After three years of uncertainty, salary freezes, and budget cutbacks, IT professionals see signs of better days ahead.
The 2004 InfoWorld Compensation Survey of 1,092 IT professionals reveals that a majority expects IT spending in their enterprise will stabilize or increase in the coming year. Fewer executives plan hiring freezes or layoffs in the coming 12 months, a marked improvement over the
penny-pinching that dominated IT thinking in the past two years.
The downward slide of salaries reported in InfoWorld Compensation Surveys in mid-2002 and mid-2003 ended in this year’s survey. The average salary reported this year was $83,651,
down an insignificant 0.8 percent from the $84,312 reported in mid-2003 and down 4.3 percent from $87,385 in mid-2002.
Interestingly, the survey also uncovered a growing gap between upper management and those on the lower rungs of IT. Senior
IT managers’ wages reported this year averaged $117,185, up more than 6 percent from $110,458 reported in last year’s survey.
By contrast, middle management wages dropped to $80,467 in this year’s poll, down more than 4 percent from $84,075 reported
last year. IT staff received an average salary of $66,547, a 7 percent decline from $71,493 in the same period last year.
At the top end of the scale, the average salary of a senior vice president of IT/IS was $136,629 this year, up from $123,429
reported in the mid-2003 survey. Average pay for a CTO this year was reported at $119,609, up from $119,436 in mid-2003. Further
down the ranks, an IS manager made $72,426 this year, down from $72,725 reported in mid-2003. An average help desk support
specialist made $43,133 this year, down from $46,236 in mid-2003.
Enterprises were slightly more generous with bonuses. This year’s survey shows that 54 percent of respondents reported receiving
$7,645 in bonuses in the past 12 months, up from 51 percent who reported receiving an average bonus of $7,586 in last year’s
survey, and 53 percent who reported receiving an average of $8,645 in the mid-2002 survey.
Overall the data hints at a warming trend, says Janet King, director of research at IDG Research Service, who organized the
survey. “The data seems to show that the downward trend in salary and overall compensation is slowing,” King says. “We seem
to have hit the bottom and hopefully it [compensation] will go up. The overall trend is more positive than negative.”
Indeed, what has been a flat market for skilled IT professionals now seems to be opening up. The dour economic indicators
that cast a pall over IT shops are giving way to healthier economic numbers that are beginning to drive IT expenditures, many
respondents say.
Jason Dempsey, IT manager at Synoptics, an imaging systems manufacturer, describes the need to ride out lean times in the past year. But he points to the coming year with optimism. “The last 12 months have been difficult but very productive.
We’ve managed to keep sales up and overall IT spending down,” Dempsey says.
“I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum in my time with respect to budgets,” Dempsey adds. “While the challenges are good
to keep me on my toes, I’m very hopeful that the budget will inch its way back up to accommodate the internal needs of our
company and a fair salary for our hard working IT team.”
Releasing the purse strings
There is a general sense that the economy — which grew at a steady 4.2 percent pace in the first three months of this year
— is just beginning to create a demand for IT workers that in turn will drive salaries up, says Stacie Blair, CEO and co-founder
of The Pacific Firm, an executive recruiting company that services the technology industry.
Blair says her firm was retained in March and April to fill 48 positions in tech. “We picked up business in the IT sector,”
Blair says. “I think there is a sense that business is picking up and as companies look to IT, it won’t be just to support
just current business, but to support long-term capacity.” Such expansion is bound to be good for wages, Blair adds. “As the
demand for hiring increases, salaries are expected to go up.”
The long downturn that put a damper on IT expansion for many managers seems to have slowed and perhaps bottomed out, the Compensation
Survey indicates. When asked to predict their company’s total technology spending in 2004, 25 percent of the IT professionals
who responded said spending would increase, 32 percent said it would remain the same, 33 percent did not know, and just 10
percent anticipated a decrease.
Companies that have put off upgrading their IT infrastructure may view the improving economy as the time to upgrade IT infrastructure,
says Maria Schafer, program director of the Meta Group’s IT Human Capital Management Strategies program.
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