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If you work in network or desktop security, the next year will be a great year for you according to a new salary guide, which rates yours as the job category with the most growth within IT departments in 2008.
The 2008 IT Salary Guide from Robert Half Technology, released on Oct. 22, is based on analysis of the job placements managed by the company’s U.S. offices. The analysis found that nearly 15 percent of firms said that they intended to increase their IT staff in 2008.
Starting salaries among IT pros are expected to increase by 5.3 percent in 2008, and high-demand areas such as applications or Web development, network management or database administration will see pay increases of 7 percent or higher.
“This was not really a surprise. The strong increases are still in the application development space, especially for individuals that have those Web 2.0 skill sets. Those who can architect and develop Web spaces had the highest increases that we saw, even 7.5 percent in some titles,” Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology told eWEEK.
The company pegged wireless communication as one of the top areas driving IT hiring in U.S. companies, as developers create more and more tools for mobile devices that IT departments are increasingly responsible for supporting. Lee called this the “gadget factor.”
“With everyone’s devices communicating with everyone else’s devices, there is a need for people who are like the air traffic controllers of the IT department,” said Lee.
The single highest salary increase expected in 2008 was among lead applications developers, at 7.6 percent, followed closely by applications architects at 7.5 percent, both under the application development umbrella.
Data modelers and network managers were both expected to see a 7 percent gain next year over 2007 and senior IT auditors were expected to see a 6.9 percent increase in base compensation.