An annual salary survey by Dice®, a career site aimed technology professionals has shown that storage and networking skills have attracted salary increases in the past year. Industry-specific increases were highest in hospitality, Internet, manufacturing, consumer products and banking areas.
Overall technology salaries in the U.S. were essentially flat year-over-year (-1%), at $92,081 annually from $93,328* in 2015, with some areas across the country and in specific skill areas seeing increases.
Highly-skilled technology professionals remain in the most demand, especially those candidates proficient in the technologies needed to support industry transformation and growth. For example, both the storage and networking sectors, the categories where Dice has found the most salary increases overall, are undergoing major disruption. The migration from hardware-based storage to cloud storage[1] and the explosion of IoT technologies connecting billions of devices (Gartner) are creating a demand for skills to support these transitions. When industries experience transformation at this level, it creates skills demand and increased salaries.
The following graphic shows the skills that are attracting the highest salaries for technical skills, along with the areas that received the largest salary increases for programming languages.
“Skills that were used a year ago may not be as prominent today; skills that are relevant today will evolve tomorrow. This creates a marketplace where both tech professionals and employers must keep their fingers on the pulse of skills training and demand,” said Bob Melk, President, Dice. “The skills areas which garnered salary increases indicate where professionals and employers should focus their training and recruiting efforts.”
Technology professionals remain confident in their career choices and are willing to relocate for greater opportunity. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their compensation, up one point from 2015, and 27 percent are more willing to relocate to a new city for a job, up two points from 2015.
While 67 percent of tech pros remain confident they could find a favorable new position, in 2017, finding a relevant position for their skillsets is the biggest concern (15%), followed by keeping their skills up to date (14%) and position elimination (10%), all of which underscore the increasing need for professionals to continue skills development and training.
Sixty-one percent of tech pros received a salary increase from a year ago and 9 percent reported a decrease. Increased compensation is the most common motivator employers provided to tech pros in 2016 (18 percent), followed by flexible work location and ability to telecommute (14 percent) and more interesting and challenging assignments (12 percent).
