Wages for IT professionals in some categories grew by as much as 30% in the five years taken in by the 2016 census, according to ABS figures cited by the IT Professionals Association.
The ITPA, a lobby group for IT professionals, said that wages for ICT security specialists (up 31% to $112,996), managers (up 30% to 120,990), and project managers (up 30% to $121,576 were three categories which showed the biggest increases.
Wages for chief information officers grew slightly less in the 2011-2016 period: 22% to $120,328.
Pay for entry-level categories like customer support (up 14% to $73,320), Web developer (up 18% to $77,584) and support engineer (up 17% to $86,112) also showed positive movement.
{loadposition sam08}Broader data taken from consecutive Censuses showed that while the national average across all income types had risen by 16% in five years to $78,832, the average income for all ICT categories had risen by 19.6% to $101,272.
ITPA president Robert Hudson said the positive wages growth reflected the growing value of IT professionals as a community in the national employment structure.
“As public and private enterprises turn to IT as an operating mechanism to improve productivity, expand market-places, enhance service delivery and impact the bottom line, a skilled and well-renumerated work-force is critical,” Hudson said.
“It is no surprise that specialists in areas such as cyber security, project management and IT management are reaping the rewards as IT’s role in operations becomes critical.
“If we take ICT security specialists as an example, the Census data shows that incomes for IT professionals working in this area have accelerated substantially over the last five years.
“While average wages in this category only grew by 8% between 2006 and 2011, in the following five years the growth was an impressive 31% and that trend of a big boost over the last five years is repeated across most categories of IT employment.”