Scottish organisations are having to pay between 5% and 15% more than they did in 2018 in order to secure the services of IT professionals.

This is one of the key findings in a study by Edinburgh-based IT recruitment firm, Be-IT.

This is the fifth annual salary survey conducted by the recruiter, which says it “lives and breathes salary information constantly” with its clients and candidates.

Nikola Kelly, MD at Be-IT, said: “Everyone wants to know ‘am I being paid enough? What might I get if I move to this or that firm? Will I have to pay over the odds to get the new DevOps team up to speed?'”

This is the reason the firm took the early decision to organise an annual survey of IT salaries, she explained.

“Instead of grouping salaries by years of experience we’ve simply used ‘junior,’ ‘mid’ and ‘senior’ to reflect experience in the relevant role,” Kelly said. “A change this year, and one as the result of feedback from our customers, is the introduction of column showing a percentage increase in salary that we think employers have to pay to secure talent in today’s highly competitive IT market.”

In 2018, the average salaries of junior, mid-level and senior IT managers were £40,000, £43,000 and £52,000 per annum respectively. In 2019, Be-IT’s survey suggests these salaries have increased by an average of 3%.

CIOs and CTOs appear to be the highest earners in business tech. Last year, they were earning £87,500, £100,000 and £140,000 on average. They can also expect to receive an extra 3% this year.

Data scientists are among those seeing the biggest hike in salaries. Their average salaries at junior, mid and senior level were £40,000, £55,000 and £69,000 respectively last year and they can now expect to earn 15% or more each year.

Those working in IT security have seen a similar increase. IT security managers were pocketing an average of £55,000, £65,000 and £75,000 at junior, mid and senior level last year. They can also hope to earn 15% more in 2019.

Kelly pointed out that it is worth remembering that factors such as location, individual company’s pay policies, technological change and personal performance, could all affect IT workers’ salary and benefits.

Kelly said: “We’re going to revisit the survey in June, looking at how the market has changed in that time and what increases there are in key salaries. We don’t expect any decreases.”

Full details of the study can be found here.