IT Salaries Rebound, Gender Gap Shrinks

Hard-hit IT salaries of 2002 recovered somewhat last year, and the gender gap in IT narrowed for the first time since 2000, a job survey released Tuesday said.

According to the annual salary survey conducted by Dice, an online recruiting service for technology workers, salaries rebounded two percent in 2003 over the previous year to reach the highest average paychecks since 2000.

The average IT salary in 2003 was $69,400, a slight gain over 2002's $67,900.

For the second year in a row, government and defense IT salaries posted the largest gains, up an average of $2,600 (a four percent gain over 2002); salaries in the computer hardware side of IT, which was hit particularly hard by the economic and technology downturn, also increased by about four percent.

Included in the other findings of Dice's survey -- which polled more than 21,000 IT professionals -- is an indication that the gender gap between men and women is shrinking.For the first time since Dice began polling for survey information, the gender gap decreased. Now at 11 percent -- due to women making average gains of 5 percent, and men getting a boost of just 2 percent -- the gap's actual width depends on how much time women work, their age, and the industry in which they're employed.

Women who reported working at least 55 hours per week, for instance, said that their salaries were only 7.5 percent lower than men with the same duties; women over 50, however, had the largest gender gap -- 13.5 percent less on their paychecks than male counterparts.

"The technology market has stabilized and salaries are beginning to recover overall," said Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice in a statement. "Entry level technology professionals are also earning more money, which is consistent with an economic turnaround."