Salary study 2021 by swissICT: Salary level remains high
The swissICT Salary Survey 2021 shows a slight increase in salary levels. The data is based on 3,600 salary responses in 272 companies. And the industry association is also concerned about another question: Is the shortage of skilled workers getting worse?
If you want to earn a lot, you're in good hands in the ICT industry. That's because wages there have been consistently higher than in other industries for years. If you take inflation into account and compare the figures with the Previous year salaries have even increased slightly. According to the swissICT Salary Study 2021, the median salaries in 2021 for the "Junior", "Professional" and "Senior" skill levels are CHF 79,000, CHF 104,000 and CHF 127,000 respectively. despite Corona issues, only a few changes occurred in the IT job market. Overall, salaries are stable with slight deviations up and down. Nevertheless, the overall median is 1.1 percent higher this year than in 2020, which can be interpreted as an indication of the increasing shortage of skilled workers.
Occupational profiles are also becoming more differentiated. For example, the number of agile job profiles is increasing. The SAFe framework, for example, is increasingly being used in this topic, the study notes. Product owner, for example, received a further 23 percent more mentions than in the previous year. At a lower level, but with 98 percent growth, the Scrum Master is on the advance and gaining relevance.
More ICT service providers
272 companies participated in the salary survey. They reported 36,950 salaries. "This is an extremely pleasing increase," says Christian Hunziker, Managing Director of swissICT. "This shows, as in 2020, that the annual ICT salary survey continues to gain relevance. This is a nice sign and allows the evaluators to get a broader benchmark."
If we look at the sector distribution of the participating companies, we can see changes. For example, there was an increase in the number of participating service companies as well as in industry and commerce. Despite having the largest number of participating companies, ICT providers still account for 23 percent of all salary entries, or just under a quarter of all entries.
The cut-off date for the data collection was May 1, 2021. The salaries were evaluated on the basis of "ICT professions," which covers salaries for a total of 50 professions. This year, no new occupational profiles were added, which leads to more stability.
Differences in top specialists
A look at the standard evaluation of the swissICT Salary Survey 2021 shows the spread of salaries of comparable functions. In Switzerland, a "senior" application developer earns roughly between CHF 120,000 (lower quartile, 25 percent threshold) and CHF 135,000 (upper quartile, 75 percent threshold). This means that for one quarter of the mentions in each case, the salary is lower than CHF 120,000 and higher than CHF 135,000, respectively. With 2137 mentions, this occupational profile is among the most frequently mentioned.
The spreads for Junior (S1) to Expert (S4) are comparable and show a certain stability. In the case of the "Senior Expert S5", this increases by leaps and bounds and sometimes already exceeds 50,000 Swiss francs (25 percent to 75 percent quartiles). However, "If you come for the money, you leave for the money," says Nicole Kaeser Mirata, who has been involved in the "ICT Salaries" working group for many years. Her employer, Mobiliar, has participated in the salary study from the very beginning.
Source: swissICT
