Domain administrator vs systems administrator

The differences between domain administrators and systems administrators can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a domain administrator and a systems administrator. Additionally, a domain administrator has an average salary of $78,593, which is higher than the $77,156 average annual salary of a systems administrator.

The top three skills for a domain administrator include windows server, DNS and powershell. The most important skills for a systems administrator are linux, troubleshoot, and windows server.

Domain administrator vs systems administrator overview

	Domain Administrator	Systems Administrator
Yearly salary	$78,593	$77,156
Hourly rate	$37.79	$37.09
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	82,346	134,500
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 56%	Bachelor's Degree, 60%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

Domain administrator vs systems administrator salary

Domain administrators and systems administrators have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Domain Administrator	Systems Administrator
Average salary	$78,593	$77,156
Salary range	Between $55,000 And $112,000	Between $59,000 And $100,000
Highest paying City	-	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	Meta
Best paying industry	-	Technology

Differences between domain administrator and systems administrator education

There are a few differences between a domain administrator and a systems administrator in terms of educational background:

	Domain Administrator	Systems Administrator
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 56%	Bachelor's Degree, 60%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Domain administrator vs systems administrator demographics

Here are the differences between domain administrators' and systems administrators' demographics:

	Domain Administrator	Systems Administrator
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 87.7% Female, 12.3%	Male, 83.9% Female, 16.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 8.9% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% Asian, 8.8% White, 64.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 8.6% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.3% Asian, 11.5% White, 62.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between domain administrator and systems administrator duties and responsibilities

Domain administrator example responsibilities.

Install service packs and patches to client workstations and servers; manage off-peak hour backups.
Manage and ensure effectiveness of security solutions, including firewalls, anti-virus solutions, VPN and intrusion detection systems.
Lead enterprise-wide virtualization effort, overseeing and completing vendor/hardware qualifications, architecture/design, installation, configuration, migration and documentation.
Upgrade and troubleshoot hardware issues.
Support to six data centers for VMware and Microsoft support.
Virtualize all servers using VMWARE, reduce server count 7 to 1.

Systems administrator example responsibilities.

Used Jenkins to automate most of the build relate tasks.
Manage windows file servers, messaging, and SQL databases.
Lead the project which integrate internal DNS into the corporate LDAP infrastructure for end user host management prior to deployment.
Lead business-critical information security initiatives involving encryption of customer data.
Authore and maintain shell and Perl scripts to automate administration tasks for infrastructure management.
Configure & manage all switches and servers responsible for providing WLAN connectivity and authentication services.

Domain administrator vs systems administrator skills

Common domain administrator skills

Windows Server, 14%
DNS, 6%
PowerShell, 6%
VMware, 5%
Linux, 4%
Troubleshoot, 4%

Common systems administrator skills

Linux, 7%
Troubleshoot, 7%
Windows Server, 6%
Database, 5%
Technical Support, 4%
PowerShell, 3%

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Domain Administrator vs Systems Administrator

Updated January 8, 2025

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