2017 IT jobs report: Northeast region

This IT jobs report covers Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. (Also see our reports for the Pacific, Mountain, North Central, South Central and Southeast regions.)

Job market snapshot

Competition for IT talent is fierce throughout the Northeast region. In the Boston area, technology workers have their pick of job openings across numerous industries, from financial services and biotech to academia and big pharma. Tech pros can also find jobs at the plethora of software firms, internet companies and high-tech enterprises with large workforces in the area, including Amazon, Facebook, Google and General Electric.

“The job market is active. Demand is very high, and the supply is much less than the demand,” says Rob Byron, a partner and manager of the IT search division at Waltham, Mass.-based employment agency WinterWyman. Byron said the local unemployment rate for tech workers is less than 2%. “You don’t have to be a superstar to find good employment. If you’re qualified, you’re going to work,” he adds.

It’s a scenario repeated throughout the region’s urban areas, according to recruiters. Matthew Walden, a partner and regional director of the New York City office for nationwide staffing firm Infinity Consulting Solutions (ICS), says competition for IT talent is fierce.

“People are fighting for the right talent, and they’re paying anything for the right talent,” he says. Candidates have multiple offers, so companies looking to hire need to move fast when they identify strong candidates — particularly for specialized tech jobs such as those in automation, big data and security.

Walden says companies across the board — from financial firms to media outlets — in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area are hiring IT workers. Moreover, he says, they’re now competing with tech companies, both homegrown companies as well as Silicon Valley giants that have opened up shops locally.

Back in the Boston area, Mike McLaughlin says the tight tech job market means he is competing against multiple companies for top talent. “The job market in the Northeast is very good for the job hunter, and it’s uncommon to find someone who doesn’t have multiple job interviews going,” says the senior recruiting manager for Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Mass. “And it’s not just the well-established companies that are drawing in people, but the startups, too,” he says, adding that those startups have a particular appeal to recent college grads.

McLaughlin says Akamai, a provider of cloud computing and content delivery services, is growing and needs software engineers, network engineers and enterprise security professionals with Linux and Unix expertise who can focus on designing and maintaining the platforms that enable the company to expand — positions that are hard to fill. “We need people who can think and work at a global scale and not just at the enterprise level,” he says, adding that the time to fill vacant spots ranges from 60 to 120 days.

Byron from WinterWyman says he sees similar trends, noting that everything from emerging positions such as DevOps engineers to more traditional jobs like Windows systems engineers and administrators are in high demand.

IT salaries: National vs. Northeast region

Average 2017 total compensation (base salary + bonus)

See Computerworld's IT Salary Watch for lots more information about tech salaries this year.

Best Places to Work in IT 2017: Northeast region

Fifteen employers from the Northeast region were named to Computerworld's 100 Best Places to Work in IT list for 2017. Click on any company name to see its employer profile.

• ADP - Roseland, N.J.
• Aires - Pittsburgh
• Akamai - Cambridge, Mass.
• Avaap - Edison, N.J.
• CA Technologies - New York
• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - Philadelphia
• Commonwealth Financial Network - Waltham, Mass.
• Datto - Norwalk, Conn.
• Liquidnet - New York
• MSC Industrial Supply - Melville, N.Y.
• Oxya - Jersey City, N.J.
• Power Home Remodeling - Chester, Pa.
• Prudential Financial - Newark, N.J.
• Raytheon - Waltham, Mass.
• Vanguard - Malvern, Pa.

 See the full Best Places to Work in IT 2017 report.