System Administrator Fact 6: They Get the Itch

Average System Administrator tenure is about seven years.

Aaah, the seven-year itch! The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BOLS) parks the midpoint for “longevity in a System Administration career” at somewhere between five and nine years. So let’s say it’s seven. Seven years of exposure vs. experience. But this isn’t deep, pithy experience slogging through the morass of cables, clouds, and code to ensure the highest level of structural and performance integrity for each function, exploring, building, and reinforcing the infrastructure.  This is “wham-bam-thank-you-Mam!” exposure.  These are people on the move!

Here’s a hypothetical:

  • 2 years in application support,
  • 1 years in network support,
  • 3 years in hardware support, and
  • 1 year in database support.

And seven years is a generous number. Careerbuilder states that when hiring a new college graduate, 42% of IT industry employers expect them to stay with the organization for two years or less, while just 27% expect them stay five years or longer. Given that we’re on the downside of the Baby-boomer curve, we’ll go with seven… For now.

See our blog or read more System Administration facts at these blog posts: