Dice’s latest Tech Salary Report has good news for technologists everywhere. Despite scary headlines about layoffs and a potential recession, salaries remain high for a wide range of skills and occupations. The data also makes it clear that tech professionals everywhere know their worth, allowing them to effectively negotiate for better benefits, compensation, and work-life balance.
Here are the key takeaways for you:
The average tech salary remains level at six figures.
Following a year of strong growth (the highest average salary ever recorded by the Dice Tech Salary Report), the average tech salary remained level at $111,348. This reflects continued strong demand for tech talent despite economic uncertainty and budget pressures on many organizations.
Tech professionals are more dissatisfied with their salaries year-over-year.
Respondents indicated greater dissatisfaction with their salary compared to 2021, with nearly half (49 percent) believing they are underpaid. Inflation is likely making many tech professionals nervous about the size of their paychecks and raises, impacting their relations with management.
Tech professionals are seeking better work-life balance through benefits and paid vacation.
We know work-life balance has become more of a priority to most since the pandemic, and this year’s survey data is further proof. In addition to ranking remote work and flexible work schedule options as critically important non-traditional benefits, 45 percent of tech professionals said they planned on using all their vacation days in 2022, up quite a bit from 2021.
Data-related tech skills demand higher pay with growing salaries
Earning some of the highest tech salaries this year were data-related tech skills such as Elasticsearch, Apache Kafka, Teradata, Redis, and Kubernetes. For tech professionals everywhere, learning specialized, data-related skills can offer more opportunities to negotiate for raises, equity and other benefits, especially within companies that desperately need those skills for their digital transformation.
On the surface, 2022 might have seemed like a scary year for tech professionals. Many tech giants and startups cut back on staff, and a steady flood of headlines promised a recession in the near future. By mid-December, tech industry layoffs totaled more than 90,000. However, as the survey data shows, employer demand for all kinds of technology skills remains strong—and tech salaries remain robust, as well. While the tech industry has wrestled with strategy readjustments (much of it related to the need to slice budgets after exuberant spending during the pandemic), tech professionals with the right mix of skills and experience can find bountiful opportunities in numerous other sectors.
Read Dice’s Tech Salary Report for even more crucial insights into the top-paying tech jobs, skills, and cities!
