Dive Brief:
- Salaries for IT workers grew just 1.2% in 2024, marking another year of tepid growth in IT compensation, according to Dice data published last week. The company surveyed more than 2,800 technology workers for the report.
- The average tech worker earned $112,500 last year, though technologists with AI expertise commanded an 18% salary boost compared to their counterparts, Dice data show.
- With wages rising only slightly, IT professionals are more open to new opportunities. Nearly half of employed tech professionals say they actively sought new positions in 2024, up from just 29% in 2023.
Dive Insight:
The tech job market of 2024 was more constrained than in previous years as businesses recalibrated their IT priorities — and minded their budgets.
A post-pandemic era glut for technologists gave way to more restrained hiring dynamics in 2024, according to Art Zeile, CEO and president of DHI Group.
"You heard stories that somebody was hired and they weren't actually assigned to a team for multiple months," said Zeile. "It was kind of almost too much and euphoric. Now, there's a kind of regression to the mean."
Official data reflects a cooler environment for technology demand. IT unemployment spiked during multiple months in 2024, reaching a four-year high of 3.7% in June, according to a CompTIA report. Despite fluctuations, the year ended on a high note, with employers adding 7,000 tech positions in December.
The ongoing enterprise push to adopt generative AI put specialized roles back in focus, including key underlying technologies like data science. Roughly 1 in 10 job postings on Dice's platform in 2023 required AI skills, compared to nearly one-third by the end of 2024, according to Zeile.
"There's less AI-skilled professionals than there are projects to put them on," Zeile said.
