Network Engineer vs System Administrator Salary: A $34,920 Gap That Runs From $6,550 in Hawaii to $64,160 in Washington

Network engineer vs system administrator salary, as of November 12, 2026: the newest federal pay survey (BLS OEWS, May 2025) puts network engineers, coded as computer network architects, at a $134,050 median and network and computer systems administrators at $99,130. The gap is $34,920 a year (35%), and it ranges from $6,550 in Hawaii to $64,160 in Washington.

Key findings

1. BLS puts the May 2025 median at $134,050 for network architects and engineers (SOC 15-1241) and $99,130 for network and computer systems administrators (15-1244): a $34,920 gap, 35.2%.
2. By state the gap runs from $6,550 in Hawaii to $64,160 in Washington among reliable estimates; 19 of the 50 states and DC sit above the national gap.
3. On 2,616 certified H-1B filings decided July 2025 to June 2026, network engineer titles have a $114,171 median offer and system administrator titles $95,016, a $19,155 gap.
4. The plain title NETWORK ENGINEER (823 filings, $93,000) and SYSTEM(S) ADMINISTRATOR (365, $90,376) are only $2,624 apart.
5. 41% of H-1B network engineer filings are coded as administrators (15-1244), at a $92,622 median, against $145,600 for those coded 15-1241.
6. At the same DOL wage level, network engineer offers are 17.0% higher; at the same level and metro, 11.9% higher.
7. None of 539,976 H-1B job titles in the year name CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, a Juniper or Palo Alto certification, or Network+.

Network engineer vs system administrator salary by state

Each tile is the median network architect and engineer wage minus the median administrator wage in that state, from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025. The biggest reliable gaps are in Washington ($64,160), California ($52,430) and Alabama ($49,410). South Dakota prints $78,380, the largest of all, but it rests on 420 architect jobs with a 22.6% relative standard error on employment, so it is starred.

Hawaii’s gap is narrow from both ends: its administrators earn $101,450, $2,320 above the national administrator median, while its 320 architects earn $108,000, $26,050 below the national architect median. In Washington administrators earn $103,910, $4,780 above the U.S. figure, and architects earn $168,070. BLS counts more architect jobs than administrator jobs only in Colorado and the District of Columbia. Our IT salaries by state report has the administrator, security, support and help desk medians for every state side by side.

All states, sortable

Click a column to sort. Gap = 15-1241 median minus 15-1244 median. * BLS relative standard error above 20%, or employment not published (District of Columbia, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia). H-1B title gap: network engineer minus system administrator median offer, only where both have at least 15 filings.

By metro: from $14,430 to $68,210

Among the 20 metro areas with the most network architect jobs, Seattle has the widest gap ($172,650 vs $104,440) and St. Louis the narrowest ($103,370 vs $88,940). Of the 244 metro areas where BLS publishes both medians, 4 show administrators ahead, none with more than 80 architect jobs.

The same comparison on H-1B job titles, by metro

Filings let us compare the titles themselves rather than BLS occupations. Metros with at least 15 filings for each title:

2 of these 13 metros show system administrator titles ahead: Dallas ($2,389), New York ($3,923). BLS shows network architects ahead in both, by at least $34,640. In Dallas and New York, 69% and 70% of network engineer filings come from consulting and staffing firms, and 51% and 47% are coded as administrators (15-1244), the lower-paid group described below.

The career path: from sysadmin to network engineer

BLS treats network engineering as the next step up. Its Employment Projections table says computer network architects typically need 5 years or more of experience in a related occupation, and the Occupational Outlook Handbook names network and computer systems administrators as that occupation. The same table lists no related-experience requirement for administrators. The left ladder shows the BLS medians; the right shows the median H-1B offer for each title family.

The two ladders agree on the order of the base titles but not on step size. In the BLS data the step from administrator to network architect and engineer is $34,920; on H-1B titles the step from system administrator to network engineer is $19,155. Network architect titles on filings ($126,828) sit below senior network engineer titles ($137,227), because 80% of architect-titled filings come from consulting and staffing firms, against 34% of senior network engineer titles. For the rung above, our IT manager salary report covers the $175,140 BLS median for computer and information systems managers.

Same job level, smaller gap

H-1B filings carry a Labor Department wage level from I (entry) to IV (fully competent), which lets us compare like with like. The gap shrinks as more is held fixed, and the employer’s choice of SOC code removes almost all of it.

Employer type explains much of what level does not: technology vendors file 26% of network engineer titles and 4% of system administrator titles. A same-employer comparison is too thin to report: only 78 filings at 18 employers share a level, metro and employer across both titles.

Two in five H-1B network engineers are filed as administrators

Employers pick the SOC code on each filing, and the code sets the prevailing wage they must meet. For network engineer titles they split almost evenly. Those coded 15-1241 have a $145,600 median; those coded 15-1244 have $92,622, below the system administrator title median. At Level II the median prevailing wage is $117,437 under 15-1241 and $86,965 under 15-1244. The administrator-coded group is 77% consulting and staffing firms (against 30% of the architect-coded group) and 31% Level III or IV (against 36%).

BLS’s own title file draws the same line: it lists Computer Network Engineer, Network Designer, Network Developer, Network Engineer under 15-1241 and only network and LAN or WAN administrator titles under 15-1244. It has no direct-match entry for the plain title “system administrator”, so the BLS administrator median covers sysadmins and network administrators together. OEWS has no closer code for either job.

Do certifications show up in job titles?

No. We searched every H-1B job title decided from July 2025 to June 2026, 539,976 cases, for CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, CCDA, CCDP, Juniper JNCIA to JNCIE, Palo Alto PCNSA and PCNSE, CompTIA Network+, Security+ and A+, MCSE, MCSA, RHCE, RHCSA, CISSP, CKA and similar tokens. None of them appears. The other hits were the word CERTIFIED (198 titles, mostly outside IT; 27 in computer occupations, 21 of them Pega certified system architects and the rest ServiceNow, SAP, Oracle, DB2 or Microsoft Dynamics roles) and 1 other token (MCP), which on reading meant Model Context Protocol, not Microsoft Certified Professional. Vendor names are the closest proxy: 12 network engineer titles name Cisco, Meraki, F5 or a similar vendor, 7 of them Meraki. Certifications may still matter in hiring, but on these forms they are not part of the job title, so this data cannot price them.

Five years of filings

The H-1B title gap widened from $13,941 in the year to June 2022 to $19,155 in the year to June 2026, as the network engineer median rose 12% and the system administrator median 8%. System administrator filings fell from 1,117 to 767 while network engineer filings stayed between 1,639 and 1,927 a year. The share of network engineer filings coded as administrators rose from 34% to 41% (SOC 2010 codes in older filings mapped to their 2018 equivalents). H-1B rules changed in this period, so the counts do not isolate any labor market trend.

H-1B gap by state

States with at least 15 filings for each title. In New Jersey and Tennessee the system administrator title is ahead, on small counts.

What the published comparisons say

Google’s top results for this query are two Reddit threads, a Spiceworks forum post, Quora, training and career sites, Indeed and the BLS handbook. None of the pages we read breaks the gap out by state, and two compare network administrators rather than network engineers. A tenth result, tryhired.co, quotes the same BLS medians in its search snippet; our fetch of that page was blocked, so we did not assess it.

What this means for MSPs

Consulting and staffing firms, the group closest to MSP labor in this data, file 53% of network engineer titles and 68% of system administrator titles. Inside them, Level II medians are $92,622 and $87,000, so the title step there is $5,622, not the $34,920 BLS gap. A sysadmin moving into a network engineer role at an end-customer employer ($122,104 median network engineer offer) or a technology vendor ($165,600) is the case where the BLS gap is the better benchmark, especially in Washington and California. For sponsors, the SOC code on the filing tracks pay: the 15-1241 group’s median offer is $52,978 above the 15-1244 group. Only 22 network engineer and 0 system administrator filings carry NAICS 541513 (computer facilities management), so we did not publish an MSP-only figure. Our network engineer salary report has the full BLS percentile, industry and outlook detail for both occupations.

Frequently asked questions

Who earns more, a network engineer or a system administrator?

The network engineer. BLS puts the May 2025 median at $134,050 for computer network architects, the occupation that includes network engineers, against $99,130 for network and computer systems administrators, a $34,920 gap (35%). On H-1B filings decided from July 2025 to June 2026 the gap is smaller, $114,171 against $95,016.

Is a network engineer higher than a network administrator?

In pay and in BLS’s job ladder, yes. BLS lists network engineer as a direct-match title for 15-1241 and network administrator titles under 15-1244, and says 15-1241 typically needs 5 years or more in a related occupation. On H-1B filings, network administrator titles have a $91,355 median against $114,171 for network engineer titles.

Which states have the biggest network engineer vs system administrator pay gap?

Among reliable BLS estimates, Washington ($64,160), California ($52,430) and Alabama ($49,410). The smallest is Hawaii at $6,550. South Dakota shows $78,380, but BLS’s error margin on its network architect estimate is above 20%.

Is sysadmin a dead-end job?

The BLS projection points one way: administrator employment is projected to fall 4.1% from 2025 to 2035 (13,200 jobs) while network architect employment grows 7.7%. Administrators still have more openings a year, about 13,400 against 9,600, all of them, BLS says, from replacing workers who move to other occupations or retire. Senior system administrator titles on H-1B filings have a $119,632 median, above the plain network engineer title.

Do CCNA or other certifications show up in network engineer job titles?

Not in H-1B filings. Of 539,976 H-1B cases decided from July 2025 to June 2026, none name CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, a Juniper or Palo Alto certification, or CompTIA Network+. Vendor names do appear: 12 network engineer titles name Cisco, Meraki, F5 or a similar vendor.

Will AI replace sysadmins?

This data cannot answer that. What it shows: BLS projects a 4.1% decline in administrator jobs from 2025 to 2035 and writes that “systems administrators are increasingly automating routine tasks” and that some work is moving to DevOps developers and Networks-as-a-Service providers. It does not attribute the decline to AI, and H-1B filings record offers, not tasks.

Free to cite and republish with a link.

Methodology

References

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025: national, state and metropolitan area estimates. Accessed November 2026.
2. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Computer Network Architects. Accessed November 2026.
3. BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Network and Computer Systems Administrators. Accessed November 2026.
4. BLS Employment Projections 2025 to 2035, occupational projections and worker characteristics. Accessed November 2026.
5. BLS, 2018 SOC direct match title file. Accessed November 2026.
6. U.S. Department of Labor, OFLC Performance Data: LCA Disclosure Data FY2021 to FY2026 Q3, with record layout. Accessed November 2026.
7. U.S. Department of Labor, Prevailing Wage Determination Policy Guidance (revised November 2009). Accessed November 2026.
8. CompTIA, Network Administrator vs. Network Engineer. Accessed November 2026.
9. Coursera, System Administrator vs. Network Administrator. Accessed November 2026.
10. IT Support Group, Network Engineer vs System Administrator. Accessed November 2026.