They ensure that computer systems are continuously operational, that data is protected from both accidental and malicious loss, that users have easy access to the right programs and file systems, and increasingly, that World Wide Web sites are created, maintained, and secured. Their skill, perseverance, patience, and creativity directly impact the productivity of dozens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of users in commercial, government, and educational organizations around the globe. But even the average increase is far higher than the average increase in salaries for all IT professionals. In this article, I'll present a subset of the salary survey. The average increase from 1996 to 1997 is 14.1 percent.
System integrators pay top salaries, followed by commercial organizations.
Government and university salaries remained much lower than salaries in other organizations. Canada and Europe lag behind. The gender pay gap is still present, but continues to decline. The gap is smallest in government and largest in commercial organizations engaged in business processing. On average, those with master's degrees made salaries slightly above all other categories.