In-Depth
2007 ESJ Salary Survey, Part 3: Health-Care Providers and Manufacturers Dominate IT Salaries
In the third of our four-part report, we look at compensation by company size, industry, and region
By: The Enterprise Systems Staff
Ever since the Enterprise Systems salary surveys were launched in the beginning of the decade, the northeastern and western United States have continually dominated in terms of salary ranges. This has not changed in this year's survey, as the Northeast and West battle for the highest averages. In addition, IT professionals seeking better pay might want to consider the health-care or manufacturing sectors.
As shown in the first two sections of this report, the latest Enterprise Systems survey of 1,032 companies finds that IT positions have done well across the board this year in terms of base salary increases. While previous surveys from year to year have shown a mixed picture of raises and flattened salary levels, all 16 positions measured year to year showed modest to substantial increases (a 17th position, enterprise architect, is new in this year's survey.) Raises for management positions averaged between one percent and 17 percent, while raises for IT staff positions (developers and administrators) ranged between zero and 15 percent.
Our survey found that top IT executives make more than $141,000 a year, along with average bonuses of more than $28,000. IT managers earn $69,000 to $100,000 a year, with average bonuses ranging between $4,000 and $9,500. Line IT positions (analysts, programmers, administrators) average between $62,000 to over $79,000 a year, with bonuses in the range of $2,100 to $3,900 a year.
In this special report, the third of a four-part series, we explore IT salaries from geographic, industry-specific, and company-size perspectives. The survey divides the respondents into four regions across the country, as shown in Table 1. Table 2 explores salaries across selected major metropolitan areas. Table 3 explores salary differentials based on industry groups, and Table 4 looks at the impact of company size on IT salaries.
REGIONS
Survey respondents report considerable strength for salaries within the western United States, which includes California, Oregon, Washington, and the mountain states. (The largest group of respondents in this region -- 44 percent -- comes from the state of California.) The western United States leads with seven of the 17 positions covered in the survey. The northeastern United States leads in five categories. For three positions, the best salaries are found in the South, while only one position -- database administrators -- was best compensated in the Midwest.
For top IT executives, the Northeast is the best place to be, particularly the New York City metro area, home to many corporate headquarters. CIOs and vice presidents in the northeastern United States -- those states in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions (from Maine down to Maryland and Washington, D.C.) -- have average base salaries of more than $173,000 in this survey, or 22 percent above the overall average. IS/IT directors in the northeastern states average $111,000 in base salary, or four percent above the average.
In fact, upper management salaries (for both CIOs and directors) in the New York metro area far outstrip those of other cities identified within the survey. Here, the average base salary is $185,000 among companies in the survey, or almost 50 percent above the national average.
For the seven middle management IT positions in the survey, top compensation is divided between the Northeast and the West, with some strength in the southern region of the United States. IS/IT managers, for example, average close to $96,000 in base salaries in the northeastern states, or nine percent above the average. Salaries for application development managers in the western states (which includes the West Coast and Rocky Mountain states) edge out their counterparts in the Northeast and South, $95,000 to $94,000.
The West also dominates for the salaries of network managers, help desk managers, and enterprise architects (EAs). Base salaries for EAs in the West, in fact, lead by a wide margin, averaging almost $108,000, or eight percent above the overall average. Data center managers' and Internet managers' salaries were highest in the Northeast.
For the seven categories of middle managers combined, the highest average salaries are seen in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, middle managers make an average of $106,000, or 23 percent above the national average.
While the Northeast and West battle it out for top IT management salaries, the best salaries for several of the eight staff-level IT positions measured in this survey can be found either in the West or the South. For example, the southern states (extending from Virginia to Florida to Texas) paid top dollars for programmer salaries (both systems and applications), as well as those of storage administrators. Only network administrators in the Northeast saw the highest rates for IT staff positions. As mentioned above, DBAs in the midwestern states also topped the national average.
The West is a good place to go for developers overall. The San Francisco Bay Area -- a hotbed of start-ups and existing software companies -- tops the national average. For example, developers in this region make $87,000, or 21 percent above the national average. Administrators in Bay Area companies make $99,000, or 45 percent above the national average.
TABLE 1: REGIONAL IT SALARIES
Salaries by Region
(In Thousands) |
| Title | Northeast | Southeast | Midwest | West |
| CIO/VP | $173.1 | $191.2 | $99.4 | $119.5 |
| IS Dir | $111.0 | $106.5 | $90.9 | $101.5 |
| IS Mgr | $95.8 | $83.2 | $75.5 | $93.1 |
| AD Mgr | $94.0 | $94.0 | $75.9 | $95.0 |
| DC Mgr | $96.5 | $89.9 | $73.4 | $87.6 |
| Net Mgr | $82.0 | $80.5 | $67.9 | $86.6 |
| Help Desk Mgr | $70.6 | $67.6 | $58.4 | $71.6 |
| Internet Mgr | $96.6 | $94.3 | $70.0 | $77.1 |
| Enterprise Architect | $104.7 | $106.8 | $74.0 | $107.6 |
| Sys Analyst | $68.7 | $75.0 | $67.6 | $78.0 |
| P/A | $72.1 | $64.8 | $70.4 | $78.9 |
| Apps Prog | $57.6 | $68.6 | $60.0 | $65.5 |
| Sys Prog | $69.3 | $91.7 | $72.2 | $92.3 |
| Net Admin | $64.4 | $62.4 | $57.3 | $63.7 |
| Sys Admin | $62.1 | $65.5 | $59.4 | $71.4 |
| DB Admin | $78.2 | $75.8 | $84.6 | $71.3 |
| Storage Admin | $74.5 | $78.2 | $60.1 | $73.7 |
TABLE 2: METROPOLITAN AREA IT SALARIES
Salaries by Region
(In Thousands) |
| Title* | Upper Mgt | Middle Mgt | Developer | Admin |
| New York/NY/NJ/CT | $185.3 | $104.9 | $63.0 | $77.3 |
| Los Angeles/So. CA | $128.4 | $99.7 | $82.0 | $76.1 |
| San Francisco/San Jose/CA | $127.9 | $106.2 | $86.6 | $99.4 |
| Washington DC/MD/VA | $140.7 | $97.6 | $71.7 | $74.5 |
| Chicago IL/IN | $123.7 | $92.8 | $67.8 | $72.4 |
| Total USA | $124.0 | $86.4 | $71.4 | $68.3 |
* Due to smaller sample sizes, job titles are aggregated
into general categories |
INDUSTRIES
In terms of industry distinctions in base IT salaries, the health-care and manufacturing sectors appear to be the best places for professionals and managers seeking higher compensation. Health care paid the best salaries over the past year, topping five of the 17 positions covered. Manufacturing followed, leading four positions.
For the top IT executive jobs, health care and retail represent the best areas of opportunity, our survey shows. Health care CIOs led the salary averages for their positions, earning an average of $177,200 a year, or 25 percent above the overall average. CIOs with manufacturers follow at $173,000, or 22 percent above average. For IS directors, the best salaries are found in the retail sector, where the average is more than $126,000, or 19 percent above the average. This is followed by IT director positions in the manufacturing industries, which average $121,000.
For middle management positions, the manufacturing sector is the place to go. Data center managers, network managers, and help desk managers at manufacturing companies topped the averages for all industries. A data center manager in a manufacturing organization, for example, makes an average of $110,000 in our survey -- or 23 percent above the overall average.
For example, application development managers in health-care organizations make close to $105,000, or 14 percent above the average of their counterparts in other industries. Enterprise architects in health-care organizations make up to $113,000 a year, or 13 percent above the average.
There are exceptions to manufacturing and health care as well. For example, an IS manager in the financial services industry now makes more than $98,000, or 11 percent more than their counterparts in other industries.
No single industry dominates salaries among IT line staff, however. In this survey, systems analysts, applications programmers, and database administrators from the IT/high-tech sector saw the best salaries, while programmer/analysts and systems programmers in financial services firms saw the greatest rewards. Systems and database administrators were highest paid within health-care organizations.
Table 3 shows the average salary ranges found in this survey, broken out by seven major industry groups.
TABLE 3: IT SALARIES BY INDUSTRY
Salaries by Industry
(In Thousands) |
| Title | IT/Tech | Manufacturing | Government/
Education | Finance/
Insurance | Health Care | Services | Retail |
| CIO/VP | $137.0 | $174.3 | $121.2 | $158.1 | $177.2 | $172.0 | $112.4 |
| IS Mgr | $82.8 | $96.2 | $87.8 | $98.3 | $79.8 | $70.9 | $93.7 |
| AD Mgr | $96.5 | $104.1 | $87.2 | $91.0 | $104.6 | * | $98.2 |
| DC Mgr | $100.7 | $109.6 | $90.0 | $77.5 | $85.6 | $71.0 | * |
| Net Mgr | $95.0 | $103.0 | $80.2 | $70.8 | $91.7 | $69.0 | * |
| Help Desk Mgr | $67.1 | $76.2 | $73.3 | $69.8 | $49.7 | $56.2 | * |
| Internet Mgr | $81.2 | * | $83.0 | * | * | * | * |
| Enterprise Architect | $93.8 | $95.9 | $93.3 | $97.4 | $112.7 | $112.0 | * |
| Sys Analyst | $76.7 | $75.9 | $71.2 | $70.7 | $67.1 | $66.2 | $70.9 |
| P/A | $72.3 | $70.7 | $69.9 | $72.9 | $65.6 | $56.6 | $69.0 |
| Apps Prog | $69.3 | $63.9 | $62.0 | $57.1 | $67.0 | $53.0 | $59.0 |
| Sys Prog | $86.9 | $82.1 | $74.1 | $80.0 | $87.2 | * | * |
| Net Admin | $54.3 | $61.1 | $63.4 | $60.0 | $61.7 | $65.8 | $52.4 |
| Sys Admin | $57.7 | $67.1 | $65.4 | $64.0 | $74.0 | $54.1 | $56.0 |
| DB Admin | $870.6 | $75.4 | $73.4 | * | $80.6 | * | $71.6 |
| Storage Admin | * | $73.8 | $71.3 | * | * | * | * |
* Insufficient data for this position |
COMPANY SIZE
The gap between the largest and smallest firms in the survey was extremely pronounced for the management positions covered.
The largest corporations in the survey (with more than 50,000 employees) pay between 21 percent and 300 percent more than their smallest counterparts. For example, CIOs at the largest corporations make more than $163,000 more a year in base salaries than their small-business counterparts.
The survey results show that larger organizations -- particularly those over the 5,000-employee threshold -- pay significantly more than IT managers across the board. For IT directors, salaries average about $88,000 in the smallest companies, but jump almost 60 percent at their larger counterparts with at least 5,000 employees. For IS managers, the difference is even more stark, averaging about 64 percent.
These distinctions are wide for the nine management positions covered, but narrower for the eight line staff positions in the survey. For example, the difference between what systems analysts are paid within the largest and smallest companies is about 30 percent -- small firms will pay $63,000 a year, while the largest organizations pay an average of $81,000. The gap narrows to 21 percent for programmer/analysts, and 15 percent for applications programmers.
Table 4 shows the salary breakouts by company size, starting with very small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, all the way up to large organizations with more than 50,000 employees.
TABLE 4: IT SALARIES BY COMPANY SIZE
Salaries by Number of Employees
(In Thousands) |
| Title | 1-50 | 51-500 | 501-1000 | 1001-5000 | 5001 -
10,000 | 10,001 -
50,000 | 50,001+ |
| CIO/VP | $87.0 | $108.2 | $134.6 | $132.0 | $170.5 | $187.6 | $250.2 |
| IS Dir | $87.6 | $83.8 | $103.5 | $103.9 | $140.8 | $122.4 | $140.0 |
| IS Mgr | $66.7 | $79.3 | $82.0 | $91.7 | $110.4 | $92.9/td> | $109.6 |
| AD Mgr | $79.4 | $81.9 | $81.1 | $89.4 | $110.8 | $93.5 | $109.4 |
| DC Mgr | $80.5 | $72.7 | $88.9 | $82.0 | $112.6 | $95.9 | $105.4 |
| Net Mgr | $54.5 | $69.7 | $72.5 | $76.4 | $110.3 | $91.7 | $112.7 |
| Help Desk Mgr | $49.5 | $54.4 | $63.8 | $70.6 | $94.4 | $76.7 | $95.0 |
| Internet Mgr | $77.7 | $62.7 | $72.6 | $84.5 | $115.0 | $84.6 | $100.8 |
| Enterprise Architect | $88.3 | $89.7 | $76.2 | $78.5 | $116.1 | $99.3 | $112.6 |
| Sys Analyst | $62.6 | $66.8 | $69.5 | $71.5 | $74.9 | $77.9 | $81.0 |
| P/A | $63.0 | $69.6 | $65.1 | $68.5 | $77.6 | $77.2 | $76.1 |
| Apps Prog | $58.1 | $56.4 | $57.7 | $63.5 | $70.9 | $65.9 | $67.0 |
| Sys Prog | $72.3 | $70.8 | $83.5 | $72.7 | $97.0 | $95.3 | $93.2 |
| Net Admin | $48.2 | $56.8 | $65.5 | $62.7 | $63.0 | $66.4 | $77.8 |
| Sys Admin | $52.7 | $54.9 | $64.9 | $70.1 | $74.9 | $65.2 | $76.1 |
| DB Admin | $68.4 | $59.5 | $103.4 | $72.4 | $94.3 | $74.4 | $85.3 |
| Storage Admin | * | $68.3 | $61.6 | $76.6 | $83.7 | $68.5 | $80.5 |
* Insufficient data for this position |
NEXT WEEK
Next week we'll examine job satisfaction, job longevity, and hours worked, among other variables.