(IRVINE, Calif.) Despite signs of an economic slowdown, IT salaries will rise an average of 3.7% this year, according to the Computer Economics 2008 IT Salary Report. The projections also show that IT salary growth rate may be leveling out after three years of successive gains, from 1% in 2004 to 3.8% last year.
“While IT executives are under pressure to restrain spending growth, they are still facing a tight labor market and competition for talent to support investments made in infrastructure and business applications over the past two years,” said John Longwell, research director of the Irvine-based IT advisory firm, which has been publishing IT metrics since 1979.
Among the report’s major findings:
- The networking-related positions will receive the largest pay raises. The median national pay raise for networking personnel, a group that includes security analysts, network administrators, webmasters, and others, will be about 3.9%. The expansion of network management staff’s responsibilities to include security, compliance, and telecommunications is helping drive demand for these skills.
- The developers group, which includes applications programmers, database administrators, technical architects, and others, also remains near the top of the list when it comes to salary increases. This group should receive a median 3.7% increase.
- IT operations staff and IT executives and managers will see salaries rise by a median 3.5%.
The Computer Economics 2008 IT Salary Report provides base salary projections for 78 specific job functions in 78 metropolitan areas. Salary ranges are reported for small, medium and large companies. Computer Economics has been publishing salary data since 1991.