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Top IT leaders responding to a salary survey earned less in
2010 than in 2009, but most expect a pay hike this year. The latest CIO
Salary and Careers Survey by SearchCIO.com also found that a sizable
majority of IT professionals report that the mood in their organizations is
optimistic. However, less than one in three are planning to hire IT staff this
year, and one in four have current hiring freezes.
Those findings highlight the mixed tone of the results from
a poll of 920 IT professionals, which also found wide variances by industry and
position in the pay and pay-raise performance of IT leaders.
Expectations for the coming year are, however, decidedly
positive. When divided by their positions in their organizations, 72 percent of
senior IT executives, 65 percent of midlevel IT directors and 61 percent of IT
managers rated the mood at their organizations as neutral or optimistic.
Those good feelings have yet to translate into efforts to
boost IT staff, however. Just 31 percent of the senior IT executives polled
said they were actively hiring. Meanwhile, more than a quarter (27 percent)
have frozen hiring and another 14 percent are shrinking by attrition.
Organizations in health care, financial services and the government were the
most likely to be hiring.
The reported 2010 earnings of respondents averaged about
$10,000 less than those from a similar survey done at the end of 2009,
SearchCIO.com said. Some IT leaders did much better, however. In particular,
average salaries for senior IT executives -- vice presidents, executive vice
presidents, senior vice presidents, CIOs, chief technology officers and chief
information security officers -- in financial services rose 15.2 percent in
2010 to $152,437. Across all industries, the same group of leaders averaged 1.7
percent raises, and earned an average of $148,380.
In health care, the highest level of IT executives reported
average salary declines of 7 percent. However, lower-level health care IT managers,
including those with at least one direct report, recorded one of the highest
salary gains, at 10 percent, compared to 2009. SearchCIO.com Senior News Writer
Linda Tucci speculated that the result indicated that health care organizations
were fortifying midlevel management to prepare for deploying the EHR systems
required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health
(HITECH).
One of the more subjective findings is that innovation and
creativity may now be playing bigger roles than cost control in helping CIOs
achieve career advancement. Bruce Barnes, president of Dublin, Ohio, consulting
firm Bold Vision, said promotion today is based less on cost-cutting and more
on a perception of how the business as a whole gained advantage as a result of
the IT leader’s actions.
“The underlying themes for the budding CIO are now
innovation and creativity,” Barnes said. “Cost-effectiveness and assuring high
reliability in a ‘no more added budget’ environment are simply table stakes:
that is, not brag-able. You need a bigger story.”
CIOs are looking for that bigger story, too, and they’re
looking outside the confines of IT. Thirty-nine percent of senior IT executives
surveyed were interested in moving higher up in their overall corporate
organizations, compared to just 7 percent seeking advancement within their IT
organizations. And 35 percent were looking for a move to a bigger company.
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