Salary Surveys
Redmond’s 2011 Windows IT Salary Survey: Bigger Bucks
For Redmond readers, compensation has gone up and raises and bonuses made a comeback after a mostly flat year in 2010.
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IT salaries and the recession: One day, we might talk about the first topic without mentioning the other, but this is not that day. That's because the recession's sting over the last five years lingers among Redmond readers. When asked what impact the recession had on their IT budgets in the last year, 47 percent of readers say the impact is major, and that impact is felt in salaries, but more often in hiring.
Nevertheless, Redmond's 16th annual IT Salary Survey offers some sweet rays of good news this year: Salaries, raises and bonuses have all gone up in the 12 months since we last surveyed readers (see Chart 1). The increase in average salary, to $84,608, is 1.2 percent higher than (and nearly double) last year's flat 0.6 percent increase over 2009. Still, it might take some time before we see salary increases like we saw employers dole out before the darkest days of the recession. Hopefully this will all be part of an attempt to retain the best employees, and these increases may actually come with the return of benefits like stock options, 401(k) matching and training dollars. Well, one can at least hope.
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With higher salaries also thankfully came better raises and bonuses, which we'll get to later in this report. We'll also peer into other parts of the salary picture to see how Microsoft technologies, IT expertise, or education and other factors can impact compensation.
Some readers note a gradual recovery for IT jobs in a still-tough economy: "The recession isn't over," says Kris B., who isn't an economist but a developer with a digital agency in Spokane, Wash. She explains: "In some ways, the IT industry may be more recession-proof than other industries because technology is the driving force behind so much of the economy." Her sentiments on IT and the economy are shared by dozens of other readers, many of whom agreed to be contacted after we conducted the initial survey.
"I think the employment situation for IT people is gradually improving," says Kim T., an IT executive in Chicago. Still, he qualifies that statement by saying, "As long as we're in tough economic times, there will be downward pressure on salaries."
Keith M., a systems integrator for an outsourcing firm in Richardson, Texas, agrees: "I believe the worst part of it is over, but that the recovery will be slow. I expect slow improvement [in compensation] over the next 12 to 18 months."
[Many respondents agreed to talk with us on the condition that we maintain their anonymity. We refer to them by first name and last initial throughout this article. -- Ed.]