New research has revealed that the value of salaried professional IT jobs has declined over the past 12 months.
According to the "IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report" – 4Q 2020 edition, released October 31 by research group Foote Partners, more than 40% of job titles in IT have been impacted.
Data for the report was gathered from Foote Partners’ IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index (ITSCPI) based on compensation data provided by 3,640 public-sector employers in 83 US and Canadian cities who partner with Foote to report pay for their 330,340 technology professionals in the Canada and the United States.
Findings show that the fall in value varies from role to role, ranging from a small decline to a fall to a sizable decrease.
"That’s never happened in the 26-year history of this salary survey, so clearly the X factor is COVID-19 impacts," said a Foote Partners spokesperson.
Researchers found that cash pay premiums (extra pay) awarded by employers to tech professionals for 594 non-certified tech skills remained unchanged on average in 2020's third quarter at 9.6%.
"Currently averaging the equivalent of 9.6 percent of base salary on average for a single non-certified skill, this is the highest average premium in 20 years," noted researchers.
Conversely, average market values for 516 tech certifications decreased from July to September, sinking by 1.5% overall, currently earning the equivalent of 6.8% of base salary on average for a single certification.
Researchers said: "That’s the lowest average pay premium for IT certifications in seven years and the widest gap between certified and non-certified tech skills pay since mid-2000s."
Among the non-certified skills that declined 10% or more in market value in the three months ending October 1, 2020, were BusinessObjects, Backbone.js, Azure Data Factory, SAP Oil & Gas, SNA, CoreOS, and TIBCO Enterprise Message Service.
Cash pay for information/cybersecurity tech certifications lost 8.8% of value over the past 12 months, with a 3.2% drop in the last three months alone. The value of web development certifications and of system administration/engineering certifications declined by 10.8% and 9.3% respectively.