How many hours a week does the average tech pro work? According to new survey data from Spiceworks, a network for the tech industry, full-time tech pros are putting in an average of 52 hours per week, while part-timers work roughly 21 hours per week. More than half of respondents worked more than a 40-hour week, with 18 percent saying they topped out at more than 60 hours. “The long hours that many in IT experience aren’t typically conducive to employee happiness (especially if there’s not equivalent compensation),” read Spiceworks’ blog posting on the matter, “and crazy hours are a definite red flag that IT could use a little help and a good way to quantitatively show management that something needs to change.” There’s a direct correlation between hours that tech pros work and the number of help-desk personnel at their organization; those who worked for companies with more support staff tended to report working fewer hours. “Anyone in IT can tell you that a big job related headache is fighting fires caused by end user issues, and now we have the data to prove it,” the Spideworks posting added. Industry category was another factor; those tech staffers involved in construction, manufacturing, and non-profits tended to work significantly longer than those involved in healthcare, education, and government. Tech-pro claims of being overworked and underpaid have persisted for years; even among comparatively well-paid tech consultants, the number of hours worked has steadily crept upward (albeit along with per-hour fees). Workload-related stress also has a nasty way of driving tech pros out of their respective sub-industries. Those pressures have driven some companies to pursue programs for better work-life balance among their employees.