1

ICT Trends – Remuneration

Median ICT Salary Movements

Commentary in the Hudson Report for quarter 2, 2014, refers to demand in the ICT industry being driven by organisations trying to attract talent as they fight for market share. These organisations are striving to have their resources in place to deliver on a robust pipeline of quality projects coming to market, while a shortage of talent for key role types in this sector are fuelling demand. From a tech worker’s perspective these pressures are starting to impact positively on salary movements across the sector.

Hudson’s salary and employments insights quick reference guide (Includes salary tables for Australia and New Zealand) refers to mobility, cloud computing and big data as being among the most popular of the current trends. According to Hudson, the demand by business is for people who can provide analytics and business intelligence, who are great communicators and who have the commercial acumen to help businesses become more productive and profitable.

Computerworld’s 2014 USA IT salary survey highlights a modest increase of 2.1 per cent in pay, compared with 2.3 per cent in 2013. However, the hiring market for workers with the right skills is becoming highly competitive with application development remaining the most in-demand skill, as selected by 49% of managers who plan to hire IT staff in the next 12 months. Note: On the 21 April 2014 there were 1,137 Seek ICT job adverts featuring application development as the key words in a filtered search.

Over the past year the median salary in the NZ IT sector has seen a healthy rise in contrast with the wider economy. In January 2014 Absolute IT recorded the first notable increase in the national base median salary, now sitting at $80,000, since 2011. Auckland is driving the remuneration improvements with a 6.7 per cent increase in the median base salary, the same as the national figure. Wellington holds the highest median base remuneration at $85,000 while increases for Christchurch and the Waikato/BoP are 1 and 2 per cent respectively.

Figure 1 compares the mean salary movements for the Absolute IT listed permanent roles between June 2013 and January 2014.

Fig.1 Absolute IT NZ Salary Report for January 2014 – Permanent Salary Data Comparison

2

Figure 2 illustrates the percentage change of the mean permanent salary for the various categories between June 2013 and January 2014. Sales Exec/Account Manager recorded the greatest increase of 18.2 per cent while the Consultant ERP/Supply recorded the largest decrease of 15.6 per cent.

Fig.2 Absolute IT NZ Salary Report – Permanent Salary Percentage Change June 2013 to January 2014

Seek ICT Job Adverts

Job ads for all NZ for April continue the positive upward trend for job seekers; up 3.5 per cent on last month and 19 per cent on this time last year (Fig.3).

Fig.3 Seek ICT Job Adverts Monthly Trends 2010 –2014 (April)

3

Although the Trademe IT job adverts (fig.4) are down 3 per cent on last month they continue to trend significantly ahead of this time last year, up 18 per cent (Up 24 per cent in March).

Fig.4 Seek ICT & Trademe IT Job Advert Trends to April 2014

The monthly Seek ICT job adverts for April (fig.5) have increased for Wellington for the second

month in a row, up 7.2 per cent (10 per cent last month), while Canterbury has increased demand by

52.2 per cent after declining 22.4 per cent for the previous month. (Refer to figure 6 for specific

numbers).

Fig.5 Seek ICT Job Advert Trends Monthly Change for April 2014

4

Figure 6 provides a detailed record of the Seek ICT job advert trends by region to April 2014.

Fig.6 Seek ICT Job Advert Monthly Trends to April 2014

Figure 7 is a snapshot of the regional distribution of Seek ICT job adverts. Ninety four per cent of the

2,522 Seek ICT Jobs are distributed across the 3 main regions of Auckland, Wellington and

Canterbury.

Fig.7 Regional Distribution of Seek ICT Jobs (15th April 2014)

5

Conclusion

ICT trends, in terms of demand for popular skills and remuneration, here in New Zealand as well as Australia and the USA, point to a bright future for graduates and tech workers who can provide businesses with the skills most in demand.

News Bytes: A to Z

Australia/NZ - Hudson ICT: Salary & Employment Insights 2014

The most talked about trends today are mobility, cloud computing and big data and people with strong skills in these areas have plenty of options.

NZ – NZ Herald: Finding Skilled Workers is a Hard Task, says survey

Telecommunications and computer systems design were among the industries with the highest levels of hard-to-fill vacancies - all above 40 per cent.

NZ – Stuff.co.nz: Winners and Losers in Auckland Recovery

While unemployment in the 20 to 24 age group fell from 14.6 per cent in the third quarter of last year to 11.4 per cent in the final quarter, unemployment among 15 to 19-year-olds increased from 22.5 per cent to 27.2 per cent.

SA – Ventureburn.com: Integr8 boosts SA’s tech skills, opens up new internship programme

The SA government’s National ICT Plan aims to address the skills shortage that is estimated to be 27%.

USA – IT Salary Survey 2014

IT job watchers and HR consultants agree that there's a real skills shortage in the "hot" IT specialties because the number of projects that involve those types of work is exploding.

USA – Computerworld: Who's hot, who's not

A shortage of IT workers with the right skills, an uptick in new projects and a shift in the way IT works with business units have generated renewed optimism about IT careers.