2013 salary e guide

TechTargets 2013 IT Salary Survey Results

TechTarget's Annual IT Salary and Careers

Survey uncovers the latest trends in IT executive

compensation, employee satisfaction and the

evolution of IT careers.

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Contents

IT executive compensation,

priorities and job satisfaction

CIOs offer IT guidance for

2014

Whats your IT earning

potential?

Senior IT compensation: The

sum also rises

Executives have positive

outlook for the year ahead

To the cloud, say SMB IT

execs

Compensation and IT priorities by

job title

IT head counts and budgets:

On the up-and-up

Project planning: BYOD in,

Outsourcing out..

Networking professionals

staying put, despite salary ga

Is your data center

management plan ready for

prime time?

Data center duties:

Challenges in the new year

Developer-programmers A

tale of two pay structures

Each year, TechTarget conducts a Salary and Careers Survey to gauge where IT executives and staff stand in terms of earnings, employee satisfaction, job prospects and IT priorities for the year ahead.

This year, 1,711 IT professionals took our career survey, ranging from systems administrators to CIOs, and spilled on employee and executive compensation, what keeps them content in their current job or pushes them to look elsewhere and where they'll focus their IT efforts heading into 2014.

Contents

IT executive compensation, priorities and job satisfaction

CIOs offer IT guidance for 2014.....Page 3

Whats your IT earning potential? ..Page 7

Senior IT compensation: The sum also rises ..Page 11

Executives have positive outlook for the year ahead..Page 14

To the cloud, say SMB IT execs.Page 16

Compensation and IT priorities by job title

IT head counts and budgets: On the up-and-up...Page 19

Project planning: BYOD in, Outsourcing out.....Page 21

GRC professionals: Are salaries keeping up with pertinence...Page 24

Networking professionals staying put, despite salary gap..Page 26

Is your data center management plan ready for prime time?.Page 29

Data center duties: Challenges in the new year....Page 32

Developer-programmers: A tale of two pay structures.....Page 34

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IT EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION, PRIORITIES AND JOB SATISFACTION

TechTarget's 2013 Annual Salary and Careers Survey took the pulse of 466 senior IT executives, and in this section, they lay it all out for us: how much they make, how they prioritize projects and what keeps them happy in their current positions or causes them to seek out new career opportunities.

CIOs Offer IT Guidance for 2014

The TechTarget IT Salary and Careers Survey results are in. Over the next few weeks, writers and editors from the CIO/IT Strategy Media Group, as well as staff from our sister TechTarget sites, will share the salary and total compensation results and job satisfaction and career path trends of the 1,711 IT professionals who took our survey this year, who ranged from systems administrators to CIOs.

This piece is the first in a series that will delve into senior IT executive salary and compensation, IT strategies and career ambitions. The coming stories will also focus on the highest and lowest earners, IT budgeting and staffing and the top IT projects for 2014.

The highest paid senior IT executive who took our IT Salary and Careers survey was a CIO who made $1.48 million (bonus included) in 2013.The average total compensation for this group of 466 senior IT executives was $164,000, and 50% of these executives expect their total compensation to rise by 5% in 2014 -- in line with the raise they received in 2013.

Why so optimistic about the compensation road ahead? It's well deserved, as several senior IT executives explained. Their responsibilities are being aligned with business goals and business outcomes, not just "keeping the lights on." That spells ROI. Technology is not just a means of optimizing business processes but flipping business models; not just improving customer service but engaging customers in entirely new ways; and not just about serving the traditional "IT customer," the employee, but the external customers that the CEO or any line of business serves.

Sure, 54% of these senior IT executives (CIOs, CTOs, directors of IT and executive vice presidents of IT) said the top measure of success for their position is ensuring the reliability of IT services (that's a given), but 47% said

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it was also measured by helping the business meet expected goals and outcomes.

My role is being able to interpret what the business wants and finding the tools to do things not only differently, but better," said Mark Landes, the director of IT for a global manufacturer.

This entails consolidating 18 systems into one ERP in order to get one "data version of the truth" for reports used to make business decisions out of his company's business intelligence (BI) system. His IT organization is also swapping out a "big cost and well-known" Software as a Service CRM system with one that instead easily connects to this new ERP system and caters to customers that are business partners.

Career paths lead to data management and the need for speed

Senior IT executives said that operational efficiencies (58%) is the top value the business expects to gain from technology projects in 2014, followed by increased employee productivity (43%) and improved customer service (36%).

These are value factors that are not lost on IT executives such as Naimish Shah, senior director of IT for a large financial services company. His mission moving into 2014, first and foremost, is to improve the data quality of the information used by employees to do their jobs and to create new services for customers within the "business platforms that help generate revenue" for his company.

His top projects for next year include the following:

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Cleaning up data, in part by consolidating platforms and outsourcing the management of platforms to offshore data experts.

Introducing new products and services faster through system consolidation and data cleansing.

Reducing complexity and creating system flexibility. "If we have lower systems complexity, we can tweak products and services that we offer faster and be more responsive to change management requests as they come up," Shah said. "These projects also set us up better for merger and acquisition with fewer systems to merge."

Jim Cole, who initially focused on tech projects from BI to mobile, joined a technology services provider two years ago as an IT director in charge of 800 IT professionals serving the provider's financial services customers. That's a far cry from his career beginnings as a programmer. How was he able to make the leap from taking directives to giving them?

"I started to focus less on the actual development and more on aligning to business objectives," he said. "[I focused on] making sure that IT services support the business. From an IT management perspective, the business is more 'in the driver's seat.'"

"They see all this money being spent on technology and they want business value faster from technology," Cole said. "Whatever vendor stack you use, it's there already; what matters now is making enhancements faster."

Agile and iterative is the language that he and the C-suite are using, with the business loosely defining what it needs and IT delivering pieces of a project weekly. "We change things iteratively after we go back and forth with the business. It's not about perfecting everything -- a long, large-scale project -- but perfecting elements of it faster," he said.

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Landes is also using an Agile project management approach to the roll-out of his new ERP system. A transplant from a strategic consulting firm hired by his current employer for a specific project, Landes has the business-approach part down. He also has an interesting, agnostic take on the technology needed to support a business.

"I have no attachment to a given system, and I know a lot of IT people who do get very attached to a given technology," he said. "I have no problem switching out a system in six months if market or business factors change and something that better serves business needs comes along to improve the way things are done."

Moving into 2014, Landes is beginning an eight-week rolling, iterative schedule for the ERP implementation. "It doesn't have to be perfect because in many cases we would have to redo aspects of the system anyway. The idea is to remediate as you go to achieve smaller milestones."

Being a mentor and a mover and shaker

Landes, Cole and Shah said their total compensation (salary and bonus) are in line with the average compensation of other IT executives in their given industries. For senior IT executives in the non-IT manufacturing industry, our survey found the average IT salary and bonus in 2013 was $150,000; for technology consulting, it was $162,000; and for financial services, it's also about $150,000. The highest-paying industry was legal, insurance and real estate, at an average total compensation of $197,000.

The almighty dollar is a factor in terms of job satisfaction and career path for senior IT executives, the IT salary survey showed. And the ability to advance their careers and their take-home pay is based not only on their own actions, but on the actions or inaction of their staffs.

Cole has found that work/life balance and flexibility motivates his employees. "If they work late, they come in later and they can work from home," he said.

Work flexibility is also a hit with recent college grads, but Cole said it is harder to nail down the secret to keeping newer generations on the payroll. "They are looking for meaning in their work. I had a college grad tell me he didn't want to program for big banks who take money from people. He left to become a preacher," he said. "That's an extreme case, but money doesn't seem to be as big a motivator for many of them as meaningful work does."

This new generation also appreciates appreciation. An award or their picture on the wall for a job well done goes a long way, Cole added. "Public recognition motivates them. We try to balance all this, but the market is

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heating up and it's becoming more and more challenging to balance all of their needs."

Landes has taken steps to improve the work life of his new IT staff. Before he came on board, "everyone in IT felt like a task doer. No one was empowered to make choices or suggestions," he said. His first move was to start calling his team "solution engineers" instead of IT employees to get across the point that they were building solutions for the company. The next step was to give them a way to do that. "They meet with people now and communicate how a new product or functionality will help them. You have to empower them to make decisions, and if they make the wrong ones, it's a learning experience."

What motivates senior IT executives to stay with current employers? The top three reasons are that innovation is encouraged, business is picking up and the management team is strong. Conversely, senior IT executives start to head for the door when career advancement is limited, management is ineffective and the IT budget keeps getting cut.

IT Salary Survey 2013: High earners, low earners and CIO earning potential.

What is the potential earning power of senior IT executives? The answer, of course, is, "It depends." According to our 2013 TechTarget IT Salary and Careers Survey, some of the most important factors that set compensation levels are company revenue, company size, length of career and, to a lesser degree, industry.

More than half of high earners (54%) received bonuses in 2013 compared with just 32% of low earners, and the average bonus of high earners was nearly four times higher than that of low earners -- $41,960 versus $11,447.

One clear conclusion: Senior IT executives looking for higher pay should consider moving to a bigger company.

Similar to last year's respondents, the IT Salary Survey 2013's pool of 464 senior IT executive respondents revealed that pay for the people in charge of IT operations can differ substantially. Total compensation for our 2013 group ranged from $30,000 for the lowest earners to almost $1.5 million for the highest earner. Senior IT executives were defined as CIOs, chief technology officers, executive vice presidents, and directors of IT, MIS and IS.

The top one-third of this pool -- defined in this survey as high earners -- received more than the median compensation of $140,000. For this elite group, the average total compensation was $225,301, more than double the

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$101,562 average total compensation for low earners, or IT senior executives earning less than the median.

What separates the high earners from the pack? While their raises as a percentage of salary were only slightly higher in 2013 than those of low earners (6.2% versus 5.4%), more high earners received raises than low earners (58% to 51%).

On the issue of bonuses, the differences were more striking: More than half of high earners (54%) received bonuses in 2013 compared with just 32% of low earners, and the average bonus of high earners was nearly four times higher than that of low earners -- $41,960 versus $11,447. For IT executives earning below the $140,000 median, pay was also more likely to be stagnant in 2013, with 28% of low earners reporting "no change from the previous year" in total compensation compared with 18% of high earners.

Time on job, satisfaction, industry make little difference for many

Experience plays a role in senior IT executive pay, at least in one respect. More high earners (43%) have worked in the IT field between 21 years and 30 years than low earners (32%) for the same period. When it comes to the duration of their current positions, however, there is no appreciable difference between the two groups. The majority (54% for both high and low earners) have been in their current position between one and five years.

Likewise, job satisfaction was similar between the two groups. A slightly higher number of low earners (26%) plan to stay in their current roles compared with high earners (20%), but an equal number of high and low

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earners (45% and 46%, respectively) characterize themselves as "open to new opportunities but not actively seeking" a new job.

Industry, for the most part, was also not a deciding factor in pay. While more high earners (8%) than low earners (2%) worked in the legal field, and more low earners (7%) than high earners (0%) worked in the nonprofit sector, the top three industries for high earners and low earners were the same:

Financial/banking: high earners (19%); low earners (18%)

IT-related services/consulting: high earners (13%); low earners (8%)

Medical/healthcare/pharmaceutical/biotech: high earners (10%); low earners (16%)

IT Salary Survey 2013: CIO pay and company size, revenue

So what accounts for a twofold difference in salary and four-fold discrepancy in bonus pay between high earners and low earners?

Size matters: A higher percentage of low earners (63%) than high earners (35%) work in companies with fewer than 500 employees. The gap is even starker at the other end of the spectrum: Only 5% of low earners work for companies with 10,000 or more employees, compared with 21% of high earners. The difference holds true for company revenue, as well, with nearly half of high earners (48%) working for companies with revenue between $500 million to more than $10 billion, compared with only 4% of low earners. The majority of low earners (54%) work for companies with less than $50 million in revenue.

That company size factors heavily into IT leader compensation did not surprise the IT director of a medical school at a large university, whose pay is just above the $140,000 median compensation for high earners but below the average total compensation of $225,301. Pay for his IT group of 10 is set by a salary matrix, with directors at one end of the classification scale and help desk technicians at the other end. Points are awarded for education, certifications and years of experience.

"There is also a subjective component," where hiring managers can make a case for paying a person more, he said. And, yes, the size of the organization does matter. IT directors at the larger schools and departments of the university make more money than those in charge of small organizations or organizations that, unlike the medical school, do not bring in large research grants, he said.

At the university for just a year, he has spent most of his energy implementing ITIL standards in an effort to make IT services consistently

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reliable. "You can't innovate unless the basic services are up and running," he said. Until that happens, the more strategic research initiatives at the medical school are being handled by a separate informatics group.

Back office versus strategic CIOs

Lily Mok, a vice president at IT consultancy Gartner Inc. whose research focuses on CIOs, said that compensation strategies at organizations are shaped by economics, by the maturity of the industry and by culture, with "financial affordability" ultimately determining pay.

"No matter how much you value people, there is only a certain amount of money you have available to reward and pay them," Mok said. The Stamford, Conn.-based consultancy partners with Mercer on CIO compensation research.

She has seen a move away from pegging compensation strictly to job position in recent years -- at least for roles a company considers critical. "They adjust the pay to have the flexibility to attract the most qualified candidates for that position," she said. "If you put in the wrong person, over time you may not get a return on value."

That trend applies to CIOs, resulting in a disjunction in pay between "traditional CIOs with back-office, operational roles" and CIOs who help set business strategy. The latter deliver operational excellence but also take a leadership role outside of IT to impact product development, customer experience or generate revenue in other ways. "These are truly business executives, and their compensation looks like everyone else's in the C-level suite,"Mok said.

Anthony Peters, who leads IT at Burr Pilger Mayer, a 400-person San Francisco-based accounting and consulting firm with six offices in the United States and one in Hong Kong, has experienced the trend firsthand. Based on salary, bonus and profit-sharing, his compensation falls into the high earners' cohort, the firm's employee count notwithstanding. An integral member of the firm's management team, Peters also has an MBA, an attribute the survey did not ask for this year. He is at the table when business strategy is set.

"The expectation is that whatever information comes out of those meetings, I am able to take that information and translate it into technology, in some format," he said. If the company is trying to acquire a new firm or build a new product or take its customer service up a notch, Peter's team creates a solution that either "solves the problem or meets the need."

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As for the standard metrics often used to gauge IT's performance -- reliability of services, completing projects on time, cost -- those are "table stakes," Peters said. "That's IT's job, and my firm doesn't measure me on that. They want to know how IT can take them to the next level."

The sum also rises: IT execs see compensation increases, expect same in 2014

They're in the money -- and they expect to stay that way. A majority of senior IT executives responding to the 2013 TechTarget IT Salary and Careers Survey reported an overall increase in compensation in 2013 compared to the previous year and believe history will repeat itself in 2014.

In all, 57% of the 464 senior IT leaders represented in the survey saw their total compensation go up in 2013 (30% reported no change; 14% claimed cuts). The average reported increase in base salary was 5.9%. Additionally, 43% of these executives reported receiving a bonus. The average bonus was nearly $31,500 for top ranking IT leaders.

Looking ahead to 2014, 59% percent of senior IT leaders who took our survey expect another increase in compensation; 32% expect no change, while 9% anticipate a loss. Senior IT executives were defined as CIOs, chief technology officers [CTOs], executive vice presidents and directors of IT/MIS/IS.

Among the IT executives who saw compensation increases, several who spoke to SearchCIO in follow-up interviews said the pay raises were tied to the growth and financial health of their companies, another sign of the economic recovery.

In the case of one executive at a consulting firm who did not receive a financial boost, the reason given was that the compensation package he had negotiated continued to serve him well. He further noted that his compensation was pegged to go up in 2014 -- likely in the form of increased stock ownership in the company.

Although the survey did not ask specifically about pay raises for their staffs, the senior IT leaders interviewed for this story said they worked hard this year to reward their own employees either through raises or finding ways to help advance their careers.

Daniel Salama, CIO at MCNA Dental based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is one of the 57% who received an increase in compensation in 2013. He's also among the majority of people who expects a gain in 2014. His compensation prospects are tied to the financial health of the company, he said. MCNA is

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experiencing rapid growth and the solutions his IT organization develops and delivers -- in accordance with clearly defined project goals -- is integral to that growth.

"I value myself as a key individual able to deliver unique knowledge and expertise to our company, and financial rewards are just one way the company shows its appreciation," Salama said.

Among the 30% of senior IT leaders who saw no change in compensation is the CIO at a regional IT consulting practice in the Northeast, who requested anonymity. Like dental insurance firm MCNA, his company is "doing great and growing rapidly," and like Salama he is expected to enable that growth with IT. Nonetheless, he was untroubled by not getting a compensation increase in 2013.

"Financial rewards are nice, but at this point in my career I feel comfortable with the package I negotiated, and I'm much more concerned about being in the right job," he said.

Moreover, he expects an increase next year, which will likely be along the lines of stock options that add to his corporate ownership, he said.

Shivani Verma, provincial director of client services and service management at Heath Shared Services BC (HSSBC) in Vancouver, British Columbia, also didn't experience a boost in pay in 2013. Being employed in the public sector where tight budget constraints are the norm, Verma said she doesn't expect a regular major increase in compensation.

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Her expectation for 2014 is only for a cost-of-living increase. Money isn't the only factor contributing to her work satisfaction.

"I can bring change in the healthcare delivery to my province and to the people who live here," Verma said. "The ability to make that kind of change motivates me and everyone I work with."

Sharing the wealth

When economic times are good or improving -- and even when they're not -- senior IT leaders who communicated with SearchCIO about the survey results said they strive to find ways to reward their own employees. Sometimes this means a salary increase; sometimes it means providing opportunities.

The consulting practice CIO said the way his company is growing, there is ample opportunity for IT advancement, which brings with it additional compensation.

"We try to build an environment that is fun and exciting, and where individuals have ownership of their projects," he said. "We also pay more out in spot bonuses, so we're not constrained by high base salaries."

At HSSBC, where money is tighter, Verma encourages employees to develop new skills. "There is room to grow and those opportunities define the monetary rewards," she said.

For IT team members at MCNA, Salama has developed performance incentive programs to keep employees "motivated and on their toes at the same time." He said the programs include bonuses throughout the year and one or more salary revisions.

There are non-monetary rewards CIOs can provide their staffs too, he said. When opportunities for promotion are not available, for example, he said he looks for potential horizontal moves that will help employees advance their careers. He also works at creating a positive workplace culture.

"I always work hand in hand with my staff to develop extracurricular activities that promote team-building, while allowing them to disconnect from work and enjoy each other as colleagues and friends," Salama said.

For senior IT, job satisfaction, optimism tied to innovation and growth

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For senior IT executives, the view from the top was a little brighter in 2013. Results from this year's TechTarget IT Salary and Career Survey indicated that as the U.S. emerges from the Great Recession, IT leaders are feeling positive about their jobs and also detect a sense of optimism within the organizations they serve. And while the sunny outlook is helped along by stable and surging salaries, as documented by the survey results, money isn't all that is making the glass appear half full.

One reason for the optimism? Company business is picking up for many of the senior IT execs in our survey, and that's encouraging them to stick around. The survey found that 53% of the 464 senior IT leader respondents aspire to stay with their current company for the next three to five years. Among that group, 23% would like to move up in the company, 14% hope to move up in the IT organization, and 14% would be happy to stay in their current role.

In all, 68% expressed happiness with their job, 23% claimed they were satisfied with their current position and company, and 45% said they'd be open to new opportunities but weren't actively looking. Senior IT executives were defined as CIOs, chief technology officers (CTOs), executive vice presidents and directors of IT/MIS/IS.

Daniel Salama, CIO for Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based MCNA Dental, counts himself among that 53% of senior IT leaders who see themselves sticking with their company for at least three to five more years. "It's an exciting time," he said. "The company is growing quickly, which keeps everyone challenged and on their toes." Salama plans on growing with the company, and anticipates his job will transition to a higher authority role in the next few years.

For the CIO at a regional IT consulting practice in the Northeast who requested anonymity, the chance to grow along with a burgeoning business also factors into his current job satisfaction. He's part of the leadership team at the practice, and right now that's right where he wants to be. After spending years in unhappy work situations in order to develop his technical and leadership skills, he has earned the luxury of taking only the jobs he wants.

"I have a seat at the table and a voice in the overall direction the company is moving. I am quite content where I am," he said.

For MCNA Dental's Salama, job satisfaction boils down to a handful of simple yet important things, like knowing he's making a difference in his company and for their clients, feeling eager to come to work even when it stretches beyond the normal 9 to 5 hours, and being recognized for

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accomplishments. And it also hinges on the job satisfaction of those who work for him.

"My job satisfaction includes knowing that my own employees feel they've achieved their own definition of job satisfaction and that I've helped them in achieving that," Salama said.

Optimism inspired by growth and innovation

It's easier to feel good about work when the vibe is upbeat. Among the senior IT executives in our survey, 78% said the mood in their organization was either optimistic (39%) or neutral (38%). Two of the top reasons cited for the mostly positive outlook were the encouragement of innovation (61%) and business growth (34%). That correlation is key, according to Salama.

As the company grows, his team is working on "exciting" projects and has the freedom to stay on the "bleeding edge," he said.

"We're tasked to continuously innovate our technologies and be the best of the best in what we do," Salama said. This requires a lot of hard work, but results in a great deal of satisfaction. "Our drive for innovation keeps everyone motivated, challenged and engaged at all times."

Sam Cattle, now practice manager at Cincinnati-based Mainstream Security, agreed. "To excel at a job, innovation and growth are key," he said. Cattle recently left a job where many of the factors cited by IT leaders in the survey as being crucial to a positive outlook were waning or lacking entirely. There were layoffs, unresolved customer challenges and no growth. His new IT organization is different.

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"The care and feeding elements -- budget, training, effective management, career management and advancement -- are critical, from an employee's point of view," Cattle said. He loves what he's doing and would be happy to continue working for Mainstream Security into the foreseeable future.

"Nothing is driving me to look," he said. "I'm bullish on my new company."

The cloud looms large over IT career paths

Driven by the push to get value out of data and by the transfer of infrastructure, applications and data to the cloud, IT managers believe their profession is on the cusp of significant change. Whether that change is for the good of their IT career path remains to be seen.

"Cloud is making a huge difference to IT careers," said David Girard, one of the 277 IT managers who participated in our IT Salary and Careers Survey, which surveyed 1,711 IT professionals in North America.

The exciting part of our focus next year is the move away from keeping the lights on to delivering reports and data upon request and having a one-stop shop for their data needs.

Ken Yawfimetz, IT manager

"To a certain extent, senior executives devalue us now and view our services as commodity -- that we are button-pushers," said Girard, IT manager at an educational publisher with 5,000-plus employees. "On the flip side, many see the real value in governance and controls around those easy-to-push buttons. They are aware of the mess we could be in and how fast we can get there with unchecked cloud services."

IT managers, such as Girard, who took the survey, suggested that on-demand cloud models are making it more challenging for IT professionals to meet the traditional IT tenets that have helped them move up in the IT ranks. The top three means by which an IT manager's performance is measured by the business are: ensuring reliability of IT services, completing projects on time, and meeting productivity goals, according to the survey.

Girard said those IT measures still hold true, but cloud computing gives them a whole new urgency. "There is very much a, 'I don't care one way or another; do it now' attitude [coming from the business]," he said.

Unlike in the past, however, the business understands enough about technology that "now" doesn't always mean perfect. "What is really refreshing is [that] those [business users] asking for it now take accountability

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in getting something done faster, and are saying more often that we [in IT] do have time to fix it later or revisit," he said, adding that his colleague has a sign above his desk to that effect: "There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over."

The factors behind job satisfaction, changes in IT career path

The "now factor" is also causing IT delivery to shift to self-service models. Ken Yawfimetz's focus moving into 2014 will be on creating "Data as a Service" in easily digestible data chunks. The IT department will do all the data crunching and data analytics -- pulling that responsibility off employees' plates -- and will create a self-service portal for employees to access and manipulate the data they need.

"The exciting part of our focus next year is the move away from keeping the lights on to delivering reports and data upon request and having a one-stop shop for their data needs," said Yawfimetz, who is an IT manager with a large government agency. For Yawfimetz, this "ability to add value" in the form of self-service analytics that in turn boosts employee productivity and the speed with which they serve customers motivates him to want to stay in his current job.

What else constitutes job satisfaction? Being given challenges that allow him to innovate and streamline business processes, he said. An environment in which innovation is encouraged was the top reason IT managers ranked their mood about their organization as positive. Conversely, limited career advancement was cited as the biggest mood downer, followed by ineffective management and continued IT budget cuts.

The majority of the IT managers who took the survey have been in the IT field for one to five years. And those that have been in their current position

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for less than a year said they took a new job in 2013 because they wanted more money, were laid off, or they wanted a new challenge.

Ram Karumuri, who is a senior manager of IT audits, said his IT career path has been a happy one because he came from the business side, and then entered the IT field. "I started out in banking business operations, then gained core banking systems knowledge as a project manager, so I understand the business point of view versus just going by the book to make a recommendation on how to improve something."

The salary sum of things

Karumuri, Girard and Yawfimetz did not put a high value on their salary in terms of job satisfaction, perhaps because they each received total compensation in line with the average of other IT managers in their respective industries. The average IT manager's salary and total compensation was $119,000 and $130,000 in the financial services industry, $96,000 and $100,000 in the publishing industry, and $100,000 and $102,000 in the government sector.

In general, IT managers fared well in terms of salary and bonuses in 2013. The average salary for IT managers was $97,000, while the average total compensation was $102,000, with their salaries increasing by 5% on average in 2013. The average bonus was around $11,000, and the majority of the IT managers' expect a 5% raise in 2014.

A salary trend being driven by a lack of IT talent is becoming more prevalent, according to Girard, who said he is seeing those with less experience making the same salary as more seasoned professionals.

"People are being rewarded not necessarily based on what they can or can't do, but purely because companies are struggling to fill empty seats. They just want a warm body," he said.

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COMPENSATION AND IT PRIORITIES BY JOB TITLE

Going into 2014, all segments of IT are examining their technology budgets and priorities for the coming year. In this section, we reveal our IT career survey results as they relate to compliance officers, networking professionals, server and data center managers and developer-programmers, and gauge their earning potential and job satisfaction.

IT Salary Survey: Information technology budgets are stable or growing

For all the recent talk of IT organizations on the road to extinction, the budgets and headcounts for most IT leaders either grew or stayed the same, according to the 2013 TechTarget IT Salary and Careers Survey.

In a poll of 348 senior IT executives, 76% reported their budgets either grew (38%) or remained flat (38%) when compared to 2012.

Similarly, 76% of respondents reported department headcounts either grew (29%) or remained flat (47%) in 2013. For those who reported staffing levels grew in 2013, the headcount increased by about 13%; for those who saw a reduction in staffing, the average decrease was close to 14%, according to the survey results. Conversely, only one-fourth reported they were either operating under a hiring freeze (16%) or shrinking by attrition (9%).

The salary survey was launched in September and remained open through October, attracting 1,711 participants in total. Senior IT executives were

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defined as CIOs, chief technology officers, executive vice presidents, and directors of IT and information security.

Whether information technology budgets in the future are siphoned off by business groups -- remember the prediction about chief marketing officers? -- and all the IT jobs get ported to the cloud or taken over by robots remains to be seen. But for now, reports of the IT organization's demise appear premature.

Indeed, data suggests 2014 will provide another year of stability and even growth for IT departments, with 32% of respondents indicating they're fully staffed and another 39% indicating they're looking to make new hires.

The relative stability and uptick of budgets and headcounts, however, doesn't mean IT leaders have left their penny-pinching ways behind. All the CIOs and IT leaders interviewed for this article, including those whose budgets and staffs increased in 2013, stressed that they continue to look for ways to cut costs without sacrificing service or innovation.

Ups and downs of headcounts

Count Michael Maya, CIO for the city of Wichita in Kansas, is one of the fortunate 29% of senior IT execs whose staffs grew in 2013. In a follow-up interview, he told SearchCIO he was finally able to fill seven positions that had gone unfilled for up to five years. "We just got back to where we were before [the recession]," he said. "Positions went open through attrition, and I pretty much held those open so I wouldn't have to worry about laying people off."

Anthony Peters, director of IT for the San Francisco-based financial services firm Burr Pilger Mayer Inc., had a different story to tell. His headcount decreased in 2013, but that was because of strong market demand, not layoffs. "We started to see the market open up with more opportunities for IT technicians," he said. "One former employee left because the position he was going to was more senior and [it] gave him more authority to make decisions."

Scott Kushner, chief innovation officer for the Langhorne, Pa.-based Voice Systems Engineering Inc., said his headcount remained flat in 2013. That's a statistic that might technically be true for Kushner in 2014 as well, but he also expects to increase the company's use of consultants and contracted positions. It's a strategic initiative backed by company dollars. "Because I'm adding in more consultants, [my budget] will actually go up by 6% to 7% [in 2014]," he said.

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Flat budgets aren't necessarily a bad thing

While Kushner will get more money in 2014 for outsourcing, other areas of IT spending will follow the trend at his company since 2012 and will likely remain flat next year. "We're trying to go through a process of cleanup -- [cutting] where we think we spent too much in the past years relative to our size," he said. "So we're trying to organize and prioritize what we choose to work on."

Maya and Peters echoed Kushner. Both of their budgets remained flat from 2012 to 2013, which neither saw as a bad thing. Instead, budget planning was described by them as a strategic puzzle: How can they improve efficiency while providing better service to the business?

"When you have money to spend, you're not concerned about priorities," Peters said. "IT leaders and CIOs have to be more creative and prioritize more."

Maya agreed. He plans to reduce costs by moving away from point solutions in favor of an enterprise resource planning environment. "I look at it more as a reallocation from a CIO perspective," he said. "How do we provide the same or better services with existing or new technology and still reduce costs so that we're providing better or more services with the same budget?"

An IT leader at a large financial institution who asked to remain anonymous had another name for reallocation; he called it "re-engineering targets."

"As part of the budget, we're asked to look for ways to reduce costs [and] remove stuff that's no longer needed," he said. Freed up funds are reinvested into new project initiatives for the department. "We had to build a new data center -- that's a $300 million effort. And, over the course of about three years, we built that data center without increasing our operational costs."

IT Salary Survey top projects: BYOD programs in, outsourcing out in 2014

In yet another sign of the rapid workplace shift from desktop to mobile computing, mobile technology has become a top priority for CIOs and IT leaders, according to results from TechTarget's 2013 IT Salary and Careers Survey.

Twenty percent of the 463 CIOs and IT leaders who participated in the survey pointed to mobile technology as a top-three project area for 2014,

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sandwiched between security (21%) and disaster recovery/business continuity (19%). At the same time, other core IT responsibilities appear to be losing ground. Only 2% of survey takers selected outsourcing and privacy as primary project areas for 2014.

The BYOD spotlight

Based on conversations with IT leaders who participated in the survey, rolling out a bring your own device (BYOD) program across the enterprise continues to be a top to-do for CIOs. The programs range from baby steps to implementing an all-out "have it your way" mobile environment. Their focus dovetails with survey results that indicate operational efficiency (56%) and increased employee productivity (43%) are the top two business values companies are hoping to gain from technology projects in 2014.

"Right now, our [BYOD program] is in pilot," said an IT leader of a large financial institution who asked to remain anonymous. "So we'll be rolling that out, which really means just phone, and it really means just iPhone." Rather than secure the device, this IT leader's organization opted for the containerization approach for its more-than-60,000 employees. Company data will be stored within its own container on the mobile device, giving the financial institution a chance to wrap it in features such as encryption and authentication and leave personal data alone.

"With the containers, we feel we've got enough of a handle on them to protect card members' data in the event of a lost phone or something else along those lines," he said. That is as long as the device isn't rooted or the original operating system hasn't been swapped out and replaced with an alternative version, he said.

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During the second or third quarters of 2014, the BYOD program will make room on the network for Android-based devices as well. But for now, "we're just starting with iPhones," he said, a reality driven by "nontechnical people who like the i-type devices."

Having a BYOD focus in 2014 isn't just for the largest companies. "We no longer call it mobile," said Scott Kushner, chief innovation officer for the midmarket organization Voice Systems Engineering Inc. "We think of it in terms of multidevice."

The telephone and online entertainment company based in Langhorne, Pa. plans to introduce a "have it your way" mobile environment in 2014, which means any data on any device at any time for both internal- and external-facing applications.

"We're making use of responsive design," Kushner said, referring to the practice of coding websites to conform to the device. "You don't have a separate site for the smartphone and a separate site for the desktop. It's the same site. It recognizes the device you're on and sizes accordingly."

Outsourcing, privacy out in 2014

While CIOs and IT leaders will continue implementing mobile technology in the new year, other responsibilities will get the cold shoulder. According to TechTarget's survey results, privacy and outsourcing fell to the very bottom of the project list, with only 2% of respondents indicating that either was a priority area for 2014.

Conversations with survey takers indicate that outsourcing and privacy may not stretch across industries and company size the way mobile technology and security do. For Michael Maya, CIO of the city of Wichita in Kansas, privacy isn't a top concern because he's working within the public sector. But for Anthony Peters, director of IT for Burr Pilger Mayer Inc., a financial services firm based in California, data privacy is a major priority.

"For us, it's close to the top [of the list]," Peters said. "I think that one depends on what industry the CIO is coming from."

Outsourcing seemed to follow a similar pattern. For Voice Systems Engineering's Kushner, outsourcing will be a major strategy initiative in 2014.

"There's value in having some portion of the workforce be from outside [the organization]," Kushner said. "It provides flexible capability to meet the high demand of the business, as well as access to capabilities where it doesn't make sense for us to invest all of the way."

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It's also an opportunity to inject new, potentially innovative thinking into the business, he said. Besides, as a midmarket company with a small IT department, growing all of the expertise in-house just isn't a reality, he said.

"I don't know what the right percent is, but we're probably moving to an 80/20 model where 20% of our resource pool is in some form coming from the outside," he said.

Perhaps in this instance, size does matter. The large financial institution referred to at the beginning of this article is insourcing more, according to the IT leader who asked to remain anonymous.

"We're starting to adopt Agile and Scrum more," he said, referring to a strategy that relies on small teams to build products quickly and work iteratively. "By bringing the resources together into rooms, we're more efficient, can get more done with less effort and [can] control our costs."

Additionally, while outsourcing used to be a cost-savings measure, it can also be self-limiting. Those with deep technical skills are promoted up the ranks and into managerial positions and tasks are fragmented and shipped elsewhere to be worked on, eventually creating "gaps in knowledge," he said.

"Long term, businesses can't sustain this because you need that internal knowledge to be built from the ground up and to grow and to make mistakes," he said. "You won't be able to do that by outsourcing and building knowledge outside of your company."

GRC professionals' salaries increase as demand for their skills rises

In recent years, expanding regulatory compliance rules and seemingly endless IT security risks stemming from multiple data sources make an effective GRC program vital to the modern organization's success.

As a result, governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) professionals have seen their roles dramatically increase in importance in the past several years. Salaries are now starting to catch up with this increased onus on GRC, according to the TechTarget IT Salary Survey 2013. From a sample size of 242 respondents who specialize in GRC and IT security, 59% received a raise and 35% received a bonus in 2013. Fifty-seven percent of respondents expect a raise in 2014 as well.

As factors such as mobility and the cloud create new data security risks, GRC professionals should continue to expect their skill sets to be highly

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sought after, said Derek Gascon, executive director of the Compliance, Governance & Oversight Council.

"Their skills are going to be unique, at least for a while," Gascon said. "All of the data that is being distributed through those mechanisms has to be managed somehow, and the governance people understand what kinds of policies are going to be necessary."

The number of opportunities in the GRC field appears to be growing as well: Although the majority of respondents had been in the IT field for 11 to 20 years (44%) or 21 to 30 years (21%), 56% said they had only been in their current position for one year to five years.

For those in their position less than one year, 19% said they sought the new job for more money. This trend could very well continue as opportunities for those in the GRC field grow in the coming years, said Ram Karumuri, a senior manager of IT audits for a banking organization.

"The days of ignoring compliance and audits are gone," Karumuri said. "In our organization, we plan to dedicate a few more people to audits because the environment for it is increasing."

New and emerging risk factors, including those stemming from mobile technology and cloud use, will only intensify the spotlight on data-related GRC processes, Karumuri added.

"Previously, we had everything in our data center," he said. "Governance of this and risk strategies are different now when we don't have data in our own facility and we don't know who is dealing with it for us."

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As organizations' IT security and compliance efforts expand and morph into new areas, those in these fields can expect more interaction with senior management, said Keith West, an information systems security officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2013 Salary Survey found that of those in the compliance and IT security field, 20% report to the CIO, CTO or the equivalent, while 40% report to an IT executive or manager. Another 11% of respondents report directly to the CEO.

And with this rise in visibility across the business, 25% of respondents are counting on moving up in their current organization in the next three to five years. GRC positions will also expand beyond traditional roles, as the skill sets for IT security and compliance prove useful in other departments, Gascon said.

"They may find themselves having their skill set utilized elsewhere in the organization for higher-level information management activities, just because of their knowledge base," Gascon said, adding that new and expanding college courses on GRC and related information governance processes show that the number of professionals with top-down IT security and compliance skills is on the rise.

"I think what we will see are more people coming into the workforce with that type of background and education," Gascon said. "They are going to be highly sought after -- I think we will see their opportunities grow."

Average networking salary below rest of IT, but few look for new gigs

Despite their below-average salaries and ample career opportunities, few networking professionals are eager to leave their current jobs, according to a TechTarget survey.

Of the 197 North American IT professionals who identified networking as one of their top three job responsibilities in TechTarget's 2013 IT Salary Survey, only 17% said they were actively looking for a new job. But it's unlikely that the average networking salary is what's keeping most people at their current desks.

Networking professionals surveyed reported an average base salary of $85,300 (USD) in 2013, with bonuses bumping up the average total compensation package to $90,800, according to the TechTarget survey. That's sharply below the average salary and total compensation -- $105,000 and $116,800 respectively -- that IT professionals overall earned, according

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to the survey. But networking pros are staying put, says one industry recruiter.

"What we have around most of IT -- but especially in networking -- is more work than people. There's a shortage [of candidates]," said Devon Zopfi, a partner at Vaco LLC Los Angeles, a recruiting agency that specializes in technology and finance staffing in Southern California. "People aren't sitting around waiting for the phone to ring."

This imbalance between supply of and demand for networking jobs is partly borne out of the ever-multiplying number of career paths in IT as a whole, splintering the candidate pool as recent grads gravitate more toward the "hot" developer jobs hyped up in the news, Zopfi said.

"Also, I haven't seen many instances of someone working their way into a networking department and then deciding to change directions and go into something else IT-related," he added. "This means they stay in networking as a career and not as a stepping stone to something else."

Ron Calliou, a network administrator at Viceroy Homes Ltd., a Port Hope, Ontario-based manufacturing company that designs and builds custom homes, earns $72,600 CAD (approx. $68,500 USD) and hasn't received a raise in 10 years. He's been with the same company for 16 years -- barring a brief stint when he left Viceroy to work for an IT service provider only to quit after three months when it didn't prove challenging enough. And yet, he has no immediate plans to look elsewhere.

"This company has always been innovative and allowed the IT department to be innovative, so if we can come up with an idea that uses a new technology that could be beneficial to our corporation, they're willing to invest in us," Calliou said. "They know who the IT team is, recognize the team is important to production and realize we don't just watch YouTube or play video games."

That level of trust enabled Calliou to get Viceroy to become early adopters of MPLS and 802.11n long before becoming the mainstay networking technologies they are today. Meanwhile, being the company's only IT presence for its three West Coast offices provided Calliou with the opportunity to grow professionally and expand his skill set.

"In my job, I perform many roles. I handle all communications, all of the proper backups and all of the IT infrastructure here in [Vancouver], in Washington [state] and in Calgary," he said. "The CEO has described me as a true 'blue collar IT person.' I'm not afraid to run up a ladder or roof to run a cord or go on the manufacturing floor and crawl through sawdust to troubleshoot stuff, so I'm not afraid to get dirty."

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And while he wouldn't mind earning more, Calliou said there are many other aspects of his job that, in the long run, are more important and satisfying than money.

"The company has always treated me fairly through the good times and the bad," he said. "The core people I work with have been here for at least a decade, so there's this family-type relationship."

Networking jobs aplenty, but highest demand for top level

Although job prospects look good for all networking jobs, the biggest area of demand is for high-level networking professionals, said Vaco's Zopfi.

"When our clients are coming to us, they're not asking for a junior networking person. They're looking for a senior [candidate] that really is a subject-matter expert," he said. "They don't have time to bring in someone [entry-level or midlevel] and train them up."

About 70% of networking jobs being offered are full-time positions, with only 30% of employers looking to hire consultants, Zopfi said. In addition to basic routing and switching skills, employers are looking for networking pros who have experience with VoIP and unified communications, he added. Many are actively seeking candidates who have experience with specific Cisco Systems products and certifications, particularly CCIEs.

"It's a very hot skill set to have. The certifications are key within [this field], as companies gain a lot of respect for someone who's gone through the Cisco certification process," Zopfi said. "It's not easy and not cheap [to attain them], but if you have the intellect and experience to get through [the exam], it automatically garners you a level of respect with your skill set as they review your resume."

Networking salary below average in IT

Networking professionals earn less than some of their peers in IT -- with the average data center manager earning a base salary of $110,300 while security managers netted $118,200 -- according to the survey. However, more than half of networking pros reported getting a raise this year, whereas only 44% of data center managers and 42% of security managers reported the same.

Of those networking pros who received a raise in 2013, the average enjoyed a 4% salary bump. Half of the networking professionals surveyed expect to receive a raise next year as well, with the average respondent expecting

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another 4% increase. One in four also got a bonus this year, with the average taking home another $8,500.

Networking pros said ensuring reliability of IT services, completing projects on time and meeting productivity goals were their three most important measures of job success -- a not entirely surprising ranking for a group whose professional lives revolve around network uptime, capacity planning and performance.

Meanwhile, 32% of networking professionals surveyed described the mood in their IT departments as optimistic, 25% found it pessimistic and 43% said neither mood dominated. Poor management made a bigger impression than positive leadership, with pessimistic individuals ranking ineffective management as their second-biggest concern, whereas strong management was the third-largest cause for optimism. Limited opportunities for career advancement was the top reason contributing to pessimism among networking pros, while having an environment where innovation is encouraged was the biggest buoy for optimistic individuals.

Data center manager jobs require far more than IT experience

IT professionals tasked with managing a corporate data center face enormous challenges, including system integration, automation, security and even facilities concerns. It's a pressure-filled role that can make or break a modern business.

But what do data center manager jobs offer, and when is it time to move along? TechTarget recently surveyed almost 400 IT professionals to gauge concerns, career characteristics, compensation and working environments. See how your IT job stacks up against others in the business.

Technologies and initiatives for data center managers

When asked about job focus, 155 IT professionals noted that data center management tasks occupied the majority of their time. As 2014 looms, data center management tasks will remain a top concern for 31% of these IT professionals, while 30% will be involved with virtualization tasks and 23% expect to address security issues.

As IT professionals grapple with technological priorities, they must also provide value to the business -- it's a crucial trend that has transformed IT into an important business partner over the last few years.

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As IT planners look ahead, 59% expect IT to provide operational efficiencies, allowing the business to operate more effectively. Examples might include service automation (such as a service ticketing/tracking system) and other systems monitoring or capacity planning software.

"Data center experts will need to add new software, such as mobile device management and domain management tools, to streamline user management," said Scott Gorcester, CEO of VirtualQube, a hosted services provider in Woodinville, Wash.

There are other priorities; 56% of respondents believe IT must increase employee efficiency in 2014. This can be accomplished with new or upgraded applications and self-service capabilities such as private cloud provisioning. Another 46% of IT professionals expect IT to add value by simplifying business processes using new tools and technologies, such as implementing a streamlined data protection or compliance regime.

Other data center managers note the growing importance of cloud services and cloud automation for better agility.

Experience and compensation for data center managers

While most survey respondents have well over 10 years of IT experience, the majority of managers have only been in their role for five years or less.

At least 39% of respondents report being in the IT field for 11 to 20 years, 34% have been in IT for 21 to 30 years, and 13% have worked in IT for over 30 years; only 12% have been in IT for six to 10 years, and just 2% have less than six years on the job.

In data center management roles, 50% of IT professionals have been in their current role for one to five years, 20% have held their role for six to 10 years, 17% have held the role for more than 10 years; but only 13% have been in the role for less than one year.

Many IT staff with less than one year in the current role reported leaving their previous role in favor of a new challenge or more money, while other professionals had prior roles eliminated.

Data center managers can generally expect to earn a solid living, reporting average total compensation (salary, commission and bonuses) of $117,793 (USD). In addition, 48% of data center managers expect a raise and 23% plan for a bonus. Another 24% expect to hold the line at their current compensation level. Only 1% of respondents expect a reduction in compensation.

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Part of the compensation discussion involves value, and IT professionals often rely on training and professional involvement to improve their technical knowledge and job effectiveness.

"I'll use self-paced learning, like reading books and taking online courses," said Ron Zawora, IT administrator with InfoCures LLC, a technology services company headquartered in Pennsauken, N.J. Other IT professionals will seek more formal training, ranging from vendor training to college coursework.

But compensation doesn't always reflect the overall morale of an IT department; 38% of data center experts say the mood in IT is optimistic, buoyed by strong incentives to innovate, a more favorable business climate than recent years and the leadership of a strong management team. But 35% of respondents say the mood in IT is pessimistic, citing factors including limited career advancement opportunities, poor management, shrinking budgets and increased outsourcing. Another 26% of respondents say the temperament in IT is neutral.

Success for data center managers

Every IT professional wants to be successful, but the measure of "success" varies with individual and IT goals. For data center managers, 66% measure success by ensuring the reliability of IT services -- making sure that the data center continues to function seamlessly regardless of conditions or circumstances -- 41% like to complete projects on time to provide timely benefits to the business, 39% want to improve product or service delivery by deploying innovative technologies and streamlining processes, and 36% meet productivity goals.

Zawora explains that job satisfaction can be measured by integrity -- meeting your promises -- and facilitating the business cost-effectively.

"If my users are successful, I've succeeded," he said. "Bottom line is key; the more I save, the more I earn."

Sometimes success involves changing jobs. At least 25% of data center experts want to move up in the IT department, 21% want to move up in the overall organization, and 17% would stay in their current role. Just 13% would seek employment in a larger company. For example, the director of infrastructure with a major financial company reports he will soon change to an application delivery director role.

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