Tech Salaries Plateau in 2023, 93% of Tech Professionals Open to New Opportunities - Seite 2

While these positions command the highest tech salaries, they weren’t necessarily the ones that saw the most growth in 2023. The roles with the fastest growth in salary were:

1. Systems Administrator (+11.2%)
2. Software Developer (+6.5%)
3. Program Analyst / Manager (+6.1%)
T4. Help Desk Technician / Computer or Desktop Support Specialist (+4.8%)
T4. .NET Developer (+4.8%)

Help desk technicians have seen significant salary increases in the past two years (+6.9% in 2022, and then another 4.8% in 2023), likely due to the re-emergence of in-office work after the pandemic. While the average salary of $58,549 is well below the overall average tech salary, these employees are critical in solving problems for remote, hybrid and full-time office workers.

Mastering Key Competencies Elevates Tech Professionals’ Opportunities

Over the past few years, Dice has repeatedly seen data-related skills top the estimations of salary and demand; from small businesses to large enterprises, there’s a rising awareness that data means the difference between failure and market-beating success.

The top-paying skill for technology professionals in 2023 was Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), with an average salary of $137,917. However, that was a decrease of 3.4% from 2022. Skills that did have year-over-year salary growth include VSAM (+9.6%), Parallels (+9.1%), SQLite (+8.9%), MS Dynamics (+7.0%) and VoIP (+6.7%).

For technology professionals who want more opportunities and even a measure of job security, mastering complex skills — and keeping them up to date — can be leveraged for more advanced roles and higher salaries.

Strategic Perks Bridge Gaps in Tech Talent Retention

Health insurance, paid vacation, and 401(k) matching or a pension top the list of must-have benefits for technology professionals; unsurprisingly, remote and flexible schedule options are also high priority. These benefits should be a key part of company packages if they want to be successful in filling their open tech roles.

Secondary benefits don’t hold as much importance, but they do offer companies who can’t compete on salary a strategic way to differentiate themselves. While they don’t rank as high as the key benefits previously mentioned, Dice data shows offerings such as stock programs, work-from-home stipends, wellness programs and fitness reimbursements have continued to grow in popularity in the past few years.