There's Good News And Bad News About Pay For Tech WorkersThere's Good News And Bad News About Pay For Tech Workers

Pay for contract technology workers fell slightly in the first three months of 2005, according to a new study released on Wednesday by Yoh Services LLC, a provider of professional and IT staffing, recruiting, and outsourcing services in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

Hourly wages overall fell 0.8% in the first quarter of 2005 to an average of $29.31, compared with $29.54 in the same quarter of 2004, according to the Yoh Index of Technology Wages, which the company says is used by many large employers to determine salary scales.

The index isn't based on a survey or polls, but rather analyzes quarterly wage data of about 5,000 Yoh job candidates and temporary technology workers who are hired by more than 1,000 employers in sectors such as aviation, engineering, IT, manufacturing, scientific, telecommunications, and utilities.

Tech wages had risen 3.1% in January; however, those gains were lost in February and March, according to Yoh.

While the average wage for tech pros dipped in the first quarter, there were a number of hot job titles that saw increased pay and demand, says Jim Lanzalotto, Yoh VP of strategy and marketing.

For example, the average wage for some tech pros is almost double the average for others, he says. Among the hottest job titles in the first quarter were RFID engineers, who earned average hourly wages of $58.07; Microsoft ASP .Net developers, who earned an average of $46.36 per hour; and Microsoft Visual Basic .Net developers, who garnered $42.39 per hour, he says.

Moves by large retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to embrace RFID and the "pervasiveness" of Microsoft's .Net platforms in many enterprises is helping to drive the demand of skills related to those technologies, says Lanzalotto.

While there were pockets of hot skills demanded during the quarter, there also were a few hot geographic regions for tech jobs, he says. Tech wages increased in San Francisco; Portland, Ore.; and Philadelphia. However, pay fell in Houston; Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta.

Other popular tech-job titles during the quarter included SQL developer; field applications engineer; director of regulatory affairs; design-verification engineer; software engineer; and clinical trial manager, which requires bioinformatics and database-related skills, he says.

Another trend observed during the quarter was a growing demand for professionals who have a specific tech skill, such as .Net development, in a specialty or niche such as security, he says.