* Starting salaries for IT professionals are expected to increase
If you need to hire an IT auditor, lead applications developer or network security administrator in 2006, you can expect to pay a bigger starting salary, according to the findings of the Robert Half Technology 2006 Salary Guide.
Base compensation for IT auditors is expected to jump 11.2%, to a range $67,000 to $94,250 per year. The demand is due in part to greater focus on regulatory mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Pay for a lead applications developer who is starting a new post will rise 5.3% in 2006, bringing the range to between $72,000 and $98,250 per year. And starting salaries for network security administrators are projected to increase 5.2%, to a range of $67,500 to $94,750 per year.
Overall, starting salaries for IT professionals are expected to increase 3% over 2005, according to the IT staffing firm’s annual salary survey. Though that might not seem like a fat raise, it’s significantly better than the increase of a half percent in base compensation that was projected at this time last year.
“Recent gains in IT employment activity, teamed with a shallow candidate pool, are fueling competitions for highly skilled individuals. As a result, hiring managers are reassessing their compensation packages,” says Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “In addition, companies are accelerating the hiring process to avoid losing top candidates to competing employers.”
Robert Half Technology’s salary guide is based on analysis of thousands of job orders managed by the company’s U.S. offices. To download the complete report, click here.
