Average tech salary increase of 1.7 percent is less than 2006 increase of
5.2 percent
Silicon Valley Remains Tech's Highest Paying Metro Area
Experienced Managers Receive Largest Pay Raises
NEW YORK, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dice, the leading career
site for technology and engineering professionals, today announced the
results of its 2007 Annual Salary Survey. The survey of more than 19,000
technology professionals found that average IT salaries in the U.S.
increased 1.7 percent to $74,570 in 2007, with experienced technology
managers seeing the largest increases. The complete survey results from
Dice.com, a Dice Holdings, Inc. company, (NYSE: DHX), illustrate key
technology industry trends and a slower overall growth in salaries versus
last year. Other findings from the survey include:
-- Continued strong salary growth in Silicon Valley, as well as other tech
centers including Boston and Atlanta;
-- IT Managers received the biggest salary increases, including Project
Managers (5.0 percent) and MIS Managers (7.8 percent);
-- The Government/Defense and Computer Software industries both grew
faster than average (2.8 percent), while the Banking/Financial industry
remained virtually flat (0.6 percent increase) after an 8.5 percent
increase in 2006;
-- An increase in the gender gap to 11.9 percent (vs. 9.7 percent in 2006)
as women's salaries held steady while their male counterparts
experienced a 2.4 percent increase;
-- Satisfaction remained high among tech workers: more than 50 percent of
respondents are happy with their salaries.
Tech salaries have slowly, but steadily increased over the last five
years since average salaries declined in the early part of the decade. In
2007, average tech salaries increased 1.7 percent, following a 5.2 percent
increase in 2006. 2006's increase was driven by an almost 9 percent climb
in the average contractor salary. In 2007, contractors still had the
largest gains at 3.7 percent (for a salary of $93,017) while full-time
workers experienced a 1.7 percent rise ($72,003). Technology professionals
continued to be in high demand in 2007, with an annual average unemployment
rate of 2.1 percent, ranking far below the national annual average of 4.6
percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"While technology professionals experienced overall slower salary
growth in 2007 than in 2006, the traditional technology hot beds of Silicon
Valley, Boston, and Atlanta saw better than average salary growth, and IT
Managers saw strong salary increases," said Scot Melland, Chairman,
President and CEO of Dice Holdings, Inc. "Technology workers remain among
the highest paid employees, especially those with management experience and
hard-to-find skills. Additionally, the majority are satisfied with their
compensation."
Top Paying Skills and Experience
IT managers are increasingly in high demand, and their salaries reflect
this. Dice.com job postings seeking a "project manager" or "project
management" have grown by 25 percent since January 2007 and by 50 percent
since January 2006. For the first time in the Dice Annual Salary Survey,
two titles averaged more than $100,000, with Project Managers joining IT
Management in the $100,000+ club. Project managers saw their salaries rise
by 5.0 percent in 2007. MIS managers' salaries increased approximately 7.8
percent to $88,934.
Technology professionals possessing certain hard-to-find skills
reported higher salaries. For instance, ETL - Extract, Transform and Load
($96,559), ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning ($95,589) and SOAP - Simple
Object Access Protocol ($95,387) were the highest paid skills. In 2007,
UNIX Solaris was the top paying operating systems skill ($90,321), while
VPN - Virtual Private Network ($72,703) was the highest paying networking
skill, and JBoss ($92,518) was the top application server skill.
Tech workers age 40 and over had the highest salary increases at
approximately 2.3 percent, while entry-level workers, with a year or less
experience, saw their 13.2 percent increase from 2006 give way to a 2.3
percent salary decline in 2007. However, entry level tech workers still
fared better than many other entry level positions in other industries, as
they took home an average of $41,457, which is higher than the Bureau of
Labor Statistics median income for full-time workers of $36,140.
The larger the company, the larger the salary increases, as companies
with more than 1,000 employees had the greatest increases (2.3 percent) and
employees at companies with less than 50 employees reported a 1.8 percent
decline in salaries.
Gender Gap
Women's salaries held steady in 2007 with an average salary of $67,507.
Over the same time period, men's salaries increased 2.4 percent to $76,582.
Consequently, the gender gap widened to 11.9 percent vs. 9.7 percent last
year.
The gender gap is smaller among consultants. Female consultants
($86,499) earned significantly more than their female full-time employee
counterparts ($65,103) and have a more narrow salary gap with male
consultants ($94,996) at 8.9 percent.
Lower skilled positions such as technical support and systems
administrators had a smaller gender gap. Women with 1-5 years of experience
saw the smallest gender gap (approximately 2.3 percent) while women with
more than 15 years of experience had the largest gap (11.3 percent); hence,
women age 40-49 also saw the largest gender gap (16.4 percent).
There is some good news for female IT professionals - Project Managers
now make $100,436, which marks the first time that females in this position
have averaged more than $100,000. This position also compares relatively
favorably to male counterparts, who earn $101,569. The highest paid
industry for women mirrors the overall survey, with banking and finance
coming in tops ($74,935). Computer software ($72,651) and
telecommunications ($72,122) round out the top three industries. Silicon
Valley is also a lucrative destination for women. With an $84,192 average
salary, this represents the top paying geographical area for females as
well as males. Women in Atlanta saw the greatest increase (5.4 percent),
while women in Philadelphia experienced the greatest decline (6.1 percent).
Females in Philadelphia saw a large increase in 2006.
Geography
Tech pros in Silicon Valley continue to cash in with the highest
salaries ($93,876) and the highest percentage increase (3.95 percent).
Boston is the second highest paid metro area ($83,465) and has the second
largest salary increase (3.93 percent). Baltimore/Washington, D.C., came in
third ($81,750), while Los Angeles ($81,039) and New York ($80,770) rounded
out the top five highest paying tech cities. Conversely, Phoenix and San
Diego saw the largest declines (5.0 percent and 4.3 percent respectively).
Both cities saw large increases last year.
Industry
E-commerce workers continued to see the largest salary increases, even
after 2006's 14 percent gain, pocketing an additional 4.6 percent in 2007.
Government/Defense and Computer Software saw healthy increases (both at 2.8
percent) this year, and with the fallout from the credit crisis, the
Banking/Financial industry not surprisingly experienced minimal growth (0.6
percent increase).
Satisfaction
More than 50 percent of the technology workers surveyed are satisfied
with their salaries, with 14 percent categorizing themselves as very
satisfied and 39 percent somewhat satisfied. Those who were very satisfied
earned an average of $93,065. The 11 percent of respondents who replied
that they are very dissatisfied had average salaries of $51,560.
Survey Methodology
The Dice Salary Survey was administered online among registered Dice
job seekers and visitors between August 22 and November 15, 2007, and there
were 19,026 participants. Respondents were invited to participate in the
survey through a notification on the Dice home page, and registered job
seekers were sent an email invitation. A cookie methodology was used to
ensure that there was no duplication of responses between or within the
various sample groups, and duplicate responses from a single email address
were removed.
Dice currently lists more than 90,000 permanent, contract and
consulting jobs nationwide for a wide variety of positions from
programmers, software engineers and system administrators to CIOs and other
technology professionals.
Table 1: Tech Salaries, 2005 - 2007
2006 -
2007
%
2005 2006 2007 Change
U.S. Average $69,700 $73,308 $74,570 1.72%
Bank / Financial /
Insurance $76,092 $82,504 $82,961 0.55%
Computer Software $74,730 $77,582 $79,756 2.80%
Telecommunications $72,430 $78,003 $77,312 -0.89%
Government / Defense $69,078 $75,086 $77,187 2.80%
Medical /
Pharmaceutical $71,714 $72,717 $74,689 2.71%
Manufacturing $66,732 $71,878 $73,470 2.21%
Internet Services $65,426 $71,854 $71,538 -0.44%
Computer Hardware $66,462 $69,987 $70,740 1.08%
Retail / Mail Order /
E-Commerce $55,909 $63,830 $66,782 4.62%
Table 2: Percent by which Women Earn Less
Than Men by Industry, 2007
Bank / Financial / Insurance -12.25%
Computer Hardware -10.91%
Computer Software -11.09%
Government / Defense -10.14%
Internet Services -7.83%
Manufacturing -6.42%
Medical / Pharmaceutical -12.96%
Retail / Mail Order / E-Commerce -15.24%
Telecommunications -8.20%
Table 3: Metro Area Salaries, 2005 - 2007
2006 -
2007
%
2005 2006 2007 Change
Silicon Valley $85,430 $90,310 $93,876 3.95%
Boston $79,211 $80,308 $83,465 3.93%
Baltimore/
Washington D.C. $75,593 $79,911 $81,750 2.30%
Los Angeles $73,911 $79,583 $81,039 1.83%
New York $76,382 $80,006 $80,770 0.95%
Seattle $73,105 $79,787 $79,636 -0.19%
Denver $74,823 $77,317 $77,846 0.68%
Dallas/Ft. Worth $71,494 $74,656 $76,560 2.55%
Chicago $71,496 $75,154 $76,407 1.67%
San Diego $72,163 $79,416 $75,994 -4.31%
Atlanta $73,684 $72,323 $74,822 3.46%
Philadelphia $71,881 $72,786 $74,442 2.28%
Hartford $72,265 $71,796 $73,372 2.20%
Houston $68,358 $71,526 $72,733 1.69%
Phoenix $70,023 $74,976 $71,246 -4.97%
Detroit $64,154 $67,080 $67,271 0.28%
Table 4: Average Salary by Years of Experience, 2005 - 2007
2006 -
2007
%
2005 2006 2007 Change
Less than 1 year $37,471 $42,414 $41,457 -2.26%
1 - 2 years $41,229 $46,935 $47,648 1.52%
3 - 5 years $52,363 $55,922 $58,037 3.78%
6 - 10 years $68,355 $72,707 $73,449 1.02%
11 - 14 years $80,933 $83,907 $86,426 3.00%
More than 15 Years $86,332 $90,125 $93,107 3.31%
Table 5: Average Salary by Title, 2005-2007
2006 -
2007
%
2005 2006 2007 Change
IT Management (CEO,
CIO, CTO, VP, Dir.,
Strategist, Architect) $102,326 $106,272 $107,830 1.47%
Project Manager $93,009 $96,475 $101,292 4.99%
MIS Manager $82,824 $82,510 $88,934 7.79%
Developer: Systems $72,732 $78,476 $88,361 12.60%
Database Administrator $81,301 $85,441 $85,092 -0.41%
Software Engineer $78,807 $83,524 $84,122 0.72%
Business Analyst $77,158 $82,288 $84,101 2.20%
Developer: Database $73,768 $79,911 $83,163 4.07%
Developer: Applications $73,636 $78,037 $79,421 1.77%
Developer: Client/Server $75,941 $74,602 $78,173 4.79%
Programmer/Analyst $65,174 $69,757 $71,623 2.68%
Quality Assurance (QA)
Tester $64,486 $68,280 $68,952 0.98%
Web Developer/Programmer $61,261 $65,327 $68,571 4.97%
Network Engineer $65,122 $67,202 $68,391 1.77%
Systems Administrator $63,698 $64,917 $66,388 2.27%
Network Manager $58,434 $62,225 $64,638 3.88%
Technical Support $47,259 $49,347 $49,384 0.07%
Desktop Support
Specialist $42,204 $44,909 $46,458 3.45%
Help Desk $37,397 $39,430 $41,154 4.37%
PC Technician $34,563 $36,848 $36,974 0.34%
Table 6: Top Average Salaries for Popular
Technology Skills and Experience, 2007
2007
ETL - Extract, Transform and Load $96,559
ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning $95,589
SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol $95,387
Business Intelligence $94,317
Data Warehouse $93,200
ITIL - Information Technology Infrastructure Library $92,663
JBoss $92,518
Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) $91,542
Korn Shell $90,948
Siebel $90,833
Table 7: Average Salary by Satisfaction, 2007
Overall - Satisfaction
% of total Avg. Salary
Very satisfied 14% $93,065
Somewhat satisfied 39% $81,684
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 15% $71,091
Somewhat dissatisfied 21% $63,612
Very dissatisfied 11% $51,560
About Dice
Dice is the leading career site for technology and engineering
professionals. With a 17-year track record of meeting the ever-changing
needs of technology professionals, companies and recruiters, our specialty
focus and exposure to highly skilled professional communities enable
employers to reach hard-to-find, experienced and qualified technology and
engineering candidates.
Dice Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DHX) is the parent company of Dice, the
leading career site for technology and engineering professionals
(http://www.dice.com); eFinancialCareers, the leading global career site network
for jobs and career management for investment banking, asset management and
securities professionals (http://www.efinancialcareers.com); ClearanceJobs, the
premier secure job board focused exclusively on candidates with active or
current U.S. Government security clearances (http://www.clearancejobs.com);
JobsintheMoney, the leading targeted career site for accounting and finance
professionals in the United States (http://www.jobsinthemoney.com); and Targeted
Job Fairs, the premier producer of career fairs and open houses for
technology and engineering, accounting and finance, and security-cleared
candidates nationwide (http://www.targetedjobfairs.com).
Media:
ICR Inc.
Stephanie Sampiere, 646-277-1222, stephanie.sampiere@icrinc.com
Matt Lindberg, 203-682-8214, matt.lindberg@icrinc.com
SOURCE Dice Holdings, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.diceholdingsinc.com
CONTACT:
Stephanie Sampiere, +1-646-277-1222,
stephanie.sampiere@icrinc.com, or Matt Lindberg, +1-203-682-8214,
matt.lindberg@icrinc.com, both of ICR Inc.
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