What are the Highest Paying Jobs in IT and Tech?

December 22, 2022
What are the Highest Paying Jobs in IT and Tech?

In a disrupted tech hiring environment, knowing where the best-paid roles in IT are can be a struggle. 

That’s where engaging with a specialist tech and IT staffing recruiter can help both candidates and clients navigate the changing tides of remuneration in our fast-moving industry.

Contents:

How Focus GTS are building a fairer remuneration culture.

Focus GTS are proud pioneers of equitable, fair remuneration negotiation. Our much-vaunted, award-winning tech talent handling services are renowned for helping prospective employees meet their salary goals, and our client-facing consultants work with clients on making sure all remuneration packages are sustainable and market-leading. 

The very last thing we believe is that recruitment is only as good as the money you throw at it. The highest paying jobs in tech are only guaranteed from the companies with the most sustainable, in-demand product or service offer. 

If anything, recent movements in the tech field have shown us that money – especially investment and seed money – is not as freely available as it once was, and that rapid hiring upticks are not guaranteed to stay sustainable if the product, management and funding structure is inherently broken.

 

Focus GTS Top Tip.

We see ourselves as fonts of tech salary knowledge, and we know our industry inside and out. 

In this article, we want to focus on where the best-paying IT and tech jobs are, what sectors they’re in, and why candidates shouldn’t worry too much about the rise in tech layoffs – you’re still very much in high demand and wages will reflect that!

 

The future of IT and tech salaries in a hiring freeze. 

As the global media cheerily reports on a near-daily basis, the tech world is going through something of a staffing reset. 

According to Computer World in their recent analysis of tech hiring and firing, (and channelling data from TrueUp’s nifty Tech Layoff infographic), “there were 1138 rounds of layoffs at tech companies globally through mid-November, affecting 182,605 people”.

So what does this do to tech salaries? According to further reports such as this one in Protocol, there won’t be many large-scale changes to overall remuneration packages, but there are minor changes on the pay horizon, including:

  • A slight reduction in the cliff-face rises in salaries we’ve seen over the past couple of years – “compensation levels don’t go down…what happens is they don’t accelerate at the same pace they’ve been accelerating thus far”.
  • A reduction in the much-vaunted work perk package – “annual merit increase budgets could also cool off. In the red-hot talent market, those soared from the 3%-to-4% range to between 4% and 6% (of annual earnings). But a downturn could reverse that trend back to normal”.

 

Focus GTS Top Tip.

Do your research and remember that compensation schemes for great tech talent are designed to include healthy welfare packages and “perks”. 

Clients, a word to the wise – asking candidates to sacrifice now-standard compensation offers will go down like a lead balloon. Our advice is to craft individual offers for each candidate based on their needs and you’ll find a much higher quality buy-in from prospective talent.

 

Top paying IT jobs in our specialisms.

As specialist tech recruiters in the data science, AI, MarTech, BI and analytics and Cloud tech space, we know what constitutes an above-board pay grade, and have connections with some of the best-paying employers in the business. 

So here is a breakdown of what you can expect to get paid at the top end of our specialisms. 

Data Science.

  • As per Analytics Insight, Data Science is one of the best-paid jobs in IT, with top-paying roles in Data Engineering fetching employees approx. $142,653pa, and top paying roles as a Data Warehouse Architect offering candidates $146,151pa. 
  • The average Data Scientist salary in the USA is, according to Indeed, $99,659pa.

AI.

  • Although we often bracket our AI client support into our Data Science division, it’s worth highlighting some of the more out-there, high-paying jobs in AI that are attention-grabbing.
  • According again to Analytics Insight, roles such as ​Director of Analytics, Principal Scientist and Algorithm Engineer can earn candidates between $100,000pa to $140,837pa.

MarTech.

  • According to salary.com, the average MarTech salary is $155,142pa, but it’s worth drilling into specific MarTech roles to get a better understanding of the best-paid roles in the sector. 
  • A report by Global Newswire on the state of MarTech salary bandings indicates Mobile & Web Development ($85,000 – $162,500pa), Digital Media Manager ($75,000 – $130,000pa) and Marketing Automation Architect ($145,000 – $180,000pa) are all top-tier paying roles.

BI and Analytics.

  • In our view, the wide range of roles contained under the umbrella of BI and Analytics offers great scope for competitive remuneration. 
  • The best paying roles in BI and Analytics are, according to salary.com, jobs such as Business Intelligence Consultant ($75,348 and $92,554pa), Chief Data Officer ($190,490 and $261,390pa) and Business Intelligence Architect ($106,620 and $139,878pa).

Cloud Solutions. 

  • Venturebeat has a good generalist breakdown of senior, well-paid roles within the Cloud tech space, with roles at the Director level bracketed between $235,000-$237,000pa, down to Consultant at $129,000pa.
  • But as an indicator of average director-level pay, Ziprecruiter quotes $148,102 a year as the average take-home pay of a Director of Cloud Services.

 

References:

 

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3679733/tech-layoffs-in-2022-a-timeline.html

https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

https://www.protocol.com/workplace/downturn-tech-pay

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-10-highest-paying-data-science-jobs-and-skills-of-2023/

https://www.indeed.com/career/data-scientist/salaries

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/high-paying-artificial-intelligence-job-profiles-in-2021/

https://www.salary.com/research/company/martech-salary#:~:text=Avg.,Base%20Salary%20(USD)&text=Martech%20pays%20an%20average%20salary,and%20education%20of%20each%20employee.

https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2018/03/27/1453885/0/en/Mondo-Reveals-Top-10-MarTech-Tech-Jobs-with-Salaries-of-170K-or-More-for-2018.html#:~:text=The%20Mobile%20%26%20Web%20Development%20positions,%2FUI%20Developer%3A%20%2490%2C000%20%2D%20%24160%2C000

https://venturebeat.com/cloud/9-cloud-jobs-with-the-biggest-salaries%EF%BF%BC%EF%BF%BC/

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Director-of-Cloud-Services-Salary#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20a%20Director,States%20is%20%24148%2C102%20a%20year.