Tech pay: banks are best, IT management tops

Economic Times of India ^ | 02/12/2004

[Euro-American Scum]

Got two Y Chromosomes, an advanced IT degree and a H1-B or a Green Card? Didn't make $68,000 last year? Maybe you're being being short-changed on your pay-packet.

Whoa! It's not that simple, actually, according to data released by IT job researchers Dice. For that figure is just the average salary of IT pros across age-groups, specialisation baskets and geographies.

The same figure for women, predictably, is lower - at $62,000.

Actually, sex and age have a lot more influence on tech salaries in the US -- the source of sustenance for the majority of Indian H1-B and L-1 pros --than you'd imagine. While the difference between average salaries for men and women is, as we saw, $6,000, the disparity when it comes to consultant pay is much more.

The average compensation for male consultants is about $96,000 - versus $82,000 for women. As for why consultant salaries are higher, well, remember these assignments needn't be permanent, and usually don't offer the benefits that being part of the payroll does.

As for age, well, you'll be maxing out somewhere between 40 and 49, when the average salary is $76,300 - versus $105,200 for consultants. When you start out, somewhere between 18 and 24, you'll be making $42,800 on salary, compared to $61,200 on consultancy fees.

En route, you can expect $57,100 in the 25-29 age-group ($74,700 for consultants), and $ 71,200 ($91,500 for consultants) between 30 and 39. And once you're past 49, well, the decline begins, with the salary falling to $75,400 ($97,100 for consultants).

On to industry segments! The best IT salaries are in banks and financial services, standing at an average of $75,300. Obviously, this is one sector that will never stop needing quality IT. However, the mainstream software sector is close behind, with $72,600, followed by telecom with $71,400. The pharma sectgor, Internet services , manufacturing and US Government Defence follow, with IT hardware bringing up the bottom at just $57,500. Those figures are, of course, less important than the pecking order of the sectors in terms of how fat the paycheques are.

The real big bucks, though, are determined by specialisation. Pros in IT management can take home a cool $125,000! Project managers and IT analysts rate high, too, with paycheques of $116,600 and $110,700. Clearly, the top three IT posts are management-related.

Among ops players, systems developers are the best paid, with $100,000, followed closely by database administrators at $99,900 and software engineers at $99,200. Applications developers, client-server developers and database developers earn progressively lower salaries, with systems administrators bottoming out at $85,400.

To drill down deeper, top paying skills include SAP and Peoplesoft. Full-time workers with these skills reported earning $81,200 and $78,600, respectively. Full-time tech workers with experience in Unix and C/C++, the two skills most requested by employers on the Dice site, reported earning $75,200 and $72,400, respectively.

Obviously, you can't pick your age and sex. But get the specialisation right to make the biggest bucks out of your H1-B and L-1 bang.

[Euro-American Scum]

I thought Indian workers work so much cheaper. I know! These must be some of the jobs Americans don't want to do, according to the White House.

[Euro-American Scum]

Ping!

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