IT salaries stable: Survey

Recruitment consultancy Hays said 92 percent of employers increased salaries for IT workers by up to six percent, while the rest gave between six percent and 10 percent increments.

The 2005 Hays Information Technology Salary Survey polled more than 1,700 respondents from small to large multinational organisations across Australia and New Zealand.

Technology roles with the highest salary increases -- an average of six to 10 percent -- over the past financial year came from LAN support and WAN roles, Microsoft .NET/J2EE professionals [mainly in Perth] and analyst programmers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Hays IT general manager Peter Noblet said IT personnel with good communications skills was lacking. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to find strong SAP consultants, and networking consultants with relevant Voice over IP, VPN and Cisco-based skills, he added.

In Sydney, the survey showed that SAP analysts average AU$100,000 annually, while Microsoft .NET/J2EE analyst programmers receive AU$75,000 a year.

"Our survey clearly shows the scarcity of labour has yet to have a significant impact on salaries. Certainly employers are, for the most part, becoming more realistic about the skills shortages, however their focus up to this point has been on benefits or career progression to attract and retain the right person rather than dramatic salary increases," Noblet said.

Hays said although previously static salaries have started to rise nationally for both contract and permanent roles, they are still short compared with the highs reached during the dotcom boom between 1999 and 2001.

The survey showed employers have also been slow to up benefits in the last 12 months, with bonuses and non-financial incentives remaining relatively unchanged.