SAGE 2003 Salary Survey Announced

MrRules writes "The 2003 SAGE Salary Survey is now open for business. Last year's survey (results here, slashdot articles here and here) was quite an interesting read. Last year saw over 10,000 participants, making it the largest global participation sysadmin salary survey ever. This year there is a separate survey for those who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks, so we should be able to see some real information on what has been happening in the "jobless recovery", and what effect outsourcing has been having on this sector. The survey is conducted annually by SAGE, the professional association for practising system administrators." As a general rule, I *hate* linking to surveys, but SAGE's is one that's definitely worthwhile..

Comments

Impact on outsourcing will be interesting

[drizst 'n drat]

I will be very interested in seeing what the effect of outsourcing will have on the wages of US based tech firms. I suspect that they will tend to be lower and continue to do so for the near future. I know that outsourcing lower paid programming jobs is a good thing for business. However, I can't help feeling that in the long term it will have consequences beyond just salary.

Re:Impact on outsourcing will be interesting

[Allen Zadr]

A lot of murmuring around me has been about big companies being burned by the high (hidden) costs of outsourcing. Especially in programming and IT.

In software, companies are often dismayed by the fact that they get exactly what they ask for and have to pay for it even if it doesn't meet their expectations. So, many companies have had to hire a project manager and design specification developer team for any major project, and the extra salary from these jobs, along with the communications delays that goes with it has often been a break-even situation.

For outsourced IT, those who need 'immediate help' will bother the few tech-savvy (a/k/a knows enough to be dangerous) co-workers instead of being berated for putting in an Outsourced IT ticket. This leads to a cut in those worker's productivity, and often leads to other problems when these folks make symptoms disappear instead of fixing the issue (Pop-Up blockers?).

Some departments of larger companies have hired 'receptionists' that are actually IT people who answer the phone, so that immediate help can be had without being budget dinged by corporate for over-use of outsourced IT.

Of course, the hidden bleed of paying $30k or more for someone who's official job is to answer the phone - just because a department is trying to get around the rules... well, it makes outsourcing a bit expensive all of a sudden.

In a similar vein... http://www.engineersalary.com

[Hollinger]

Hello there! In a similar vein, http://www.engineersalary.com/ provides salary statistics for many, many types of engineers. All you have to do is answer a few questions about just what precisely it is you do, and it will do its best to pull records of similar people.

[SNIP]
The Engineering Salary Calculator searches over 253,000 records in our database, and returns your salary result based on degree, experience, position, industry, skills and location (within a 50 mile radius). Your result is obtained from a minimum of 100 matching profiles. If you search a location that doesn't have at least 50 matching salary records, the area expands from 50 to 75, then to a 90 mile radius. Records older than 360 days are excluded.

In the case of a unique skill set combination (if the database can't locate more than 25 matches for the location using the 50-75-90 rule), it will expand the boundaries to state, then region... and finally nationwide. In densely populated metros like San Jose or Boston, your salary result is compiled using hundreds of records (in most categories)... but in less populated areas (parts of Montana as an example) the search has to expand to a wider area to provide a relevant comparison.

The calculator is designed to always return a result. There are cases where it will not return a local result: MS in Mechanical Engineering, working as the Chief Engineer for a Nanotechnology company in AK. In cases where a search produces too few salary matches nationally (threshold <250), the result is compiled by performing an interpolation of all available data. An unreasonable set: Nuclear Engineer, working in RF with skills in Aerodynamics - will generate a result that is not credible.
[/SNIP]

My salary

[Anne_Nonymous]

I'm a 107 year-old woman from Azerbaijan, who's interested in paint-ball and hang-gliding. Last year I made $476,513.50 as a systems admin.

Oh no, wait, that's for the New York Times registration.