Good News in Compensation
Interesting developments have taken place in the salary picture for IT pros over the past year. Although the mean base salary our respondents reported fell from $67,619 in 2005 to $67,279 in this year's survey, bonuses and other income rose $5,877, to bring the mean total compensation figure to $73,156 in 2006 (it was $70,063 in the 2005 survey). Figure 4 lists respondents' compensation by salary range.
What factors are bringing about changes in bonus territory? In 2005, bonuses were smaller and applied to a smaller percentage of survey respondents. In 2006, bonuses are larger and are awarded to more people. A case in point is bonuses awarded for personal performance: In 2005, 33 percent of respondents received such a bonus; in 2006, 60 percent of respondents did. The figures for bonuses awarded for the achievement of company revenue and profit goals and for profit sharing provide a clue to explain why more and larger bonuses are being awarded. Bonuses were awarded for the achievement of company revenue and profit goals to 41 percent of respondents in 2006, up from 23 percent in 2005. And profit-sharing bonuses saw a similar rise: 22 percent of respondents received profit-sharing checks in 2006; only 14 percent did in 2005. In every area we surveyed in which bonuses might be awarded, including holiday, retention, and signing bonuses; paid overtime; project milestone completion; and awards for certification and training, the percentage of respondents who received such bonuses in 2006 rose over 2005 levels. Clearly, the companies you work for are doing better and are passing some of the profits along in the form of bonuses.
Perhaps as a result of this rise in total compensation, 51 percent of survey respondents told us they feel they're adequately compensated for the work they do, up just a fraction from 2005, when the survey reported an even split between respondents who felt they were adequately compensated and those who didn't. One hundred percent of you, however, feel that some level of an increase in pay would bring you to a fair compensation level for the work you do (the survey's use of the words "adequate" and "fair" was not lost on any of you). The largest percentage—27 percent—feel that a 10?14 percent rise in pay would bring them to a fair level. Two groups containing 1 percentage of respondents each determined that a 1?4 percent increase in pay and a 45?49 percent increase in pay, respectively, will do the trick.
Surprising Satisfaction
The closest this year's survey comes to a shocking conclusion is in your responses to our question about your job satisfaction. Specifically, when asked how satisfied you are with your current position, 56 percent of you said you are somewhat satisfied. Only 12 percent of you gave this answer in 2005.
Similarly, 10 percent of you are somewhat dissatisfied in 2006, compared to 56 percent in 2005. A measly 3 percent are totally dissatisfied in 2006, compared to 20 percent last year.
These large shifts invite judicious speculation. Certainly, if the company you work for turns a higher profit and shares that good fortune with you, you might feel a bit more satisfied with your job. But I think a better indicator of what could be helping IT pros feel more satisfied with their job might be associated with the two factors that you told us most positively influence your overall job satisfaction. These factors are, first, the opportunity to work with and implement new technologies, and second, the opportunity to work on a wide variety of tasks and projects. Working in IT is just basically cool. Despite the challenges, you get to fiddle with technology pretty much all day, and depending on who you work for, possibly the very latest and greatest technology.
And I wonder whether more mature Microsoft technologies aren't providing more satisfaction. Maybe running a heterogeneous environment isn't such a struggle these days. Maybe Microsoft's increased attention to its customers' happiness is paying dividends for you. In our 2005 survey, 46 percent of respondents told us that system stability and reliability issues was the number-one professional problem that kept them up at night. This year, that problem still tops the list of issues keeping you awake, but for a smaller percentage of you— 39 percent. Similarly, the problem of data and system security, which disturbed 44 percent of you in 2005, is bothering only 35 percent of you in 2006. In fact, in virtually every category on the list of professional problems that keep you up at night, the percentage of responses was down from the 2005 survey.
Onward and Upward
Could this year's industry survey mark the beginning of a trend upward for IT pros? It's a certainty that opportunity will continue to grow with the field: The US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 6 out of the 30 fastest growing occupations from 2004 to 2014 will be in IT. And in the Bureau's list of occupations that are projected to experience the largest job growth from 2004 to 2014, you'll again find IT represented.
We hope that our industry surveys help you stay in better touch with your profession and your place within it. For our part, the more we learn about you and your concerns, the better we can target our coverage to help you do your job and advance in your career. Some of the most popular articles on the Windows IT Pro Web site recently have been Paul Thurrott's coverage of Windows Vista. Here's hoping that the mainstreaming of 64-bit computing and the improvements the newest Windows OS bring will make accomplishing your day-today tasks a little easier, ratchet up the fun factor a notch, and convince management to keep those bonuses coming.
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