Keep the network, the servers and the Wi-Fi running so everyone else can work. Two years of college and a certification or two get you in.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $99,130 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $62,640 at the lower end to about $155,050 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$700 to $49,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$99,130
Bottom tenth
$62,640
Top tenth
$155,050
The national median is $99,130 a year, the bottom tenth earn $62,640 or less and the top tenth $155,050 or more. The federal wage survey files this job as network and computer systems administrator, a line that covers people working under a dozen different job titles.
$78,010 a year
25% of network and computer systems administrators earn this or less
This covers everyone in the job, not only beginners, because the survey publishes no separate starting figure. Pay also depends on the employer and the city.
$126,640 a year or more
25% of network and computer systems administrators earn this or more
The survey does not say who makes up the top quarter. Cloud and security skills are the usual ways people move on from general network work.
Roughly, all in
$700 to $49,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
No degree is legally required, so the low end is somebody who studies at home with no-cost simulator software and pays only for the Network+ exam and the Cisco networking certificate, a few hundred dollars each. That cheap door is real but harder to walk through, because without a degree you are competing on certificates alone and usually have to start on a help desk first. The high end is a four year public university degree at the average in-state rate of about $12,000 a year, plus the same exams. A two year community college degree sits in the middle: Ivy Tech in Indiana lists $10,703 in tuition for its whole network degree, and a Pell Grant can cover much of that.
This is a cheap career to train for, with a median of $99,130 a year. Fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid): a Pell Grant can cover most of a community college degree, and plenty of people finish with no loans.
Employer paid certifications
Many companies cover your exam fees and training.
On-call pay
Networks break at 2am. Carrying the phone often comes with extra money or time off.
Some remote work
You can fix a lot from a laptop, though somebody still has to be in the building when a cable fails.
Skills that travel
Every hospital, school, factory and law firm has a network. You are not tied to one industry or one city.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two to four years from high school to a real network job. There is no license and no single required degree.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Take any computing class you can get. Build a home network, break it, fix it. That story gets you interviews.
Two-year degree or certificate
1 to 2 years
A community college program in networking or information technology. A four-year degree works too and opens more doors later.
First certification
2 to 4 months of study
Network+ from CompTIA, or the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate). Either one tells an employer you know what a subnet is.
Help desk or junior technician
1 to 2 years
Almost nobody starts on the network itself. You fix laptops and reset passwords first, and you learn how the place actually works.
Network administrator
Ongoing
Switches, firewalls, servers, backups, monitoring. You own the thing everyone complains about when it is slow.
Any computer science class
Not for the programming. For getting comfortable reading an error message instead of panicking at it.
Math
Binary and subnetting are arithmetic. You will do them on a whiteboard in an interview.
English
Half the job is writing a clear message explaining why the system is down and when it will be back.
Electronics or shop
Cables, racks and connectors are physical things. Being handy is a real advantage.
The Department of Labor lists registered apprenticeships for network support technician and similar roles. You earn a wage from the first day and the employer pays for the training.
There is no state board, no exam you must pass by law, and nothing stopping anyone from calling themselves a network administrator. What employers use instead is vendor certifications. CompTIA Network+ is the common first one. Cisco runs a ladder that starts at entry level, passes through the CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), and goes up to professional and expert grades, and Microsoft and Amazon have their own. Certifications expire, usually after three years, so this is a career of permanent studying.
Community colleges
Two-year networking and information technology degrees, cheap and everywhere. Ivy Tech in Indiana runs a network infrastructure degree at 12 locations as one example.
State universities
A four-year degree in information technology or computer information systems. Slower and more expensive, but it matters for management jobs later.
Registered apprenticeships
Listed on the federal apprenticeship site. You work and get paid while you learn.
Self-taught plus certification
It genuinely works in this field, but you need a home lab and something real to show for it.
Things you don't need, but that help.
CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
A widely recognized networking credential.
Cloud certifications
Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Networks now reach into the cloud, and employers want people who understand both sides.
Security+ or the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)
The CISSP needs five years of experience before you can hold it.
CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional)
The next rung up, for people who want to stay technical instead of managing.
A home lab
Old switches from a recycler plus no-cost simulator software. It is the closest thing this field has to a portfolio.
Scripting
Python or PowerShell. Automating the boring parts is how one person covers a thousand devices.
Patience with people
You will explain the same thing to the same person four times. Getting visibly annoyed about it ends careers.
Wireshark
No-cost packet capture software that the federal occupation database lists as standard in this job. Learn it early.
A lot of first jobs are at firms that handle information technology for dozens of small businesses at once. The pace is brutal, because you touch a different network every day and none of them are documented. People burn out there. They also learn more in two years than they would in five at a single employer, and they leave with a resume that reads like ten jobs. Treat it as paid training and move on when you have had enough.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In by 8am and straight to the monitoring dashboard to see what went red overnight. Morning is tickets: a floor with no Wi-Fi, a printer nobody can reach, a new hire who needs access to everything by noon. After lunch you patch servers, test a backup restore, and carry a new switch down to a wiring closet. Some weeks nothing breaks and you spend them on projects. Then a fiber line gets cut by a backhoe two blocks away and you lose two days to something that was never your fault.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Federal projections have employment in this occupation falling slightly from 2025 to 2035, and yet about 13,400 openings a year are expected. They come from replacing people who leave, not from new positions being created.
That was the federal count for network and computer systems administrators in 2025. It is a big field and a quiet one. Most people have never met the person who keeps their office online.
The same work is advertised as network administrator, network analyst, network engineer, systems engineer, network coordinator and LAN (local area network) administrator. Search all of them or you will miss half the jobs.
The CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam costs $300 and the certification is valid for three years. You keep it by passing another Cisco exam or earning 30 continuing education credits.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Security and networks first, then the rest of the field. See every career in tech.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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