Domain administrator vs windows system administrator

The differences between domain administrators and windows system 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 windows system administrator. Additionally, a windows system administrator has an average salary of $79,845, which is higher than the $78,593 average annual salary of a domain administrator.

The top three skills for a domain administrator include windows server, DNS and powershell. The most important skills for a windows system administrator are windows server, infrastructure, and powershell.

Domain administrator vs windows system administrator overview

	Domain Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Yearly salary	$78,593	$79,845
Hourly rate	$37.79	$38.39
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	82,346	94,648
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 56%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

Domain administrator vs windows system administrator salary

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

	Domain Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Average salary	$78,593	$79,845
Salary range	Between $55,000 And $112,000	Between $60,000 And $104,000
Highest paying City	-	Sunnyvale, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	Meta
Best paying industry	-	Finance

Differences between domain administrator and windows system administrator education

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

	Domain Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 56%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Domain administrator vs windows system administrator demographics

Here are the differences between domain administrators' and windows system administrators' demographics:

	Domain Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 87.7% Female, 12.3%	Male, 88.3% Female, 11.7%
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, 7.9% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.6% Asian, 13.7% White, 61.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between domain administrator and windows system 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.

Windows system administrator example responsibilities.

Manage and configure VPN connections for the users.
Deploy and manage Panasonic PBX and VOIP phone systems and network connectivity.
Manage exchange stores, mailbox provisioning, active sync and monitoring the mailboxes.
Manage data usage, space, security and archival over servers, workstations and NAS machines.
Manage issues with server hardware, networking, web services, database, DNS, clustering, and e-mail.
Manage all OU's under domain at multiple sites across the country through a constant VPN tunnel per client rules.

Domain administrator vs windows system administrator skills

Common domain administrator skills

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

Common windows system administrator skills

Windows Server, 9%
Infrastructure, 7%
PowerShell, 7%
Troubleshoot, 6%
Linux, 5%
SCCM, 4%

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Domain Administrator vs Windows System Administrator

Updated January 8, 2025

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