Systems Administrator Salary – Government of Canada (2026)
How much do federal systems administrators make? Classification mapping, salary by level, and career path.
How Systems Administrator Roles Are Classified
The Government of Canada doesn't advertise positions as “Systems Administrator” — instead, each role is assigned a classification code that determines its pay scale. Here's how systems administrator roles map to federal classifications:
What Federal Systems Administrators Do
Systems administrators in the federal government manage servers, cloud infrastructure, networks, Active Directory, email systems, and enterprise applications. Most sysadmin roles are concentrated at Shared Services Canada (SSC), which provides IT infrastructure to the majority of federal departments, though individual departments also maintain some infrastructure teams. Federal sysadmins work with Windows Server, Linux, VMware, Azure/AWS (increasingly), and legacy mainframe systems. The work includes server provisioning, patch management, monitoring, backup and recovery, and security hardening.
Systems Administrator Salary Breakdown
Working-level sysadmins at IT-02 earn $85,854–$105,080. Senior admins and infrastructure leads at IT-03 earn $101,343–$120,867. Infrastructure managers at IT-04 earn $120,791–$140,165. Federal sysadmin pay is competitive with non-tech-sector infrastructure roles but lags behind cloud-focused positions at tech companies and MSPs.
How to Get Hired
IT infrastructure positions require degrees or diplomas in IT, computer science, or network administration — or equivalent work experience. Industry certifications (MCSE, CCNA, AWS/Azure certifications, Red Hat) are valued. Most positions are at IT-02 and require Reliability or Secret security clearance. SSC is the primary employer and runs regular recruitment campaigns. Federal sysadmin roles are attractive to infrastructure professionals who want stable, 9-to-5 work without on-call rotations (though some critical infrastructure roles do include on-call).