10 Best States for Network and System Administrator Jobs

If you're in the early stages of your career as an infrastructure professional, the big tech hubs might not be your best option for finding a job. While states like California, New York and Washington hire a lot of developers and analysts, some of the more rural -- and often overlooked states -- hire a higher percentage of systems administrators and network administrators.

In CompTIA's Cyberstates 2017 report, published earlier this year, researchers listed the top three tech occupations for each state. Nationally, the three leading technology occupations are software developers (applications), computer user support specialists, and computer systems analysts. However, in 10 states in the country, network and computer systems administrator is one of the three most common technology job titles. In its study, CompTIA lists network and computer sysadmins as a single category, the same classification used by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Of course, other states in the country probably also have a lot of job openings for sysadmins and entry-level networking. However, this article focuses on states where network and systems administrators make up an unusually high percentage of the overall IT job force, according to CompTIA's research. Interestingly, these states tend to be more rural and are not generally considered "hot spots" for technology jobs.

All the data for this ranking comes from the CompTIA Cyberstates 2017 report. Only states where network and systems administrator was one of the top three leading tech occupation are included. Those 10 states were then ranked based on six key criteria: total technology industry employment in the state; the number of network and systems administrator jobs in the state; total technology job openings; recent technology job growth; technology industry wages; and the technology wage premium  -- how high technology wages are compared to the average state wage.

Based on those criteria, people seeking entry-level infrastructure administration jobs might want to consider these 10 states.

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