Demand for Technical Skill Sets Help Deliver Strong IT Salaries

Demand for Technical Skill Sets Help Deliver Strong IT Salaries

Information Technology (IT) continues to be an area of exceptional growth in the job market, both nationally and locally. Using data from the 2013 ERC Salary Survey, the average median salary growth of various occupational categories within IT, as set by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, can be seen below. The positive salary growth this figure illustrates is unsurprising when two key factors are considered.

Job Growth

Nationally, the field of “computers and mathematics” is predicted to see job growth as high as 22% between 2010 and 2020. Locally, the MSA (metropolitan statistical area) encompassing Northeast Ohio falls just short of those job numbers, projecting 16.1% job growth during the same time period. When compared to the overall job growth projections encompassing all occupations, nationally (14.3%) and locally (1.7%), it becomes clear that IT is seeing much more positive job growth than other industries in Northeast Ohio.

Skill Gap

As more jobs in “computers and mathematics” are created, a demand for a highly skilled workforce in these areas will likely follow. The 2013 ERC Salary Survey reinforces this trend with an overall 7% average median growth of all IT positions reported. This far outpaces the much more stagnant salary growth found in other occupations, which typically hovered around 2-3%.

The industry specific growth seen in this 2013 data isn’t entirely surprising to ERC’s Director of Research and Membership who notes: “Over the past year we heard from many organizations struggling to find the right talent to fill more technically demanding positions. As a result we aren’t surprised to see IT emerge as one of the industries with the strongest and most consistent salary growth in 2013.”

Additional Resources

ERC Salary Survey
This survey reports annual salary information for 235 administrative, professional, supervisory, and managerial positions in accounting, finance, administration, customer service, sales, engineering, human resources, IT, maintenance, marketing, production, purchasing/distribution, safety, science, and research and development functions from 202 Northeast Ohio organizations. For more information or details on how to purchase the most current survey, please click here.