IT pros' employers also provide noncash or indirect cash benefits. Most frequently offered, and probably most important, is health-care coverage. More than half (58.3 percent) of respondents receive some health benefits—that's not a bad number, but it means that 41.7 percent are doing without such benefits. Slightly more than 46 percent of employers have a 401(k)- or 403b-matching program—403b is the 401(k) equivalent for nonprofits and public sector organizations. Many IT pros (39.1 percent) receive some help with education- or training-related expenses, and 27 percent can take advantage of company-paid phone or cable lines to work from home.
Other, less common benefits are stock purchase plans (13 percent), health-club membership (8.1 percent), and sabbaticals (4.1 percent). Slightly less than 3 percent get some help with day care. Ten percent enjoy a company car or car allowance. And some respondents wrote in that they receive help with fuel, other types of commuting expenses, and parking. Other write-in responses ranged from "free lunches" and "compensatory days off" to "a coffee mug," "a 20-pound turkey at Thanksgiving," "a nice atmosphere," and "I'm lucky they pay me."
Compensation Fairness and Changes
Now that you have all this information about your peers' salaries and overall income—how do you feel about your own compensation? Are you adequately compensated for the work you do? If you said yes, you're in the minority. Nearly 58 percent of the survey respondents said they didn't receive adequate compensation. Aside from the two storage administrators who were both content with their compensation, executive managers were the happiest. Of this group, 80.5 percent agreed that their income was fine. It's interesting to note that CIO/CTOs, the group with the highest income, were among the least satisfied—63 percent weren't happy. The least content were Help desk professionals, 68.7 percent of whom thought their pay was inadequate. Quite possibly, no amount of money would be enough to compensate for having to answer end users' questions all day long.
The largest number of those who said they weren't satisfied with their income would be happy with a 6 percent to 10 percent increase or an 11 percent to 15 percent increase. A group almost as large would like a 16 percent to 20 percent pay raise. Wouldn't we all?
Compensation for 8.7 percent of IT professionals in the survey will be lower this year than it was in 2003 (lower by 10 percent or more for 4.5 percent of respondents). Another 19.5 percent of IT pros will have the same income as last year, and a fortunate 71.8 percent will see an increase. A respectable number—17.7 percent—will enjoy an increase of 10 percent or more, but more IT pros will see gains in the single digits, especially 5 percent or less.
Many survey respondents took the time to describe changes they're experiencing in their compensation and benefits. IT pros are working harder (due to smaller staffs), getting smaller pay raises, and contributing more for their health-care coverage. "We are being asked to do more work with less staff, for very little gain in pay. Our health insurance premium and copayments have increased about 10 percent. Our company has reduced incentive perks. These changes are for the foreseeable future until the economy picks up," said one respondent in a comment echoed by many others.
Compensation isn't the most crucial factor for IT professionals when they're job hunting, but it's in the top three. Using the scale of Not at all important, Somewhat important, and Very important, respondents were asked to rate the importance of 25 factors when choosing a new job. The factors that received the highest number of Very important ratings were Challenge of work (selected by 73.1 percent of the respondents) and Base salary and Professional development and training (tied at 72.1 percent each). Relatively high percentages of IT pros also gave Very important ratings to four other factors relating to compensation: Overall compensation (66.7 percent), Annual raises (64.5 percent), Benefits package (62.6 percent), and Performance incentives/bonuses (57.4 percent). Only one compensation-related factor—Stock options—wasn't that important to respondents: Just 21.8 percent of the respondents rated this factor as Very important.
Personal Influences
Personal characteristics such as gender, age, experience, and education all have an impact on IT professionals' earnings. The survey's findings are in line with what you'd expect—older males with more education and more years of IT experience do better.
The national trend of men earning more money than women generally prevailed for the IT pros in the survey. The survey results also support the belief that the profession is composed of more males than females: 88 percent of respondents were male and only 12 percent were female. On average, the men will be paid about $4907 more this year than their female counterparts. Male IT pros will receive an average wage of $57,600, and female IT pros will bring home $52,693. The greatest difference between the two genders' salaries was in the executive management category. Female executive managers will earn an average salary of $29,333 this year, while males will earn $76,408—a difference that represents not a gap but rather a $47,075 canyon between the two groups' salaries. However, only about 4 percent of female respondents were executive managers, and only 3.7 percent of female respondents classified themselves as CIO/CTOs, suggesting that men continue to hold more high-level positions in the IT world than women do.
Security administrators had the second largest gender pay gap, with male respondents earning $26,989 more than female respondents in 2004. Male and female consultants will bring home paychecks closest in amount to each other, with males earning only $426 more than females this year. One possible reason why the consultants' gender pay gap is so narrow is that consultants dictate their own rates and, to be competitive in the market, they set similar rates.
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dstrubhar January 06, 2005 (Article Rating: