Salary Survey: One Step Forward, Two Back

By Kathleen Melymuka

October 28, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - This year's raises were modest in comparison with those of recent years and were rendered even more so by bonus cuts. Pay increases for the majority averaged 6%, but the 9.5% who took a cut in salary lost twice that much. Moreover, while 12% took home bigger bonuses this year, 18% received smaller ones.

Some companies are rolling bonus money into base pay to subsidize higher salaries, making the net effect of those 6% raises even less. Just over three-quarters of the information security managers who responded to our survey, for example, lost more than 40% of their bonus this year, but some of that might have gone into their above-average 8% salary hike. The good news is that while bonuses are generally given at a manager's discretion, making them easy targets when a budget needs to be trimmed, salary increases are less likely to be taken away once given.

In previous years, certain IT skills just about guaranteed the good life, particularly in high-flying industries. Not this year. For example, 11% of communications managers saw their bonuses grow while 27% watched them shrink. Nineteen percent of Internet architects reported bonus gains averaging nearly 52%, but 21% reported bonus cuts of nearly 60%. These findings illustrate that when it comes to pay the company you work for may be more important than the job you do.

CIO/vice president of IT	Chief technology officer	Chief security officer
Average salary: $122,950 Bonus: $28,328 Total: $151,278	Average salary: $117,797 Bonus: $24,290 Total: $142,087	Average salary: $90,267 Bonus: $10,711 Total: $100,978
A Sampling of Average Total Compensation By Industry
Business services: $133,263	Computer services/consulting: $147,033	Computer services/consulting: $139,000*
Computer services/consulting: $151,105	Finance/real estate/insurance: $134,000*	Energy: $101,000*
Education: $123,964	Education: $95,167*	Finance/real estate/insurance: $113,160*
Energy: $143,259*	Manufacturing (computer): $157,840*	Health care: $108,333*
Finance/real estate/insurance: $165,719	Telecommunications: $147,143*
Government (state/local): $106,373*
Health care: $152,025*
Manufacturing (noncomputer): $143,993
Retail: $187,500*
A Sampling of Average Total Compensation By Company Size (Ranked By Revenue)
Less than $100M: $123,058	Less than $100M: $131,186	Less than $100M: $87,523*
$100M to $999.9M: $158,639	$100M to $999.9M: $136,738*	$100M to $999.9M: $109,920*
$1B to $9.9B: $201,212	$1B to $9.9B: $182,412*	$1B to $9.9B: $106,500*
More than $10B: $232,812	$1B to $9.9B: $182,412*	More than $10B: $133,333*

Director of systems development	Director of IT/IS operations	Internet technology strategist
Average salary: $112,076 Bonus: $14,866 Total: $126,942	Average salary: $90,417 Bonus: $10,169 Total: $100,586	Average salary: $95,213 Bonus: $14,341 Total: $109,554
A Sampling of Average Total Compensation By Industry
Computer reseller: $133,501*	Business services/IT: $105,484	Computer services/consulting: $108,318
Computer services/consulting: $132,713	Computer services/consulting: $120,381	Finance/real estate/insurance: $111,171*
Finance/real estate/insurance: $132,756*	Education: $73,338	Manufacturing (computer): $125,467*
Health care: $106,146*	Government (state/local): $74,048	Telecommunications: $114,100*
Manufacturing (computer): $130,167*	Finance/real estate/insurance: $117,446	Education: $73,900*
	Health care: $91,991	Health care: $92,700*
	Manufacturing (noncomputer): $103,685
	Food/beverage: $121,775*
	Manufacturing (computer): $106,700*
	Biotechnology: $134,157
	Retail: $119,573*
A Sampling of Average Total Compensation By Company Size (Ranked By Revenue)
Less than $100M: $110,474	Less than $100M: $83,658	Less than $100M: $106,411
$100M to $999.9M: $118,337	$100M to $999.9M: $107,798	$100M to $999.9M: $106,606*
$1B to $9.9B: $142,669	$1B to $9.9B: $131,722	$1B to $9.9B: $115,193
More than $10B: $162,918*	$10B or more: $147,578	$10B or more: $113,704

Computer operations manager

**Database manager

Help desk / technical support manager

Average salary: $72,124

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

POLL RESULTS

Leading IT Pros Weigh In on Top IT Issues

Accelerate your knowledge of the IT world you inhabit by viewing the results of a series of polls taken by your IT peers. These polls of 100+ IT professionals each are available for full viewing. They cover key topics such as virtualization, processor performance, green IT, cloud computing and many others. Be a part of the buzz.

WHITE PAPER

For Best Results, Think Beyond the Box

Technology is complex. Keeping it running productively shouldn't be. To that end, you want to minimize the number of solutions needed in-house to simplify operations, maintenance, and support. Kodak offers a best-practices model. One company provides support for both scanner and software, for fast problem resolution without vendor finger-pointing. Download now!

WHITE PAPER

Accelerating the Path to Demand Intelligence with a Demand Signal Repository

Utilizing demand intelligence improves the precision of pricing, product assortments, channel/store placement, and promotion, which are all essential for sustainable revenue management performance. Learn more, download this free whitepaper today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Natural User Interface for Enterprise Applications
Learn how a revolutionary user interface can make a complex enterprise application so intuitive even casual users can jump right in....

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

A Truly Global HCM System
Learn about a system built with advanced object-oriented technology that support multi-national requirements and costs less to implement, maintain and upgrade....

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

Craft a Strategy to Lower Your Total Cost of Ownership
Get the tools to build a business case to assess the total cost of ownership of your HR technology footprint....

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....

Navigating the Economic Morass
Need help making your way through today's volatile job market? In this Learn-Fast Guide, you'll learn how and where to look for your...

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

Accelerate SSL Encrypted Applications
The amount of SSL traffic is growing in the enterprise. Because it is encrypted, it cannot be properly controlled and accelerated. Blue Coat...

Agile Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for Rapid ROI
Find out how combining ECM and BPM will help adress issues about content rich business processes....

All White Papers | All Webcasts

CIO

Computerworld

CSO

DEMO

GamePro

Games.net

IDC

IDG

IDG Connect

IDG Knowledge Hub

IDG TechNetwork

IDG Ventures

IDG.net

InfoWorld

ITwhitepapers

ITworld

JavaWorld

LinuxWorld

Macworld

Network World

PC World

The Industry Standard

Copyright © 1994 - 2009 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of
Computerworld Inc. is prohibited. Computerworld and Computerworld.com and the respective logos are trademarks of International Data Group Inc.

	CareerMail
	Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
	Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
	The Weekly Top 10

resource center

Print edition

Salary Survey: One Step Forward, Two Back

Additional Resources

White Papers & Webcasts

Computerworld Reports

White Papers

Sponsored Links