Systems Administrator CV Examples & Writing Guide

A CV for a sysadmin with about six years of experience in a mid-sized company, written the way an IT manager reads it: environment first (what you ran and how big it was), then what you did to it. The name and employers are made up; the numbers are the kind you can pull from monitoring, ticketing and patch reports.

A sysadmin CV gets two readers: a recruiter who matches keywords, and an IT manager who judges whether you have run an environment like theirs. Both spend under a minute on the first pass.

• Platform match. Windows, Linux or both? On-premises VMware, Azure, AWS or hybrid? If the job advert says Windows Server, Active Directory and Azure and your CV leads with Ubuntu and AWS, you are filtered out before anyone reads a bullet. Put the environment in your personal statement and skills section, in the job advert's words.
• Scale. How many servers, VMs, users, sites? A 30-server, 200-user environment is a different job from 1,500 servers across 3 data centres. Managers use the numbers to place you at junior, mid or senior in seconds.
• Evidence you kept things running. Uptime, backup success rate, restore tests, patch compliance, time to restore after an outage. Sysadmin work is invisible when it goes well, so make it visible with numbers.
• Automation. A sysadmin who patches 140 servers by hand is a liability in 2026. PowerShell, Bash, Ansible or Intune on the CV, with a bullet that shows hours saved, moves you up the pile.
• Certifications that match the stack. AZ-104 for an Azure shop, RHCSA for Linux, a VCP (now VCP-VVF or VCP-VCF Administrator) for VMware. Not because the cert proves skill, but because HR filters on it.

“The first thing I look for is whether they have run something my size. Number of servers, number of users, on-prem or cloud. Then I look for one bullet that shows they fixed something that was broken when they arrived. If both are there, they get a phone screen.”

The skills section on a sysadmin CV is a lookup table for the recruiter and a truth test for the interviewer. Group by category so a recruiter finds "Active Directory" in one second, and list only what you can be quizzed on. Twenty to thirty items across six to eight categories is normal; this is one of the few jobs where a long skills list is expected.

• Include version numbers. "Windows Server 2022" and "RHEL 9" tell a manager you are current; "Windows Server" alone could mean 2008.
• Spell tools the way job adverts spell them: "Active Directory" not "AD" on first use, "Microsoft 365" not "O365". ATS keyword matching is often literal.
• Soft skills (documentation, on-call reliability, explaining outages to non-technical staff) belong in bullets as evidence, not in the skills list.
• No skill bars or star ratings. They do not parse and managers ignore them.

The formula for a sysadmin bullet: the system, the scale, the tool, and a number that shows the result (uptime, hours saved, cost reduced, compliance raised). Six rewrites of the bullets most sysadmins actually write:

Three lines: your title and years, the environment you run (platforms, scale), and one result with a number. One for each career stage below. Use a personal statement, not a career objective, unless you have no IT experience at all.

No certification is legally required to be a systems administrator in the UK, but many job adverts list one or two as required or preferred, and recruiters filter on them. Match the certification to the stack in the job advert:

• Windows and Microsoft cloud: Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) is the current standard. The old MCSA and MCSE certifications were retired in 2021; if you hold one, list it with the year, but do not expect it to open doors on its own. Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert (MS-102) helps for Microsoft 365-heavy roles.
• Linux: Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) is the one hiring managers trust most because it is a hands-on exam. CompTIA Linux+ and LPIC-1 are recognised but weigh less. Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) for senior Linux and automation roles.
• Virtualisation: VMware (Broadcom) VCP-VVF Administrator or VCP-VCF Administrator for vSphere-heavy shops. The older VCP-DCV exam has been retired, and Broadcom has reorganised the VMware certifications, so check the current names; if you hold a VCP-DCV, keep listing it with the year.
• Cloud: AWS Certified CloudOps Engineer – Associate (formerly SysOps Administrator) or AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate for AWS environments; Google Associate Cloud Engineer for Google Cloud.
• Foundational and security: CompTIA Network+, Security+ and Server+ help at junior level. For UK public-sector and defence work, security clearance (usually SC) matters more than any certificate; write "SC cleared" or "willing to undergo SC clearance". Cisco CCNA if you also touch switches and firewalls. ITIL 4 Foundation is often "preferred" at larger organisations and managed service providers.

List certifications in their own section under the personal statement or skills, with the full name, exam code and year earned. Renew or drop expired ones; interviewers check. A degree, HND or IT apprenticeship is typical, but plenty of good sysadmins have no degree and a stack of certs, and hiring managers know it.

Almost nobody is hired as a sysadmin with zero IT experience. The realistic path is 1st or 2nd line support or desktop support for 1 to 3 years, taking on server tasks, then moving up. Your CV has to show that you have already touched servers, even if your title never said so.

• Pull the server work out of your service desk job and give it its own bullets: Active Directory account changes, Group Policy edits, patching, VM snapshots, backup checks. "Created 300 AD accounts and managed 20 GPOs" is sysadmin experience whatever your title.
• Home lab counts, and IT managers respect it. Give it a short section: "Home lab: 6 VMs on Proxmox (Windows Server 2022 domain controller, Ubuntu web and file servers, pfSense firewall); patching automated with Ansible; documented in GitHub."
• Certifications carry more weight here than at any later stage. Network+, Security+ and one of AZ-104 or RHCSA will get you screened in for junior sysadmin roles. List scheduled exams with the date.
• Placements, apprenticeships and volunteer IT for a charity belong on the page with numbers (users supported, machines imaged, tickets closed). Split the skills list into hands-on, working knowledge and studying.
• One page. No career objective about "seeking to grow"; write a short personal statement that names your lab, certifications and any support experience.

Most mid-sized and large employers run applications through Workday, Oracle (Taleo), SAP SuccessFactors or Greenhouse, which parse the CV into fields before a person sees it. Sysadmins have long skills lists, and that is exactly what breaks in a two-column template.

• Length: two pages is the UK norm for experienced sysadmins and infrastructure leads; one page is fine for graduates and juniors. Collapse jobs older than 10 years to one line each.
• Single column, standard fonts, no icons, tables or text boxes. Section names the parser expects: Personal Statement (or Profile), Skills, Certifications, Experience, Education.
• Skills as plain text lines grouped by category, as in the sample. Multi-column skill grids often parse as word soup.
• Text-based PDF named Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf unless the job advert asks for Word.
• Keywords to mirror from the job advert, once each, same spelling: the exact OS versions, "Active Directory", "Group Policy", "Microsoft 365", "VMware vSphere" or "Hyper-V", "Azure" or "AWS", "PowerShell", "backup and disaster recovery", "patch management", "ITIL".
• Mention on-call and out-of-hours maintenance windows if you have done them; many job adverts require it.
• No photo, no date of birth, no marital status and no full street address (town or city is enough).

Before you apply, paste the job advert and your CV into the cvplex ATS checker. It shows which platform names are missing and which bullets have no number.