It is difficult to overstate the impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent social and economic fallout on the labor force. Call it greed. Call it labor finally understanding its value. Call it a response to inflation. Call it whatever you want. The outcome is the same. Workers are demanding higher salaries and more flexible ways of working.
Our IT Salary Report 2022 reflects these major changes. Figure 1 from our full report shows that average wages for IT workers will rise 4.0% at the median, much higher than the 2.3% pace last year.
This creates a problem for companies looking to hire. More companies are looking to add talent, and that talent is more expensive.
“We are hearing from our survey takers that they just cannot find the talent they need,” said Tom Dunlap, director of research for Computer Economics, a service of Avasant Research, based in Los Angeles. “And for most of them it could not come at a worse time, because most companies are coming out of the pandemic looking to fast-track digital transformation.”
Our survey respondents were in a mood to vent their hiring frustrations.
“Yes, we are facing challenges in filling positions, especially the junior positions,” the chief operation officer of a data-analysis company stated. “Candidates have several offers and are offered very high salaries from the start, making it difficult to structure a meaningful rewards-based performance path.”
“Candidates are demanding either a better work-life balance or full-time, work-from-home options,” the CTO of a supplier of automobile parts said.
“All positions have been difficult to fill over the last year, possibly due to compensation, work-from-home opportunities, and not wanting to work in healthcare due to COVID,” the CIO of a large health system commented.
The IT Salary Report 2022 executive summary contains top-line findings from our salary survey. Findings include the percentage of projected salary increases in 2022, the expected change in IT head count in 2022, the growth in the voluntary attrition rate, the percentage of IT workers and total company employees working in office, at home, or in settings, what percentage of companies adjust compensation for a move, and the toughest IT jobs to fill.
The full salary report estimates 2022 salaries for 81 IT job functions in more than 400 US metropolitan areas and 20 sectors. The report is based on our annual salary survey of IT organizations in the US, along with other sources of compensation data as well as regional and industry data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. For trend information, we also use our annual IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks study and data from our Worldwide IT Spending and Staffing Outlook for 2022 study. A complete description of the methodology is provided at the end of this report.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of our report, IT Salary Report 2022 . The full report is available at no charge for subscribers, or it may be purchased by non-clients directly from our website (click for pricing). The complete 37-page executive summary and sample salary tables can be downloaded at no charge.
