaaS, IaaS, etc. At some point the intelligence of AI is going to plateau and backfeed when it has nothing originally to create from anymore. As impressive as it is, I can still see it falling short in many ways.
Johannes (Low)
02 Jan 2026 21:31
Current LLMs suffer from substantial unreliability, lack of world models and hence a lack of understanding what something is, how it is related etc. They are simply not trustworthy.
AI-generated coding contains more bugs and errors than human output.
As long as the technology stack behind those models is not radically changed the risk for AI-automation for this job is low, except if a company CEO thinks "quality is not a must". For the IT of this company this would be fatal.
Louis (Highly likely)
21 Dec 2025 06:41
Configuration and security updates of network routers and switches are already being automated by devices like Cisco Catalyst Center.
Spandan (Highly likely)
10 Aug 2025 12:44
Due to:
- routine tasks
- a specific set of predefined commands
- Monitoring tasks can be automated
- A business owner's perspective prioritised efficiency and profit over the human factor
- existing example : Juniper Mist AI, Nokia Corteca Cloud etc
dfsdf (No chance)
11 Jun 2024 22:27
Not possible as system hosting will require humans due to Ai not understanding how itself works
Anders (Highly likely)
10 May 2024 07:05
so many of the rudimentary maintenance tasks that don't involve having a person there to troubleshoot and resolve will be automated. Eventually, infrastructure will be maintained fully off site and physical robots or AI will handle everything.
Wes (Uncertain)
09 May 2023 08:53
A lot of my day to day, is not admin the network or doing patch its landholding users to turn it off and on again, or explaining the same thing for the 47th time to some one who only does that task once a week or a month.

I dont think any of my users have ever used the correct i.t terms to talk about their problems, so i dont see how an A.I could know what there on about, and that when marry says her pc is broke what she really means is she has jammed the printer again.

But I could see more complex tasks to do with patching and licencing etc just going away.
L0pht Geezer
26 Apr 2023 16:18
There only thing AI can't replace for quite some time would be physical network infrastructure deployment... By the way, those guys get paid pennies currently for most contracting companies and it is tasked to jr admin most of the time with sr admin having the final review...

As for configurations, routing, switching, network/cyber security, there are no unobtainable variables for an AI that is programmed to do this job specifically. All they would have to do is just get a base of basic job duties and a list of variables to consider when dealing with an A to Z situation and poof, there goes your job. Any unaccounted variables will be added in the testing phases. The real question will be price of AI vs Human and company specific financial situations. Last I check Humans can set their rates lower than what a developer is required to offer it at to prevent net loss.
Risto (No chance)
10 Dec 2022 19:00
Servers can't fix themselves
Jay (No chance)
28 Jul 2021 14:56
No way too many variables
Bengt
28 Jul 2021 08:14
I took a career in a Management position. If you are afraid to lose your job in the technical field, Management is always a good path. Remember; soon rather than later gentlemen :)
Simon (Uncertain)
18 Jul 2021 08:53
Automation is a crustal part of IT System operations. But configuring new Infrastructure or troubleshooting "broken" networks requires manual Human actions. All repetitive Work is or will be completely automated.
Gabriel (Low)
18 Mar 2021 19:16
someone got to watch the watchers
Ni
09 Mar 2021 13:32
The problem of automation here is that the technology changes very fast. Automation can be done in a limited way in an evolving environment.
jeff (No chance)
07 Feb 2021 14:43
Creates and manages the communication layer AI uses. Would require either a common available complete drop in network solution that never needs changed or robots to manage the physical side. Neither are less than 20 years away minimum.
Chanwit Chonsuwanwat (Low)
18 Jul 2020 09:09
Because A.I. and Big Data must rely on Good System / Network Infrastructure either organization will use On-Premise or On-Cloud. However Traditional System Admin can upskills themselves to be Cloud Administrator / Engineer , DevOps Engineer , Security Administrator / Engineer and etc.
Nick M.
30 Jun 2020 05:02
I’m a network engineer and agree with the other comment. We have automation and some GUI based systems, but without the underlying knowledge, it’s meaningless. A human will always be needed.
letouane (Moderate)
25 Jun 2020 01:47
With an AI tranning or eating support tickets the job can be automatized. "Is it working now" can be answered by the customer... The only part of the work that need a human is in case of material problem only...
Marek (Uncertain)
23 Jun 2020 13:09
Lots of work can be automated and implemented via scripts and parts of the code. On the other hand what saves this position is that network topology design changes over time and new implementation methods are needed and all has to be updated.
Guadalupe Toro
03 Feb 2020 13:59
Systems administrators, or sysadmins, are responsible for deploying, configuring, maintaining, monitoring and managing an organizations servers or other computer systems. Propelled by the DevOps trend, people in these professions have become increasingly reliant on automation in recent years to help them handle mundane tasks like server configuration and software updates. In addition, many monitoring tools are beginning to incorporate machine learning and AI capabilities, which can reduce the number of false alerts and, in some cases, warn sysadmins in advance of problems that are likely to occur so that they can take preventive action. This is likely a position where AI will augment the capabilities of human workers rather than replacing them entirely. The BLS reports median pay for network and computer systems administrators was $79,700 per year in 2016, and the field is experiencing average growth.
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