IT salaries stuck in neutral

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 09:49

IT People - Recruitment

While demand for IT skills is on the rise, salaries are proving tough to budge – and significant increases aren’t now expected until mid 2011 according to a salary survey released today by recruitment company Peoplebank Australia – a result which has caught the firm by surprise.

In its last salary survey released in April the company noted “significant” pay increased on offer in Perth, with spot prices for specific skills on Australia’s eastern seaboard also on the march. The company at the time predicted a skills shortage would take hold leading pay rates to rise “markedly.”

That has not eventuated.

Part of the problem might be that Peoplebank’s survey is not a comprehensive analysis of the entire jobs market in Australia – it is instead only a track of the roles it has been asked to help fill during the three months.

Asked about the sharp discrepancy in some of the salaries for different roles in different geographies Peoplebank CEO Peter Acheson noted that the survey was an analysis of “the real roles that we work on, not a market survey.”

For example the fact that CIOs in Sydney appeared to be commanding rates $50,000 more than their peers in Melbourne could be the result of “the roles we’ve worked on at the time. They could talk to the window we work in in the Melbourne market,” Mr Acheson acknowledged.

Still; “It’s a pretty good time to be in IT. It’s one of the strongest sectors for employment in the country, because it’s ubiquitous. Banking, retail, mining – they’re all hiring IT,” he said.