Infrastructure administrator vs windows system administrator

The differences between infrastructure 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 an infrastructure administrator and a windows system administrator. Additionally, an infrastructure administrator has an average salary of $93,079, which is higher than the $79,845 average annual salary of a windows system administrator.

The top three skills for an infrastructure administrator include troubleshoot, linux and windows server. The most important skills for a windows system administrator are windows server, infrastructure, and powershell.

Infrastructure administrator vs windows system administrator overview

	Infrastructure Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Yearly salary	$93,079	$79,845
Hourly rate	$44.75	$38.39
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	100,799	94,648
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 59%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

What does an infrastructure administrator do?

Infrastructure administrators are information technology (IT) professionals who are responsible for implementing and maintaining the telecommunication and data systems of an organization. These administrators must coordinate the implementations of IT procedures and policies of the organization as well as perform daily monitoring, maintenance, and backups. They are required to assist in network troubleshooting and provide end-user support about their hardware and software problems. Infrastructure administrators must also implement policies regarding security, network usage, and disaster recovery.

What does a windows system administrator do?

A Windows System Administrator maintains the systems and servers of a Windows operating system. They evaluate and modify the system's performance.

Infrastructure administrator vs windows system administrator salary

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

	Infrastructure Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Average salary	$93,079	$79,845
Salary range	Between $66,000 And $129,000	Between $60,000 And $104,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	Sunnyvale, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	PayPal	Meta
Best paying industry	Finance	Finance

Differences between infrastructure administrator and windows system administrator education

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

	Infrastructure Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 59%	Bachelor's Degree, 62%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Infrastructure administrator vs windows system administrator demographics

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

	Infrastructure Administrator	Windows System Administrator
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 90.4% Female, 9.6%	Male, 88.3% Female, 11.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 13.9% White, 61.2% 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 infrastructure administrator and windows system administrator duties and responsibilities

Infrastructure administrator example responsibilities.

Manage allocate SAN storage and HBA configuration.
Manage, upgrade, and troubleshot ShoreTel VOIP network.
Manage all SSL certificates as well as internal and external DNS services for the organization.
Used SCCM to manage resources, software distribution, inventory, build software packages, and troubleshoot fail installs.
Authore and maintain shell and Perl scripts to automate administration tasks for infrastructure management.
Resolve network issues using DHCP, and DNS.

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.

Infrastructure administrator vs windows system administrator skills

Common infrastructure administrator skills

Troubleshoot, 10%
Linux, 7%
Windows Server, 6%
OS, 4%
PowerShell, 4%
SAN, 4%

Common windows system administrator skills

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

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Infrastructure Administrator vs Windows System Administrator

Updated January 8, 2025

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