Technology industry workers are enjoying historic low unemployment rates, and those workers with the right skills are commanding high salaries. According to the Dice 2020 Tech Salary Report, the annual average pay in the technology industry reached $94,000 in 2019, up 1.3% from 2018. And those workers in the right specialties, and in the right regions, have enjoyed significant increases in salary.
However, as is often the case, the averages don’t accurately tell the story.
For instance, in the St. Louis region, technology wages rose 13.6%. While in Columbus Ohio they rose 14.2% and Kansas City 8.1%. While other regions didn’t fare so well, and some actually witnessed their wages drop. For instance, in the Philadelphia region, they dropped 4.5% and in the Tampa metro a surprising 8.3%.
As for the technologies with the most rapidly rising salaries, Dice found those to be Chef at a $132,136 average salary and growing at 19.50% a year. Also, the Spring Framework reach $127,286 and grew at 16%, while Jetty reached $128,751 and grew at 14.40%.
A number of regions showed a really big salary increase while the number of job postings declined. Consider the St. Louis area, which enjoyed that 13.6% bump despite the number of job postings falling by 6%. Why the big spike? According to Dice, large enterprises such as Boeing, IBM, Wells Fargo and Enterprise Rent-A-Car all seek talent in large numbers.
Then there’s the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region, which saw salaries reaching roughly $95,000 in 2019, with technology jobs in the area increasing by 5%. Dice cited large employers such as Lockheed Martin, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines as driving demand.
When it comes to specific positions, it’s not likely a surprise to anyone that security ranked high. According to Dice’s report, employers want security engineers who are adept at vulnerability analysis, threat modeling and can help prevent data loss.
“As a result, salaries (on average) have risen from $110,716 in 2018 to $121,228 in 2019 (representing 9.5% year over year growth),” Dice wrote. Employers who seek security engineers should expect the search to take an average of 40 days.
Dice found that engineers in high demand hold CompTIA Security+, Certified Information Systems Security Professional and GIAC Certified Incident Handler certifications.
Another growing job is that of data scientist. Enterprises are collecting enormous amounts of data and it takes data scientists to make sense of it all. And those with the right set of data science skills and experience are getting paid. From 2018 through 2019, data scientist average salaries grew from $95,404 to $106,298–an 11% bump. The number of data science job postings grew 7% and the average time to fill them is 46 days.
Because so many technology workers express being happy with their current job, Dice concluded that organizations are going to have to get creative with their total compensation packages, which could mean more remote working, increased training, a focus on healthy culture and work/life balance efforts.
“With all that in mind, 2020 is the year for businesses to meet their recruiting goals by understanding and acting on the salaries and benefits that technologists value,” said Dice in a statement.
What benefits are employees looking for? The Dice report found employees are interested in college tuition reimbursement (48%), wellness programs (45%), maternity/paternity leave (45%) and paid volunteer opportunities (35%).
“In addition to more nuanced benefits, remote work remains a desire for more than half of technologists as 61% of survey respondents said that they wanted to work remotely at least half the time, but only 24% of them have the opportunity to do so,” the report said.
Finally, the Dice report found that work-life balance was the top-rated motivator employers provided to technologists (40%) in 2019. Work-life balance beat job recognition (33%), health and retirement benefits (31%), as well as higher compensation or promotion (26%).
“We’re excited to share that this year’s report brought to light a new tool for balancing the demands of technology work,” said Michelle Marian, chief marketing officer at DHI Group, Inc., Dice’s parent company. “With over a quarter of technologists seeking opportunities to be more creative in their jobs, employers can meet this need by offering special projects and empowering technologists to approach projects in distinct and creative ways, allowing room for continued innovation and in turn, increased satisfaction for technologists.”
Dice.com administered the survey online between October 14, 2019, and December 17, 2019, with 12,837 employed U.S.-based technology professional respondents.
— George V. Hulme
