Thursday, January 20, 2011

Boston tech salaries rise, beating national average

By James M. Connolly and Galen Moore

High-tech job board Dice.com reports Boston is beating a trend that has tech salaries down or flat nationwide. The average tech paycheck rose 2 percent in 2010 and the first weeks of 2011, to $86,782. New York-based Dice released its annual salary survey yesterday, showing that the average salaries for U.S. technology and engineering professionals rose only 0.7 percent in 2010 to $79,384. The online survey of 19,798 employees also showed that 49 percent of the surveyed workers received salary increases in 2010, compared with only 36 percent in 2009.

Boston beat the fat part of the curve but still trails among tech hubs. The average worker in Silicon Valley is earning $99,028. However, Boston closed the gap with New York, where salaries “inched higher,” Dice reported, to $87,298. The average tech worker in and around the nation’s capital earns $89,149.

Although national high-tech salary increases were anemic, 50 percent of the surveyed workers said they are “somewhat satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their pay.

Tech workers who want to earn more may want to look at big companies. Dice said that tech workers in companies employing at least 5,000 people earned an average of $88,075, compared with $69,658 for workers in companies of 50 or fewer employees.

Experience in four development areas brought in the highest average salaries, all in excess of $100,000: SAP’s ABAP, Informatica, Extract Transform and Load and Service-oriented Architecture.

Atlanta and Philadelphia saw the biggest tech-industry salary increases – both 5 percent – to $82,944 and $81,986, respectively. Tech salaries in Los Angeles and Chicago declined – L.A. by four percent to $84,551; Chicago by one percent to $79,933, Dice reported.