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Higher salaries for IT pros in ANZ
Study finds over half of IT professionals in Australia and New Zealand received higher salaries last year, while flexible work arrangements are fast becoming the norm
More than half of IT professionals in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) received a salary increase last year, underscoring the tight labour market fuelled by growing digitisation and talent shortages across the region.
According to the latest Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT salary survey, 54% of 203 respondents reported higher salaries last year, with a further 24% receiving a bonus. Just 2% took a pay cut.
Conducted every year to ascertain the state of the region’s IT job market, the study also found the average IT salary across all IT job functions, company sizes and seniorities stood at A$157,310, while those in senior IT management at larger companies commanded a higher average salary of A$251,318.
Only 23% of respondents’ companies made redundancies due to the pandemic, while 51% of companies recruited extra staff to cope with business demand.
In terms of staff movements, 45% of respondents planned to stay in their current jobs while 41% were open to new opportunities but were not actively looking for a new job. Of those who planned to leave, 36% wanted a higher salary while 16% sought better work-life balance, which was one of the top priorities for ANZ respondents.
Notably, learning new skills was not among the top reasons for changing jobs for ANZ respondents, of whom just 10% wanted to pick up a new skill set.
Across job functions and seniority, flexible work arrangements are fast becoming the norm. Some 41% of respondents now work in a flexible work environment, and they work from home 3.03 days per week on average.
Read more about IT in ANZ
- The Australia government is investing in a landmark package of measures to shore up the intelligence and cyber security capabilities of the Australian Signals Directorate.
- Education Services Australia has transformed the country’s national assessment programme through an online platform that has enabled teachers to design adaptive tests and improved student engagement.
- New Zealand’s Architectural Glass Products has installed tracking devices on delivery trolleys to track its products and delivery trolleys in real time.
- Public sector organisations in Australia are facing organisational and technological challenges in driving back-office innovation and digital-first strategies, study finds.
Meanwhile, awareness of the importance of gender diversity has improved in ANZ, with 59% of respondents noting that their IT department is currently addressing gender equality. However, this was not the case for age, disability and sexuality related issues, which less than 30% of organisations were addressing.
And when it comes to their outlook on women in IT, just a third agreed that women and men with similar qualifications are paid equally, making pay equality a work in progress in most ANZ organisations.
According to the Tech Council of Australia, Australia has experienced an unprecedented tech boom in the past decade, contributing A$167bn per annum to the GDP and employing 861,000 people. This makes the tech sector equivalent to Australia’s third-largest industry, behind mining and banking.
To achieve the sector’s full potential, it estimated that Australia will need 280,000 new skilled tech workers by 2025, which companies such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have been trying to train through various skills-related initiatives.
AWS, for example, has teamed up with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to offer online courses in cloud computing since 2019, while TCS has been investing in graduate training programmes in Australia.
