Technical specialists in our survey sample fall into a wide range of salary bands, earning from as little as an average of R5 000 a month (for the unique job description of e-learning designer) to R35 000 a month (for an Internet project manager).
[CHART]In both these instances, only one respondent filled in the questionnaire, leaving little room for further extrapolation to a true market average.
Positions that attracted more respondents, and in certain cases also a wider range of salaries, included application developer, account engineer, software architect, customer service technician and database business systems developer.
[CHART]The position of application developer reached across a spectrum of industries, accounting for the huge gap between lowest (R3 000 a month) and highest salaries (R56 000). The average of R17 766 means most respondents earn far less than the maximum.
[CHART]Account engineers earn R30 350 on average, for one of the highest job averages, but there is little deviation between maximum and minimum.
[CHART]Again, however, only two respondents in this category it is hard to draw industry conclusions.
[CHART]Another wide disparity between lowest and highest salaries can be found in software architects (R8 857 versus R77 040). This position was held by 34 respondents, with a trustworthy industry average emerging in the low R30 000s a month.
Field of dreams
[CHART]The IT field that commands the highest salaries is software development, at just above R19 000. It is followed by database development and administration at around R17 000. Internet and e-commerce and networking almost share the third and fourth position. At the bottom end of the range we find the softer skills of digital design, and - rather surprisingly - IT security.
[CHART]Considering that security solutions are top priority for most IT departments, it would be interesting to see if these skills command higher salaries in the future.
Certified skills
[CHART]Microsoft is the primary platform for more than half of the technical respondents, although the best paid are Siebel specialists, followed by those with legacy skills working on the Natural platform.
However, out of 1 042 respondents, only three work on Natural and only five on Siebel. "Siebel pays its small core of specialists well, but it is a concentrated market," comments Jill Hamlyn, MD of The People Business. She adds that Natural programmers are highly skilled and necessary by virtue of the small base of skills.
[CHART]At the bottom of this scale are people working on the Novell platform. But certified Novell professionals earn much more - on average between R18 000 and R20 000 on average.
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