IT salary data is a hot commodity these days, and more firms that collect it—whether staffing companies, salary data providers or research firms--seem eager to share it. That's good news for IT professionals trying to benchmark their salaries and negotiate increases.
The latest salary data I received comes from CyberCoders, a tech recruiting firm based in Irvine, Calif. CyberCoders recently released a list of the top 10 cities where IT professionals earn the highest salaries.
To develop its list, CyberCoders analyzed salaries that companies in various U.S. cities expect to pay for IT positions they need to fill. CyberCoders also examined the salaries that candidates received in job offers. The staffing firm conducted this research for companies across industries, not just tech firms, and it looked at salaries for various IT jobs, such as application developers, systems administrators and network engineers, says Matt Miller, CyberCoders' CTO.
The company analyzed a total of 3,000 salaries that companies actually paid in 2011 and 2012 or expected to pay in 2012. They added up all of this salary data for a given city and took an average, says Miller.
CyberCoders' Highest-Paying Cities for IT Jobs
| Rank | City | Average Salary |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Jose | $119,412 |
| 2 | San Francisco | $112,739 |
| 3 | New York | $105,192 |
| 4 | Washington, D.C. | $99,618 |
| 5 | Boston | $99,099 |
| 6 | Los Angeles | $96,705 |
| 7 | Brooklyn | $96,696 |
| 8 | Philadelphia | $95,929 |
| 9 | Chicago | $94,899 |
| 10 | Dallas | $94,799 |
Because CyberCoders' averages combine salaries for different IT positions, Miller admits that the results may skew higher or lower depending on the number and types of jobs included in the averages. For example, the prevalence of mobile application developer jobs in a given city may yield higher averages because those jobs are in such great demand and because companies are paying premiums to recruit them.
You're probably not going to be able to negotiate a higher salary based on CyberCoders' data because it isn't title- or position-specific, but if you're looking to relocate, you could use it to determine where to go.
Earlier this year, IT job search site Dice released its own list of the best metro areas for finding IT jobs, based on the number of jobs available and average tech salaries in each locale.
Dice's Top Metro Areas for Finding IT Jobs
| Metro Area | Average Salary |
|---|---|
| Silicon Valley | $104,195 |
| New York | $90,042 |
| Washington, D.C. | $94,317 |
| Boston | $88,657 |
| Los Angeles | $87,183 |
| Philadelphia | $81,041 |
| Chicago | $83,970 |
| Dallas | $84,589 |
The average salaries Dice tallied are notably lower than those CyberCoders reported. That may be a result of the fact that Dice collected salary data for 2011 only. Dice surveyed 18,325 working technology professionals last fall to obtain its salary data and create its ranking of the top metro areas for IT jobs.
How does your salary compare to these averages? Are you earning more or less than CyberCoder's or Dice's averages?
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