Network and Computer Systems Administrators
What the pay figures show
- Two answers for this job. Best paid: Maryland, at $118,290. Tax does not change that. Best off: Nevada, at $84,141 once local prices count. Tax was not what separated them. Rent was.
- Maryland's $118,290 median for network and computer systems administrators survives the tax adjustment intact, so state income tax is not a differentiator in this occupation's geography. It does not survive price deflation: Nevada takes the top position at $84,141. Housing is where regional price variation concentrates, which is why the reordering appears at this step and not the previous one.
Compare this career across states
Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.
Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$99,130
People doing it
314,340
Highest paid
$118,290
MD
Best off, really
$84,141
NV, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$62,640
Highest tenth
$155,050
Lowest, really
$65,389
ME
States with data
51
National average
$103,680
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
96.98%
NV, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- The state you work in changes what this job pays, but less than you would expect. Level out tax and prices and the whole country sits between $65,389 and $84,141. That is a real difference. It is not usually a moving-house difference.
- 314,340 people do this job across the country, and the middle one earns $99,130. Common work, though not one of the giants.
- No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $99,130 in the middle.
- Interstate variation for network and computer systems administrators is contained relative to other occupations, and narrows further under adjustment: the real range is $65,389 to $84,141. A differential of this magnitude is real but rarely decisive on its own, which is worth stating plainly against wage tables that present nominal gaps without either adjustment.
- National employment in network and computer systems administrators is 314,340 — a substantial occupation, though an order of magnitude below the largest. Regional differentials here move real aggregate sums without dominating any single state's wage bill.
- 51 jurisdictions report network and computer systems administrators, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.
Pay band: Network and Computer Systems Administrators
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $62,640 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $99,130 |
| Top tenth earn over | $155,050 |
| This salary | $99,130 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Network and Computer Systems Administrators
The national median for this job
$99,130around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $62,640 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $99,130 |
| Top tenth | $155,050 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Network and Computer Systems Administrators, state by state
The national median for this job
51states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | West Virginia · $74,490 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Maryland · $118,290 |
| Spread | $43,800 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $101,240 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $104,183 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| NV | $103,440 | $81,600 | $84,141 |
| MD | $118,290 | $86,683 | $83,377 |
| TX | $101,240 | $80,052 | $82,380 |
| OH | $97,570 | $75,504 | $82,237 |
| VA | $109,610 | $80,399 | $79,801 |
| LA | $90,160 | $69,939 | $79,166 |
| NJ | $116,420 | $85,505 | $78,530 |
| ND | $86,450 | $69,221 | $78,152 |
| NC | $95,230 | $72,533 | $77,049 |
| NM | $90,790 | $69,583 | $76,984 |
| RI | $103,100 | $77,816 | $76,733 |
| CO | $103,370 | $77,711 | $76,652 |
| TN | $88,100 | $70,808 | $76,537 |
| MN | $101,870 | $75,092 | $76,300 |
| AK | $97,500 | $77,421 | $76,116 |
| ID | $91,880 | $69,451 | $75,965 |
| UT | $95,820 | $71,975 | $75,762 |
| WA | $103,910 | $81,931 | $75,469 |
| MA | $110,980 | $81,675 | $75,459 |
| CT | $105,880 | $78,214 | $75,431 |
| GA | $97,170 | $72,939 | $75,429 |
| NH | $100,230 | $79,342 | $75,316 |
| IL | $100,080 | $74,427 | $75,289 |
| SC | $92,520 | $70,099 | $75,232 |
| MI | $92,750 | $70,388 | $74,735 |
| KY | $87,020 | $67,120 | $74,192 |
| IA | $84,500 | $65,677 | $73,988 |
| AR | $81,590 | $63,668 | $73,598 |
| FL | $95,200 | $75,803 | $73,274 |
| OK | $83,990 | $64,638 | $73,214 |
| DC | $110,970 | $80,433 | $72,591 |
| NY | $105,810 | $78,065 | $72,533 |
| NE | $84,700 | $65,266 | $72,216 |
| IN | $84,550 | $65,846 | $71,429 |
| MS | $79,990 | $61,995 | $71,021 |
| DE | $94,200 | $70,114 | $70,641 |
| KS | $83,340 | $63,098 | $70,136 |
| SD | $75,010 | $61,600 | $69,924 |
| AZ | $90,280 | $70,487 | $69,717 |
| AL | $81,400 | $62,644 | $69,627 |
| MT | $80,950 | $62,566 | $69,329 |
| CA | $106,440 | $77,904 | $69,198 |
| OR | $102,000 | $72,212 | $68,957 |
| WI | $83,650 | $64,167 | $68,924 |
| MO | $80,870 | $62,858 | $68,502 |
| PA | $86,140 | $66,785 | $68,497 |
| HI | $101,450 | $73,933 | $68,073 |
| VT | $86,020 | $65,778 | $68,069 |
| WY | $75,220 | $61,747 | $67,968 |
| WV | $74,490 | $58,711 | $65,400 |
| ME | $83,890 | $63,491 | $65,389 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for this job as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $99,130, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Maryland keeps the most at $86,683.
- Levelling out prices for this job is done with one number per state, which is a simplification. Living costs inside a state vary a lot between its cities and its countryside. The comparison shows which way the ranking moves, not an exact figure for any address — Maine sits at the bottom on $65,389.
- These are distribution medians for network and computer systems administrators, with a national value of $99,130. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for network and computer systems administrators is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Maryland retains the most, $86,683. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- The price deflation applied to network and computer systems administrators uses state-level parities. Within-state dispersion in price level, concentrated in housing, is large enough that a state figure describes no particular locality well; the bottom of this occupation's real range is Maine at $65,389. The comparison establishes the direction and rough magnitude of the reordering rather than an address-level result — Maine anchors the bottom at $65,389 — and the two source series are dated independently.