Salary Survey: One Step Forward, Two Back

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.

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