X
Business

IT workers got a raise in 2008, tech job site says

Businesses may be cutting the amount they spend on technology, but the Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen notes that tech workers got a raise in 2008.The average IT pro made $78,035 last year, a 4.
Written by Andrew Nusca, Contributor

Businesses may be cutting the amount they spend on technology, but the Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen notes that tech workers got a raise in 2008.

The average IT pro made $78,035 last year, a 4.6 percent increase from 2007, according to tech job site Dice.com, which surveyed almost 20,000 of its visitors.

Security analysts got the biggest raises in 2008, with an average salary increase of 8.4 percent to $86,778. Software engineers were next, with an increase of 7 percent to $90,031. Application developers got a 6.6 percent raise to $84,672.

Not bad, eh?

Overall, IT managers had the highest salaries, raking in a comfortable $111,998 in 2008.

Database administrators made $89,742, and network engineers took home $72,496. System developers were the only group tracked by Dice.com to get a pay cut in 2008, with the average salary dropping 1.3% to $87,211.

IT workers in Silicon Valley were the highest paid, with an average 2008 salary of $97,259, followed by those in Washington D.C. ($86,841), Los Angeles ($86,766), New York ($85,452), and Boston ($84,627).

On the other hand, workers in smaller cities—Charlotte, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., and Baltimore—received the biggest raises.

Dice.com says its survey was conducted between August 27 and November 15 -- so the salaries may not reflect recent cuts due to the economic downturn. Many businesses have trimmed their IT budgets and cut jobs over the last few months.

Still, IT workers feel the economic undertow: Top concerns were staying valuable to employers (22%), fears that their jobs will be eliminated (20%) and that tech projects will get canceled (12%).

Just 12% of respondents said that they had no concerns.

Editorial standards