How much can experience boost your salary? That’s one of many questions addressed by the latest edition of Dice’s Tech Salary Report. 

It’s been a wild few years in tech. COVID-19 forced a “perfect storm” of layoffs and business impacts, along with the mass move to remote work models and forced digitization. Then came the “Great Resignation,” and now a rush of layoffs amongst the biggest of the Big Tech companies.

In 2020 and 2021, companies desperately needed tech workers and were willing to pay massive premiums to get them, even for those with little technical experience. In some cases, salaries increased by more than 20 percent—even for those tech professionals with relatively little experience.

But the data from 2022 shows a level of stabilization that we haven’t seen in prior years. The cohort with less than one year of technical experience faced a drop of more than 8 percent in average salary as organizations began to tighten belts in advance of a recession (and could no longer afford to hire tech talent at any cost). Furthering that narrative, tech professionals with 6-10 years of technical experience (+1.7 percent), 11-15 years of technical experience (+2.8 percent) and more than 15 years of technical experience (+4.3 percent) all saw relatively modest average salary increases. The largest salary growth for 2022 was for technology professionals with one to two years of technical experience (7.5 percent increase), followed by a 6.6 percent average salary increase for those with three to five years of technical experience. 

While the slowdown in average tech salary increases was always going to happen (most companies don’t have unlimited funds to spend on people), it’s important to remember that the demand for tech talent across the country remains extremely high, and attractive salaries are available—just maybe not in the industries you have always considered to be the most interesting. Widening your gaze could be beneficial, as well as adopting a “trust but verify” approach to each company’s mission, culture, tech stack and information on what it’s really like to work there.

For more data on salaries, including the biggest factors driving salary changes, check out Dice’s Tech Salary Report!