Computer science grads still get above-average pay

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 25 July 2007 11:45

IT People - People

The median starting salary for 2006 computer science graduates was $42,000, compared with $40,800 across all disciplines.

That's the good news. The bad news is that graduate starting salaries are still trending down. Thirty years ago, median new graduate salaries equalled average male weekly earnings, but by 2006 they had fallen to 79.7 percent of the $51,200 average male earnings.

The big money is still made in the traditional areas of dentistry ($68,000) and optometry ($51,200). Pharmacy graduates' salaries are initially held down to a median of $32,000 by registration requirements.

On the other hand, computer scientists do a lot better than art and design ($33,200), social science ($36,000) and accounting ($37,000) graduates.

Male graduates continue to fair better than their female counterparts, achieving a media salary of $42,000 vs $40,000. Curiously, those numbers are the same for graduates in all disciplines, reflecting the high proportion of males in computer science courses compared with their minority status among graduates as a whole.

Computer scientists get the highest median salaries ($45,900) if they land a job in the government sector, compared with $41,000 in professional practices, $40,000 in industry and commerce, and $42,000 at educational institutions.

The research and analysis was carried out by Graduate Careers Australia.