IT Paychecks Rose In 2004 After Three-Year SlumpIT Paychecks Rose In 2004 After Three-Year Slump

Good news for the wallets of IT pros: Pay for certified and noncertified IT skills rebounded in 2004 after a three-year decline, says a new report released by IT research consultancy Foote Partners LLC.

The study--compiled through data from HR and IT executives and interviews--concludes that pay for tech skills in North America and Europe last year reversed a three-year downward trend, which had median paychecks for certified talent shrinking 6% annually while pay for noncertified talent had declined 8% annually.

Last year, overall median average pay increased 1% for 88 noncertified skills evaluated by Foote, while overall median average pay rose nearly 4% for 62 certified skills surveyed.

The Foote report--2004 Hot Technical Skills & Certification Pay Index--credits several factors for the pay reversal, including increased competition for IT talent in various industries; concerns about staff retention; mixed success in outsourcing; emerging hybrid jobs blending IT and operations duties; and increasing government-regulation compliance.

Among workers with noncertified skills, the biggest pay boosts were garnered by those with expertise in messaging and groupware, who received a 9.1% increase; networking and Internet, whose pay rose 7.6%; and application development tools and language skills, whose pay increased by 5.1%.

Certified skills that had the biggest pay jump were networking, which climbed 11.8%; systems administration, engineering, and network-operating skills, which rose 9.5%; and application development and programming languages, which increased 7.7%.

Despite the overall good news, not everyone in IT is getting fatter paychecks--pay declined for noncertified skills such as database, Web, and E-commerce talent; and for certified skills in project management, Web-mastering, and beginner certifications.