Contracting is still a good ICT money-spinner, this year`s ITWeb IT Salary Survey reveals. In general, however, the earning range of contractors varies significantly - often depending on the scarcity of the skills in question.
Of the 537 responding IT contractors, 448 are male, while women number only 88. A large percentage (61%) are white, but nearly a quarter opted out of disclosing their race. The coloured population comes a not-so-close second with slightly over 7%, while black contractors make up about 5%.
The younger generation dominates the group with more than half under the age of 30.
Best-paid tech platforms
The highest-paid individual to respond to this survey was a white male in the 36 to 40 age group, who earns R 1 830 000 a year as a business consultant within the telecoms space.
[CHART]Contractors specialising in the IBM space were the highest earners overall, although those specialising in Microsoft reported earning the highest hourly rate.
The six respondents who specialise in the IBM DB2 area earn the most - an average of over R43 000 a month. These consultants are all aged over 31 and work in various business sectors. The highest-paid among them earns R825 000 a year.
Oscar Rozario, IBM SA brand manager for DB2, says demand for DB2 has grown significantly recently, partly due to new corporate governance regulations and ICT legislation. He claims the largest amount of valuable data in SA runs on DB2 databases. Most experts working on these databases are on a senior level, therefore their salaries will be high, he says.
The IBM DB2 contractors are followed by those specialising in IBM Web-Sphere, who average R31 000 a month; consultants specialising in Symantec earn just over R30 000 a month; and those focused on SAP R/3 earn just under 30 000.
WebSphere clients are mostly major banks and insurers, using the product in business critical areas, notes Dion Harvey, IBM SA brand manager for Web-Sphere. There are few specialists in this field, he says, so they can command high rates.
Those working on Sun Solaris, Accpac, Adabas, object-oriented platforms, Delphi, Unix, and Java J2EE also command salaries in the higher-end of the range.
Contractors specialising in Suse Linux, Red Hat, Oracle applications and AIX/Unix trail the bottom of the income list, with a monthly average of under R10 000. However, the respondent base for each of these technologies is very low, numbering only 6 to 8 contractors.
Contractors specialising in Microsoft commanded the highest hourly rate of R650, followed by SAP consultants with R520 and IBM consultants with R500 an hour.
Money in certifications
The two contractors holding a Sun Certified Java Architect qualification are the top earners with an average of nearly R58 000 per month.
Those with Certified Novell Engineer qualifications are second with over R48 000 a month.
Respondents with a SAP R/3 qualification follow with an average of R45 500, and those with SCO qualifications are next with R43 750.
The worst-paid include those with a CompTIA i-Net+ certification, who average R5 700 a month; and those with International Computer Driver`s Licence (ICDL), averaging just over R7 000 per month.
Best and worst areas
Those contractors working in the disaster recovery, enterprise architecture or service-oriented architecture (SOA), business process management and wireless areas are the best paid.
Respondents who specialise in disaster recovery/business continuity top the income list, with an average monthly salary of R45 250.
Respondents in the enterprise architecture/SOA arena follow, with an average monthly salary of over R43 000.
The lone respondent who works as a consultant in the wireless networking area reports a monthly salary of R41 000 a month. The consultants working in the business process management arena report an average salary of R40 000.
The lowest-paid areas according to this sample are cellular systems and services (earning an average of R4 584 per month), open source and Linux (R5 900 per month), support and help desk (R5 136 per month), server hardware (R7 000 per month) and Web design (an average of R7 995 per month).
Best industry sector
IT contractors working in the medical, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are the best paid among the respondents, averaging over R31 000 per month. Close behind them are those in the mining and petrochemical industries, with over R30 000 a month.
While few contractors enjoy any employment benefits, almost half of the sample are fairly happy in their current job, and 57% say they enjoy competitive salaries.
The good news for the South African IT industry is that only 4% of contracting participants are looking to leave our shores for career growth opportunities - the reason most cited for leaving.
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