Dive Brief:
- The majority of IT workers are earning more this year than in 2022, with average annual salaries increasing by nearly $20,000 from last year, according to Skillsoft’s IT Skills and Salary report. The company surveyed more than 5,000 IT workers and decision-makers.
- Cloud skills command the highest salaries in the U.S., the report found. IT pros with cloud skills earned around $165,000 annually, surpassed only by tech executives, who averaged $168,000 annually this year.
- Companies also placed a premium on IT architecture and design skills which drew an average salary of around $142,689, a 12% increase from 2022.
Dive Insight:
With IT unemployment rates nearing historical lows, skills gaps put pressure on companies to pay up for top talent this year. In November, the rate fell to 1.7%, its lowest level since January, according to a CompTIA review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
“Demand continues to surpass supply when it comes to skilled tech talent,” Orla Daly, CIO at Skillsoft, said in an email. “It’s therefore not surprising that salaries continue to rise, especially in areas like cloud computing and IT architecture, where the talent pool is already more limited.”
App development, programming roles had the biggest increase year over year
Talent strategies are top of mind for executives heading into the new year as IT leaders look to push forward on lofty goals and initiatives, many of which are tied to increased interest in AI.
The frenzy around generative AI has led organizations to seek out workers with related skills in areas needed to ready the tech stack for implementation, such as architecture, infrastructure and data science.
“With the current AI wave, I expect salaries will grow across other IT functions, as well … we’re starting to see [the trend] already with AI engineering jobs,” Daly said. “As long as there is a gap between supply and demand for skilled tech talent, I expect we will continue to see these higher salary jumps.”
App developers and programmers, which included software engineers, quality assurance testing and database developers, along with several other roles, had the highest jump in annual compensation year over year, increasing by around 47%.
Part of the jump for the category was due to the change in experience levels of respondents, according to Skillsoft. The lion’s share of app development and programming roles last year said they had less than one year on the job, while only 3% of this year’s respondents said the same.
