For my part, I suppose I was talking devops, or at least a sysadmin that thinks devops is a good idea and can help make it happen.
It's probably wrong from a larger perspective to lump the two together, but for me sysadmin as a role has been supplanted with devops. If you are a sysadmin that doesn't want to automate away their work via devops, you are not doing it right.
I agree that as a career choice, "system administrator" seems less lucrative than "devops". Remember, though, that not every sysadmin job is for an agile software shop. There are plenty of places that care a lot more about patch cycles than they do about single-click deployments.
More importantly though, bill rates and capability do not track each other. Bill rates track risk. There is a lot of amazing- but- unproven systems talent out there, and there are some very expensive pikers on the market too. Generally I would agree that the more you pay, the less likely you are to have to fire 3 months later.
It helps a lot to be able to do the job yourself, soup-to-nuts, so that you'll have a better shot at screening candidates.
It's probably wrong from a larger perspective to lump the two together, but for me sysadmin as a role has been supplanted with devops. If you are a sysadmin that doesn't want to automate away their work via devops, you are not doing it right.