Tech Workers Feel 'Infinite Loop' as Wages Remain Flat

Technology professionals endured a second straight year of nearly flat salaries, according to the 2011‐2010 Annual Salary Survey from Dice, a career site for technology and engineering professionals. Tech workers, on average, garnered salary increases of about one percent (0.7%) to $79,384 from $78,845 in 2009, after receiving a similar increase the previous year.

Despite the marginal increase, there are glimmers of the business recovery within the study. Nearly half of those surveyed (49%) received a salary increase in 2010 compared to just 36 percent who saw raises in the previous year. And more technology professionals received bonuses: 29 percent compared with 24 percent of respondents in 2009.

Tech professionals expressed slightly more satisfaction over pay than last year, with 50 percent "somewhat" or "very satisfied," an increase from 46 percent of respondents who felt that way last year. Still, nearly four out of ten technology professionals anticipate they could make more money if they change employers in 2011. Those professionals (24%) who felt switching employers would not increase their pay earned, on average, nearly $13,000 more than those who anticipate finding higher salaries elsewhere.

Notwithstanding the hopeful signs in the study, it appears wages have been reset lower for technology professionals who are entering the field. For the second straight year, the average salaries of technology professionals with less than two years experience have declined, and are six percent below their peak average wages in 2008.

There are two clear cut paths for technology professionals to earn more money: working for a larger company and/or continuing to add expertise and skills. First, technology professionals on average earned $88,075 working for companies in excess of 5,000 employees, while the smallest companies (50 or fewer employees) paid on average $69,658 to their technology workers. As for skills, those with annual wages of $100,000 or more were technology professionals with experience in Advanced Business Application Programming ($105,887), Informatica ($101,898), Extract Transform and Load ($100,983) and Service Oriented Architecture ($101,827).

More information on IT can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com.