Ambition Technology Blog

One of the most common questions being  asked right now is “are salaries and contract rates going up in line with the  increase in demand for IT resources?”  My initial reaction is a resounding, ‘yes’,  however looking a little deeper there are some interesting points of note starting to occur across the Technology Industry.

Using the relatively widespread salary benchmark reports that pop up on the internet from a variety of sources, I was surprised at how low some of the average salaries were being reported.  They certainly didn’t match up with what I was seeing day-to-day but  with any statistical data you cannot read too much in to it without carefully examining the small print i.e. Scope and reach of the survey and the number and class of respondents.

So digging a little deeper I used a matrix of tools to see if there really was any truth to the rate changes being reported. Using a number of major job boards  and cross referencing our own candidate database information and job placement data I was able to refine my findings. Finally to add a further layer of reference I spoke to other IT recruiters and a number of my current clients.

The result – most of the online reports appear to be lacking a ‘real world’ authenticity to them and are probably out of line by approximately 10%-20%. Maybe these reports are not targeted around the more highly skilled professionals working in some of the larger enterprises because in those workplaces  salaries certainly tend to be higher.

Whatever the reason for the discrepancies,  I have come to the conclusion that these reports are not an accurate reflection of the salaries being paid in the current market. What scares me most about this is that a significant number of  Employers use these tools to base their salary benchmarking upon. That then leaves little room for evaluating different skill levels of employees, their education, experience,  or potentialvalue to the business.

Let’s face it the market is a competitive place and you have to consider lots of different scenarios when deciding just where to place your salary bandings.

My advice to employers is to not to rely on salary reports alone, despite how accurate the claim to be, look at the salaries on offer on job boards, ask your recruitment partners to do a benchmarking exercise and probably the one of the easiest ways is to analyse the expectations of candidates currently on the market- in most cases the proof certainly is in the pudding.