On this page
- Resume guide for a network administrator resume
- How to write a network administrator resume
- Choosing the best resume format for a network administrator resume
- Include your contact information
- Make use of a summary
- Right vs wrong: the same network administrator summary, twice
- Outline your network administration experience
- The migration you ran, and what you turned off afterward
- Build a snapshot of your key network administrator skills
- List your education and certifications
- Choose the right layout and design
- Network administrator job market and outlook
- What salary you can expect as a network administrator
- Key takeaways for a network administrator resume
- Related information technology resume examples
- FAQ
In short, a network administrator resume is a one to two page document naming what you moved, what you turned off after you moved it, and what the job became once the equipment was no longer in the building.
This is one of the few occupations where the outlook figure belongs in the middle of the page rather than at the end. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of network and computer systems administrators to decline 4 percent between 2025 and 2035, a loss of 13,200 jobs against a 2025 base of 323,600, while still opening about 13,400 positions a year (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025 to 2035 projections, published 27 August 2026). Specifically, the Handbook attributes the decline to work moving to software developers focused on DevOps and to providers of networks as a service, and to administrators automating routine tasks.
Read honestly, that is not bad news for your resume; it is the outline of it. As a result, the administrators being displaced are the ones whose files describe maintaining equipment. By contrast, the ones being hired moved that equipment somewhere else and can prove it.
Resume guide for a network administrator resume
For this reason, this guide and the corresponding network administrator resume example will cover:
- How to write a network administrator resume, section by section
- The migration block: what moved, what was retired, and what the job became
- Three adaptable summaries: first administration role, working administrator and senior
- What a declining occupation with 13,400 annual openings means for your file
How to write a network administrator resume
First, plan six sections: contact header with a title line, summary, a migration and decommission block, experience, skills, and education with certifications. Keep one page for your first five years, then two once you have run a migration end to end.
SectionWhat it is answeringWhere it goes
- Title lineOn-premises, cloud, or the administrator who moved between themUnder your name
- SummaryWhat you moved, what you switched off, what you run nowThree or four lines
- Migration and decommissionHas this person done the thing my occupation is being reshaped by?Its own block, high on the page
- ExperienceWhat did you own, and what did it cost or save?Reverse chronological, with numbers
- SkillsPlatform, identity, cloud networking and vendor managementGrouped, kept short
- CertificationsCurrent credential with its renewal dateWith education
Write the decommission list before you write anything else
Open your asset register and find the things that no longer exist: the servers powered off, the circuits canceled, the appliances sent to disposal, the licenses not renewed, the racks that came out. Then find the date each one stopped and the money each one stopped costing.
Almost no administrator has this list on a resume, and almost every hiring manager in a consolidating IT department wants it, because whoever can produce it has done the work the department is being asked to do next.
Run the finished file through the ATS resume checker before you submit. Infrastructure postings are parsed into a structured record before a person opens them.
Choosing the best resume format for a network administrator resume
Reverse chronological. In other words, one page for your first five years, two once you have run a migration, owned a vendor contract or led a consolidation. A functional format hides the thing this job is now read for: whether your last three years were spent keeping an estate alive or moving it.
Include your contact information
Kenji Nakagawa-Ruiz
Network Administrator, on-premises to cloud consolidation, SD-WANCompTIA Network+, N10-009, renewal due June 2027(505) 555-1864, kenji.nakagawa-ruiz@example.com, Albuquerque, NMKenji Nakagawa-Ruiz
Experienced IT professional seeking new opportunitiesCompTIA Certified(505) 555-1864, kenji_netadmin505@email.comAlso, put the renewal date on the certification line. It tells a reader the credential is live rather than something you sat in 2016.
Make use of a summary
Four lines: what you administer now, the migration you ran, what you decommissioned, and what changed in cost or risk because of it.
First administration role adaptable resume summary example
Working network administrator adaptable resume summary example
Senior network administrator adaptable resume summary example
Right vs wrong: the same network administrator summary, twice
For example, the left column describes a project a reader can ask ten questions about. The right describes a job title.
Outline your network administration experience
Employer, sector, dates, then one line naming the estate you were responsible for and what regulated it. Then three to five bullets, each naming a system, a decision or a number.
- Instead of
Maintained and supported network infrastructure
UseRan the branch network, firewall estate and two data centers for a 26-branch credit union
- Instead of
Migrated systems to the cloud
UseAssessed 214 workloads, rehosted 96, retired 41, replaced 33 with software as a service, retained 44 by decision
- Instead of
Reduced infrastructure costs
UseCanceled 26 MPLS circuits after a 30-day parity window, removing $214,000 of annual cost
Adaptable resume employment history example
Senior Network Administrator, Rio Bosque Credit Union, Albuquerque, NM, January 2023 to Present
Responsible for the network and infrastructure estate of a 26-branch credit union, examined annually by the regulator against the member data controls.
Led the consolidation out of two owned data centers into one colocation cage and a cloud footprint: 214 workloads assessed with a written rationalization decision each, 96 rehosted, 41 retired, 33 replaced with software as a service, 44 retained with a named reason and a review date.
Decommissioned 61 physical servers and 22 racks after each wave cleared a 30-day parity period, with business and security sign-off recorded per workload. Wrote the shutdown runbook the audit now references.
Replaced branch MPLS with SD-WAN across all 26 sites over eleven waves, each carrying a rollback trigger, a named decision owner and a defined window before the old circuit could be canceled.
Now administer identity and access, cloud network policy, the SD-WAN overlay and four vendor contracts rather than hardware, which is what the role became once the racks were gone.
The migration you ran, and what you turned off afterward
In practice, this is the section that answers the outlook figure, and it is the one almost nobody writes. After all, every network administrator resume describes what the writer maintains. Very few describe what they removed.
That matters because the reason the occupation is shrinking is the reason this block exists. Work is consolidating onto cloud platforms and managed services, so the department hiring you wants somebody who has already taken an estate apart once without breaking anything.
Four lines build it.
What moved and what each workload got
One: what moved, and what decision each workload got. A migration is not one decision, it is a list of them. Amazon Web Services publishes seven migration strategies, the 7 Rs: rehost, relocate, replatform, repurchase, refactor or re-architect, retain, for applications kept in the source environment or not yet ready to move, and retire, defined as the strategy for applications you want to decommission or archive, where retiring the application means you can shut down the servers within that application stack (AWS Prescriptive Guidance, retrieved 17 September 2026).
Use those words, because they are the vocabulary the people hiring for consolidations already use, and because they force the honest number out of you. "Migrated to the cloud" is one claim. "214 workloads assessed: 96 rehosted, 41 retired, 33 repurchased, 44 retained with a named reason and a review date" is four claims and a method.
Cutover, rollback and decommission
Two: the cutover, and the rollback you defined before you needed it. Say how the work was broken into waves, what each wave contained, who signed it off, and what specifically would have triggered a rollback. A rollback trigger written in advance is evidence of planning; a rollback described after the fact is evidence of an incident. Both are worth writing, but do not confuse them.
Three: the decommission, which is the part that gets skipped. Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework treats decommissioning as its own stage. Its guidance for retiring a source workload asks for formal approval from business and technical stakeholders confirming the workload no longer provides business value in its source environment, stored centrally with specific success metrics such as functional parity or performance benchmarks met for a stated period, decommissioning timelines with grace periods for rollback, license reclamation, retention of unmigrated data subject to regulatory requirements, and updated architecture diagrams, procedures and monitoring configuration (Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, retrieved 17 September 2026).
That is a resume block in disguise. Write the count of what was powered off, the parity period each thing cleared, who approved it, what happened to the licenses, and what the documentation looked like afterward. "61 servers and 22 racks decommissioned, each after a 30-day parity period and a recorded business and security sign-off" describes something many administrators start and never finish.
What the network administrator job became
Four: what the job became. This is the sentence that separates a file in a shrinking occupation. After the migration, most of the work is not equipment. It is identity and access, cloud network policy and segmentation, the software as a service tenants nobody formally owns, the overlay across the branches, the vendor contracts and the monthly bill. Say what you run now and how much of it is a contract rather than a device.
Adaptable resume migration and decommission block example
Scope: two owned data centers and 26 branch sites consolidated into one colocation cage, a cloud footprint and software as a service, across 19 months.
Rationalization: 214 workloads assessed, one written decision each. 96 rehosted, 41 retired, 33 repurchased as software as a service, 44 retained with a named reason and a review date.
Cutover: eleven waves. Each wave carried a named decision owner, a defined rollback trigger, an out-of-hours execution slot agreed with the business, and a 30-day parity period before anything old could be switched off.
Decommission: 61 physical servers, 22 racks, 26 MPLS circuits, 1 tape library and 2 VPN concentrators removed. Business and security sign-off recorded per workload. 94 server licenses reclaimed or not renewed. Regulated records retained under the existing schedule in cloud storage before any source system was shut down.
Documentation: shutdown runbook, updated network diagrams, revised monitoring configuration, and a decommission register the annual examination now reads from.
Afterward: the role is identity and access administration, cloud network and firewall policy, SD-WAN overlay administration, four vendor contracts and a monthly cloud bill, rather than hardware.
Build a snapshot of your key network administrator skills
Later, in skills, list twelve to sixteen entries in four short groups. Keep the on-premises group short and let identity, cloud and vendor carry the weight, because that is where the occupation is moving.
Adaptable resume skills example
Network: SD-WAN administration and overlay policy, branch routing and failover, firewall rule and segmentation management, wireless controllers and 802.1X, DNS, DHCP and IP address management
Cloud and identity: Cloud virtual networking and transit routing, site-to-site and client VPN, single sign-on and multifactor administration, conditional access policy
Migration and lifecycle: Workload rationalization decisions, wave planning and cutover, rollback design, decommission and asset disposal, license reclamation, diagram maintenance
Operations and vendor: Monitoring and alerting configuration, capacity and cost review, vendor and contract management
List your education and certifications
Degree, then the certification with its renewal date, then vendor training matching the platforms you actually run.
Meanwhile, a bachelor's degree is the typical entry-level education for network and computer systems administrators, and the Handbook lists no related work experience and no on-the-job training as typical for entry (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, retrieved 17 September 2026). Many administrators arrive from a help desk or technician role instead. Therefore, write that route as experience: the years spent inside the estate are what make a migration plan credible.
Write the renewal date, not just the acronym
CompTIA states that its certification renewal cycle is three years from the date of certification, and that renewing Network+ requires 30 continuing education units within that cycle (CompTIA, retrieved 17 September 2026). The current exam version is N10-009, version 9, which launched on 20 June 2024 (CompTIA).
So the useful line is not "CompTIA Network+". It is "CompTIA Network+, N10-009, certified June 2024, renewal due June 2027". That version and that date tell a reader which syllabus you were examined on and whether the credential is live, which the acronym alone does not.
Where your employer runs a specific platform, the administration certification for it is usually worth more than a broader one, because it is what they will ask you to operate on the Monday. List it with the vendor and the year, and do not claim a tier you have not reached.
Adaptable resume education and certifications example
Bachelor of Science, Information Technology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2016
CompTIA Network+, N10-009, certified June 2024, renewal due June 2027
Vendor SD-WAN administration certification, 2023, covering the overlay platform in production across 26 branch sites
Cloud provider associate-level networking certification, 2025
Choose the right layout and design
Finally, keep the format plain: single column, plain type at 11 or 12 point, clear headings, no photograph, no skill rating bars, no network diagram. Applicant systems parse the file into a structured record before a person opens it, and two columns, text boxes and images are where that breaks.
Do
- Give the rationalization counts, one decision per workload.
- Name the wave structure and the rollback trigger you defined in advance.
- Count what you decommissioned: servers, racks, circuits, appliances, licenses.
- Say who signed each shutdown off and what parity period it cleared.
- Describe what the role became afterward, in contracts and policy rather than devices.
Don’t
- Do not write "migrated to the cloud" without the decisions underneath it.
- Do not list every device model you have touched; it reads as an estate that no longer exists.
- Do not claim a migration you supported as one you led.
- Do not omit the retained workloads, because a migration with nothing retained is one nobody believes.
- Do not describe yourself only as maintaining an estate.
Network administrator job market and outlook
This is one of the few information technology titles that maps almost exactly onto a published Handbook occupation, network and computer systems administrators, so the figures below describe your job rather than a group you sit inside.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Network and computer systems administrator jobs, 2025 | 323,600 |
| Projected change, 2025-35 | -4 percent (decline), -13,200 |
| Projected annual openings | About 13,400 |
| Typical entry-level education | Bachelor's degree |
| Median annual wage, May 2025 | $99,130 |
A shrinking occupation that still opens 13,400 jobs a year
Both halves of that sentence are true. Employment is projected to fall 4 percent between 2025 and 2035, a loss of 13,200 positions, and about 13,400 openings are still expected each year, from workers leaving the occupation or the labor force rather than from growth (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025 to 2035 projections, published 27 August 2026).
The Handbook is specific about the cause: some duties are moving to software developers focused on DevOps and to providers of networks as a service, and administrators are automating routine tasks. Two of those three are things you can claim on a page.
Where the remaining jobs sit is also worth knowing. Computer systems design and related services holds 16 percent of the occupation at a median of $101,560, educational services 13 percent at $86,180, finance and insurance 9 percent at $101,110 and management of companies 7 percent at $103,810 (BLS, May 2025). Education employs a large share and pays the least of those, which is a trade rather than a mistake: the estates are large, the cycles are predictable and the work is stable.
What salary you can expect as a network administrator
For reference, the median annual wage for network and computer systems administrators was $99,130 in May 2025, which is $47.66 an hour. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $62,640 and the highest 10 percent more than $155,050 (BLS, May 2025).
However, computer network architects earned a median of $134,050 in May 2025, $34,920 above this occupation (BLS, May 2025). That gap is roughly what design responsibility is worth, and that is why the migration block matters beyond one application: somebody who has rationalized 214 workloads and defended each decision has been doing design work under an administration title.
Beyond that, three things move an offer inside the range: whether you are accountable for an estate or for a project that changed one, whether you hold a vendor contract and a budget line or consume somebody else's, and whether you can show a decommission. In a consolidating department, whoever can finish a shutdown is rarer than whoever can start a migration.
Key takeaways for a network administrator resume
- To start, put the migration high on the page; it is what a shrinking occupation hires for.
- Then give one rationalization decision per workload, using the retire, rehost, repurchase, retain vocabulary.
- Also, name the wave structure, the sign-off and the rollback trigger you wrote in advance.
- Count what you decommissioned: servers, racks, circuits, appliances, licenses.
- State the parity period each workload cleared before anything was switched off.
- Say what the job became afterward, in policy and contracts rather than devices.
- Finally, write the certification with its version and renewal date, not just the acronym.
Related information technology resume examples
- Network engineer resume
- System administrator resume
- Network systems analyst resume
- IT help desk resume
- IT specialist resume
- DevOps engineer resume
- DevOps professional resume
- Cyber security resume
- SOC analyst resume
- Solution architect resume
- IT manager resume
- IT director resume
Network administrator resume questions, answered
How long should a network administrator resume be?
One page for your first five years. Two once you have run a migration end to end, owned a vendor contract, or led a consolidation across sites. Never three, and never a page of device models.
Should I mention that the occupation is declining?
Not as a statement, but write as though you know it. BLS projects a 4 percent decline for network and computer systems administrators between 2025 and 2035, with about 13,400 openings a year from replacement rather than growth (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, published 27 August 2026). A file built on maintaining an estate reads as the shrinking version of the job; one built on moving an estate reads as the version that is hiring.
What if I have never run a migration?
Write the closest true thing: a site refresh, a circuit replacement, a firewall consolidation, a directory cleanup, a move between monitoring platforms, or a decommission somebody else's migration left unfinished. The transferable evidence is the same: a decision per item, a cutover with a rollback plan, and something switched off at the end.
Which certification should a network administrator hold?
Hold what your estate runs, plus one vendor-neutral credential. CompTIA states a three-year renewal cycle and 30 continuing education units to renew Network+, whose current exam version N10-009 launched on 20 June 2024 (CompTIA, retrieved 17 September 2026). Beyond that, a platform administration certification for the equipment or cloud you operate is usually worth more to a hiring manager than a broader one you will never use.
How do I show cloud experience without overstating it?
Name the services you administer and the boundary of your access. "Cloud virtual networking, transit routing, site-to-site VPN and firewall policy, with no platform engineering responsibility" beats a cloud logo, because it tells a reader exactly what to ask you about.
Is network administrator still a good job to move into?
It is a good job to move through. The occupation is projected to decline 4 percent through 2035 but still opens about 13,400 positions a year, the median wage was $99,130 in May 2025, and computer network architects, the next step for many administrators, earned $134,050 (BLS, May 2025). Treat the role as the place you learn an estate well enough to redesign it.