Main image of article Master Salary Prediction to Compete for Top Tech Talent
While tech salaries overall grew only slightly last year, skills in Big Data, Cloud and Process Management are in high demand and driving compensation upward. Being aware of these “big picture” salary trends is vital to your success as a talent acquisition professional, but how do you know if the salary being offered for a particular position is truly comparable to what tech pros in your market are actually being paid? For instance, what is a competitive salary for a Data Scientist in San Jose skilled in Hadoop, Scala and Numpy with five years of experience?

Introducing Customized, Skills-Based Salary Estimates

Until recently, this question was hard to answer; in tech, skills are often more important than job title, years of experience or education in determining competitive compensation. That’s why Dice has launched a new, skills-driven Salary Calculator that accurately pinpoints the compensation necessary to attract the best tech talent in your market. In addition to considering traditional data points such as location, title and experience, the Dice Salary Calculator is unique in that it also accounts for the impact that multiple tech skills have on a position’s compensation to more accurately predict a salary. Our proprietary machine-learning model incorporates desired salary information that tech professionals share with potential employers on Dice. The model currently uses over 600,000 data inputs, with new data being added weekly. We’re excited to share this powerful new tool with you; try it out our free Salary Calculator.

Look Beyond Salary to Compete for Talent

Since 2009, our annual Salary Survey has seen steady increases in the number of tech pros who report their employers offering incentives to retain talent, including increased compensation, flexible work location and hours, more challenging assignments, paid training and vacation. In fact, 71 percent of respondents reported they received some kind of motivator in 2017, compared to only 53 percent in 2009. But what if you can’t offer the cash incentives to attract the tech talent you need? Besides dollar signs, what else are tech candidates looking for? Download Dice's 2018 Tech Salary Report Now!

Workplace Flexibility is on the Rise

When focusing on non-monetary incentives, flexibility in work location has gained favor in recent years, steadily growing from 10 percent in 2013 to 14 percent in 2017. And, for the first time since we began asking about motivators in 2009, increased compensation was offered less frequently as a perk versus the previous year. So what’s driving this change in the way tech pros like to work? Digital transformation. Mobile collaboration and messaging technologies plus bandwidth proliferation are now allowing businesses to hire, engage and retain top talent anytime and anywhere in the world, far beyond the physical confines of traditional office space. Tech employees value this flexibility, and they want even more. Dice’s salary survey revealed 60 percent of tech pros would like to work remotely half of the time or more, but only 22 percent currently do so. To dig deeper into how much tech pros value workplace flexibility, we conducted a separate snap poll and about two-thirds (63 percent) said they would take a pay cut to telecommute at least half of the time. More than a quarter (27 percent) would reduce their salary by 11 percent or more to work remotely half of the time.

Be Informed and Flexible in 2018

As you recruit in 2018, remember these two tips to help you land (and keep) top tech talent: Know exactly what top talent is worth using Dice’s new Tech Salary Calculator; and look beyond compensation to incentives such as workplace flexibility to keep your tech workforce engaged, motivated and productive.