UK IT salaries hold steady

Scots doing rather well

By James Watson, 28th November 2001

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Salaries for IT professionals increased 1.65 per cent in the third quarter, an overall average of £31,191 for the UK.

London-based workers are the highest paid of the lot, with an average salary of £39,395, an increase of 3.5 per cent over the last quarter. Scotland had the largest increase at 5.4 per cent, bringing its average to £25,719. (Salaries exclude bonuses, additional benefits and other extras)

Audit and security specialists, as well as systems testers, showed a decent growth of 5 per cent, while business analysts dropped 2.1 per cent. Web specialists are close to the average, growing 2 per cent, a far cry from the double-digit dotcom growth in years gone by.

All this is despite the rumblings of a global recession and job cuts from every direction, which is heartening news for workers in the IT sector, says Lifesupportal.com, publisher of the survey. It got the numbers from more than 4000 job placements completed by recruitment agencies over the last quarter.

The company calculates that London-based IT workers have to work for six minutes to earn a pint, while Scottish workers only have to put in five minutes, taking into account the lower average price up North.

In July, another survey showed overall US IT salaries tumbling by six per cent, with only salespeople getting a touch of growth. It pegged the average American IT salary at $60,126. ®