Tech salaries on the rise, says Aspire

Top ranges for technology salaries across a variety of roles have gone up, according to research by digital and media recruitment firm Aspire.

Its 2022/23 Salary guide looking into digital, media, marketing, sales, research and technology job vacancies on its platform found that, year-on-year (YoY) from April 2022 to April 2023, many roles have seen salaries increase by 30%.

While there is usually a trend of salaries increasing with cost of living, Terry Payne, global managing director at Aspire, pointed out redundancies have been a frequent topic of discussion across the tech sector as of late.

He said: “The tech sector has gone through a difficult period over the past 18 months, with widespread redundancies at big-name firms. But steady salary growth across key roles looks like the first green shoots of recovery – a welcome sign for employers and candidates alike.

“Layoffs across the industry mean there are plenty of highly skilled candidates on the market. Employers with ambitions to grow beyond the struggles of the last year can attract these workers by offering competitive salaries.”

The technology job market has been on the up since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the orders to stay at home during 2020 and 2021 creating a reliance on technology, which had firms searching for the appropriate talent to keep things afloat. With the technology industry already suffering from a talent gap, it has not been uncommon to see reports of rising job adverts and low candidate numbers, usually meaning those with the needed skills can push for a competitive salary.

But towards the tail end of 2021 and into 2022, IT workers talked in great numbers about moving jobs or leaving the industry altogether, a phenomenon many labelled “the great resignation”.

By 2023, however, fears of redundancies arose as the economic climate had firms cutting costs – some were even pre-emptively moving jobs.

Out of the 1,400 roles assessed on Aspire’s platform, offers for junior or mid-level QA engineering roles have seen an average of a 30% increase in maximum salary over the past year, from £35,000 in 2022 to £50,000 in 2023.

Graduate data analysts saw an average increase in offered renumeration of 7%, from £28,000 last year to £30,000 this year, and junior design roles also saw a 13% jump.

Offers for CTO roles have leapt even higher, with the minimum salary offered for CTO talent increasing 87.5% in the past year, from £80,000 in 2022 to £150,000 in April 2023.

Mid-high level software engineers also saw a rise in top-range salary offers, while many other roles – such as mid-senior level product managers directors of heads of UX/UI and QA roles – saw offers remain the same.

For some roles, however, the change has not been as positive – UX and UI designers at a mid-level are being offered 10% less than last year at around £50,000.

In the past, increased competition for talent had firms offering high salaries for the best talent, but a recent report from job marketplace Hired suggested employers may find themselves more in control of salary expectations in the near future.