Offshoring sends techies' wages up

Mid-tier IT staff are seeing their wages take an upward tangent, thanks to a skills shortage spawned by offshoring and a lack of students opting for IT courses.

According to employment information company Incomes Data Services (IDS), mid-level technical and support staff are seeing their salaries rocket, while their more senior colleagues' pay packets are stagnating.

Over the last year, IT user support technicians' annual pay packets have risen 13 per cent to £24,177 while network/systems engineers saw theirs spike by 9.5 per cent to an average of £31,120.

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The jump in pay for support and technical staff has far outpaced most IT jobs, which experienced an increase of just 3.5 per cent over the last year.

IDS puts the upward spiral down to a skills gulf opening up in IT's mid levels, following years of falling IT graduate numbers and companies sending junior tech jobs offshore leaving those students that do pursue an IT career few entry level positions available when they leave education.

The result: a scrap among employers for the mid-level candidates that remain, sending wages climbing.

Things aren't so rosy for higher level techies. IDS has found that among the likes of project and operations managers, pay has "remained largely static" over the last year. Meanwhile, CIOs are now on the hunt for their next role: a recent survey found the majority of Blighty's CIOs are scouring the jobs pages, with nearly three-quarters of IT leaders actively looking for a new post.