IT salaries inched up nearly 2 percent in 2012, pushing compensation back up to January 2008 levels. Some IT professionals, however, enjoyed significantly higher increases, particularly CIOs and employees focused on quality control, records management, and data-center operations.
Between January 2012 and January 2013, the total mean compensation for all IT professionals has increased from $77,773 to $79,312, according to research company Janco Associates' "2013 IT Salary Survey." At midsized companies, total IT compensation increased by 2.39 percent, from $74,016 to $75,784. At large enterprises, median compensation rose from $81,531 to $82,840, or around 1.6 percent.
Large-enterprise CIOs saw particularly significant gains in terms of base pay, a 6.04 percent boost up to an average of $182,210. CIOs at midsized enterprises saw a pay boost of 1.6 percent, up to $165,820. The report did not include specifics on bonuses, which hit upward of $7 million at the largest companies in 2011; it just noted that they remained steady year over year.
Overall, IT executives at midsized companies have fared better than their enterprise counterparts. At smaller companies, their salaries are mostly back to where they were pre-recession, with a near-3 percent increase from $122,031 to $125,638 for the year. Large-company IT execs' salaries are just below what they were in 2008, dipping from $141,358 at the start of 2012 to $139,230 by year's end.
Across the board, salary changes varied significantly depending on job title and company size. The following IT positions at large enterprises saw the highest pay increases, by percentage, for the year:
- Computer operations shift manager saw their total mean compensation increase by 12.26 percent, from $64,747 to $72,682
- Network services supervisor pay increased by 12.11 percent from $54,740 to $61,369
- Quality control manager compensation swelled by 11.66 percent, from $77,162 to $86,160
- Librarian pay at large enterprise increased by 9.42 percent, from $42,988 to $47,036
- Application development managers' pay grew by 8.52 percent, from $77,888 to $84,526
- Production control analysts now have a mean total compensation of $62,849, an 8.26 percent increase over $58,054 from a year ago
- Computer operations shift supervisor take home 8.25 percent more, from $44,959 to $48,668
- Managers of production services are paid 7.35 percent more on average, from $77,168 to $82,838
- Operations analyst gained 7.32 percent in total mean compensation, from $58,628 to $62,919
- Computer operations managers saw their total pay package grow by 7.17 percent, from $92,433 to $99,058
Meanwhile, the IT positions at large companies with the biggest pay decreases are as follows:
- VP of consulting services pay is down 12.34 percent from $132,677 to $116,309
- VP of administration compensation saw a 6.39 decrease from $129,268 to $121,002
- Training and documentation managers earn a mean total of $73,110, a 5.59 year-over-year drop from $77,437
- Webmaster compensation is down 5.08 percent, from $64,355 to $61,088
- Hardware installation coordinator pay dwindled by 4.11 percent, from $50,654 to $48,572
- Distributed-systems project managers now earn a mean total of $104,479, a 3.49 percent dip from $100,830
- VPs of security (or CSOs) saw their annual compensation drop by 3.4 percent, from $149,163 to $144,090
- Director of production/data center earn 3.34 percent less year over year, from $134,224 to $129,744
- Forms and graphics designer rake in 2.47 percent less on average, from $44,321 to $43,226
- Desktop-support supervisor now earn $75,102 on average, a 2.41 percent decrease from $73,292