The vast majority of Australian IT professionals can expect a pay rise this year. However, in a market throttled by skill shortages, most workers will find it inadequate.
These were the findings in the Hays Salary Guide FY23/24 research report. To compile the report, Hays surveyed more than 14,000 employers and professionals. The results show that 93% of tech employers will see their salaries increase in the coming financial year. Those increases will be between 3% and 6%.
However, fewer than one-third of employees said that this was adequate to reflect the demand for their skills.
Thirty percent of employees said that a pay increase of 10% would meet their expectations, though only 12% of employers will provide that. Another third of employees want a pay increase in excess of 10%, though only 5% of employers will be inclined to be that generous.
A Significant Opportunity for MSPs
Skills shortages are giving employees significant leverage in salary negotiations in Australia. For example, in cyber security alone, a shortage of 30,000 professionals over the next few years will make the competition for talent fierce.
Meanwhile, according to the job board Seek, IT project managers are set to be one of the big winners from the skills shortage. Overall salaries for those professionals increased by almost 5% in May alone, to $144,000.
While this is good for IT professionals, who are also having no difficulty finding work, the rapid growth in IT salaries across the board is also convincing many chief information officers (CIOs) to turn down otherwise strong candidates. One-fifth of CIOs report having withdrawn a job offer at the salary negotiation stage.
This will leave many organisations with substantial internal IT skills gaps. While managed service providers (MSPs) will also need to find the money to cover the increased payroll, outsourcing the kind of high-level IT skills that MSPs provide is going to be more appealing to organisations of all sizes and across all sectors.