UPDATED 00:32 EDT / MARCH 28 2017

INFRA

Networking and storage pros see biggest salary increases in 2016

A growing demand for highly skilled storage and networking professionals in the tech industry is pushing up salaries, particularly in the hospitality, Internet, manufacturing, consumer products and banking sectors, according to a new report.

Tech careers and job search website Dice’s latest annual report on technology industry salaries found that overall average pay in the industry was slightly down, from $93,328 a year in 2015 to $92,081 a year in 2016. Overall, 61 percent of tech workers saw their salaries rise in 2016, compared with just 9 percent who saw a decline. However, the biggest salary increases were seen, perhaps not surprisingly, by those who specialize in “technologies needed to support industry transformation and growth,” Dice said.

Dice noted that the storage and networking sectors are both undergoing major disruption, and as a result the demand for individuals with experience in migrating from hardware-based storage to cloud storage is on the rise, resulting in big pay increases. Similarly, there’s also a growing demand for networking professionals with skills in connected devices and the Internet of Things.

Dice said that those with skills in technologies such as Compellant, Drupal, JCL, FcoE, Nimble, HBase, MariaDB, Pure Storage, vCloud and T1 or T3 saw the biggest pay rises in the last year, with average salaries bumped up by at least 5 percent over the last year. But some older skills still command higher salaries, as experts in HANA (who earned an average of $128,958 per year), MapReduce ($125,009) and Cloud Foundry ($124,038) still take home the biggest paychecks in the industry.

“Skills that were used a year ago may not be as prominent today; skills that are relevant today will evolve tomorrow,” said Dice President Bob Melk. “This creates a marketplace where both tech professionals and employers must keep their fingers on the pulse of skills training and demand. The skills areas which garnered salary increases indicate where professionals and employers should focus their training and recruiting efforts.”

Anyone with technology skills who’s looking for a bigger pay check could do a lot worse than to study this infographic from Dice, which identifies the highest-paying roles for seven in-demand tech roles:

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One trend that continues to prevail is tech workers’ willingness to move to wherever the money is. Some 27 percent of the more than 12,000 technology professionals surveyed indicated they’re willing to move to a new city for a job, up by 2 percent from one year ago.

Of course, that’s only if they can actually find a job. While 67 percent of respondents said they felt confident they could land a new, better-paid position if they wanted to, a significant number voiced concerns that their prospects may not always be so great.

Dice says that 15 percent of respondents expressed concern about being able to find a relevant position for their skill set, while 14 percent said they were worried about keeping their skills up to date. In addition, 10 percent said they were concerned about the possibility of “position elimination” as new technologies and skills emerge that supersede their own area of expertise.

Naturally, Dice stressed that these findings are a reminder to all professionals to continue their skills development and training and to understand the value of each skills area.

Image: Sajjad Rezaie/Flickr

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