Recent gains in employment haven't helped compensation as IT professionals face another year of paltry raises and decreasing benefits.
The median salary for all IT professionals is $78,759, representing an increase of just .68 percent over the 2011 average of $78,229, according to a mid-year survey of 55,000 professionals conducted by disaster-planning firm Janco Associates. Large companies gave IT staffers an average raise of 1.03 percent during the first six months of 2012, while staff-level employees in mid-size firms received an average increase of .68 percent. This puts overall compensation back at levels last seen in January 2008 and 2007.
The most recent Dice Salary Survey told a slightly better story when it was released in January:
After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals on average garnered salary increases of more than 2%, boosting their average annual wage to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010.
Janco's report says total compensation for IT executives in large companies actually decreased, as wages rose slightly but bonuses fell. The mean compensation for CIOs in large enterprises is now $179,742 (an increase of 1.75 percent). In mid-sized firms, it's 165,472, up 0.69 percent.
More on Your Shoulders
While the cost of providing benefits has increased slightly over the last year, employers continue to remodel their programs by shifting costs and giving staffers greater responsibility to manage their benefits, according to a new study by the Society for Human Resource Management. Organizations spent an average 19 percent of an employee’s annual salary on voluntary benefits, 18 percent on mandatory benefits and 10 percent on pay for time not worked.
Only 43 percent of IT professionals in the Janco survey participate in a 401(k) plan, which is down from 47 percent last year. And just 37 percent received a personal performance bonus, down from 48 percent in 2011. Thirty five percent of employees receive a bonus based on enterprise performance, about the same as last year.
On a more positive note, Janco says companies are moving help desks and data center operations in-house, resulting in increased demand for data center managers. Meanwhile, mandated requirements for records management systems and electronic medical records have increased the demand for quality control staff and custodians (librarians) of mechanized records.
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