There's good news and bad news on the IT salary front.
Large salary increases are expected in 2006 for some high-demand
specialty positions such as IT auditor, business systems analyst,
and business continuity analyst.
That's according to the 2006 salary guide compiled by Robert
Half Technology, an IT recruiting agency headquartered in Menlo
Park, Calif, based on the company's research of thousands of job
orders across North America.
In Canada, IT auditors will see the greatest starting salary
increases of any single job classification in 2006, with base
salaries expected to rise by 7 per cent. Business systems analysts
in data administration will also see increases of 7 per cent, while
business continuity analysts will increase 5.9 per cent.
But for most IT professionals, starting salaries will remain
near 2005 levels, with average increases of 1.7 per cent expected
this year.
"For many years, IT budgets have been on hold, but business
trends are picking up," says Sandra Lavoy, a vice-president at
Robert Half's Ottawa office. "Companies now need to upgrade their
systems, and they also need to worry about compliance." The laws of
supply and demand are driving the increases, says Lavoy.
Once considered a dead-end job, the talent pool for IT auditors
shrank over the years, but demand is strong now. "IT audit is now
part of the risk management function, and that's one of the direct
leads to the CIO position," says Brenda Kerton, a research analyst
with London-based Info-Tech Research Inc.
Similarly, many database administrators got out of the business
during the tech downturn. "Many were fed-up of being laid off from
high-tech jobs, so there are fewer candidates now," says Lavoy.
The purse strings on many IT budgets are finally being loosened
this year, and this is fueling demand for business analysts in
general, she says. Companies need to upgrade their systems, but
they need prioritize the areas to tackle before proceeding. "So
companies are saying, lets bring in some business analysts, see
what's going on and what projects we should start with. We're
seeing this throughout industries," says Lavoy.
These findings are corroborated by a recent survey conducted by
Ipsos Reid, a market research company based in Toronto, into IT
budget trends in Canada for 2006. In the large enterprise segment,
overall spend is projected to increase by 7 per cent, but spending
in mid-sized companies is expected to decline by 4 per cent
overall. "But that decline is in hardware and infrastructure
spend," says Lise Dellazizzo, vice-president of information
technology practice at Ipsos Reid. "Mid-market companies are not
planning to decrease spend on software."
Demand for business continuity analysts is being driven by
reports of disasters in the news rather than loosened budgetary
strings. "Katrina brought that home in a hurry. Demand is following
the recognition that companies haven't been doing what they need to
do in this area," says Kerton. But Lavoy says recruiters are having
trouble finding qualified candidates in this category.
Several other categories such as lead applications developers,
data analysts and b surprisingly b technical writers are also
seeing increases greater than 4 per cent. "Between Sarbanes-Oxley,
IT auditing and new systems implementation, companies need to
document everything, so technical writing is now a big part of our
recruiting business," says Lavoy.
Demand is strong in the usual top two geographic regions b
Ontario and Alberta b and these trends track to high-demand
industry sectors such as legal services and oil and gas.
Some renewed demand is also coming from the high-tech sector,
suggesting life is seeping back into the sector. "There's a nice
kick-up there too b we're seeing business from companies we haven't
dealt with in five years," says Lavoy.
Companies are willing to pay premium rates for candidates in
high-demand categories with the 3-5 years' experience typically
required for these positions, but less experienced candidates are
still out of luck. "Companies are not willing to settle for less
experienced candidates. They don't have time for training in this
economy," says Lavoy.
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