See below highlights of the findings of the Abrivia Salary Survey 2018 in regards Ireland’s burgeoning ICT sector.
Employers in ICT Sector
- For a growing proportion of ICT firms, over a quarter of their staff are coming from outside the EU
- 91% of employers in the ICT sector are expecting salaries to increase in 2018 with almost half anticipating this increase will be between 3-5%.
- 76% of employers in ICT said that ICT roles were the hardest to fill
- 58% of ICT employers are planning to pay bonuses in 2018
- Over 63% said they were willing to provide visa sponsorship for hard to fill roles, broadly in line with last year and higher than in other sectors surveyed
- 68% in this sector said they had employed a non-Irish applicant from outside the EU in the past 12 months, compared to 39% previously and 74% said their wage demands were lower compared to Irish domiciled applicants.
- Over 71% of employers in this sector said that GDPR would not disrupt their business practices
- Over 40% of employers in the ICT sector said that involvement in GAA/sport was one of the greatest factors, contributing to the success of an employee, followed by previous career or enlistment in the armed services.
- Almost 70% of employers in this sector organised a private pension for all their employees and over 59% said they’d be willing to participate in a pension enrolment scheme
- Almost half (49%) of ICT employers surveyed were unsure if Brexit would disrupt their supply chain,
Employees in ICT Sector
- 12% of employees in the ICT sector were freelance/contractors, the highest percentage out of all the sectors surveyed
- Almost 40% said that career advancement drove their last move, more interesting work and higher pay were tied in second place with work-life balance in fourth.
- Salaries in ICT and Finance pull far ahead of other sectors surveyed
- 2% of respondents were earning over €100,000 per annum and well over one-third of those were in the ICT sector (37%), followed by Finance & Banking (14%) and Accounting (12%)
- 18% of employees in surveyed in the ICT sector said their last move was to escape an incompetent or negative boss. A lack of recognition for accomplishments was also more likely to be cited in this sector as well.
- Almost a quarter of ICT employees surveyed would be willing to take a salary drop of 6-10% to take up a job outside Dublin, but 1 in 10 said they would refuse to consider such a move
- 77% expect their wages to increase in 2018 and 42% are expecting an increase of between 5-10%.
- Almost half said they were planning to change job in 2018.
- 58% of ICT employees surveyed said that free third level college fees should continue and 9% are in favour of a graduate tax.
- 84% said a negative review of a company’s working environment would affect their decision to accept an interview. 76% would go to Glassdoor for a review while 40% mentioned Irishjobs.ie
- 65% of ICT respondents said they had a private pension and over 45% said that pension auto-enrolment is a good idea
- While 76% of respondents said that salary did have a major impact on their decision to accept a job offer, the prospect of interesting and meaningful work was rated just as important. Location was next at 68%, followed by the managers’ professionalism at just over 48%.
| EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AND SALARY ATTAINMENT
45% of ICT employees surveyed had a BA degree (level 7/8) while almost 33% had a Master’s Degree (level 9).
70% of employees in the ICT sector said that education was extremely or very important to their career success, compared to the accountancy (87%) while those in Architecture, Advertising and Aviation said it was only moderately important to their career success.
While ICT is one of the sectors reporting the highest incomes, 13% of ICT employees who sat the Leaving Cert between 1992-2016 got below 300 points, among the highest in that category across the sectors. 1.25% got over 600 points.
Dr Charles Larkin said, “Despite the fixation on achieving 600 points in the Leaving Cert, only 2% of respondents earning more than €100,000 annually achieved that academic distinction. Education is clearly not the sole indicator of success in terms of very high incomes. “
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ICT REVIEW AND EXPECTATIONS FOR 2018
The sector is reporting increased demand and lack of supply for niche IT skillsets like Automation Engineers, Cybersecurity consultants and DevOp Engineers that is hampering company growth and project pipelines for some clients.
“2017 has been the year of the counter offer”, said Andrew Meehan, manager of Abrivia’s Technology services. “One client of ours made 12 offers in a three-month period, six of which accepted counter offers from their current employers after signing contracts.”
With the lack of readily available IT talent, salaries and day rates have continued to increase across most areas in this sector. With the lack of readily available talent, salaries and day rates have continued to increase across most sectors. Coupled with higher base salary offerings, businesses have begun adding to their benefits package; L/D budget, pension, health and life insurance, and flexible or remote working options. The remote working aspect is particularly attractive to some areas of IT, notably development.
“While Ireland is still regarded as a leading player in Europe’s ICT ecosystem, but this will be placed in jeopardy if it does not seriously address the talent mismatch when it comes to the supply and demand of ICT professionals,”.
Andrew Meehan said, “From a long-term perspective, I envisage leadership teams will start to look abroad as a location in which to build their technical centre of excellence to deliver on their strategic objectives. Candidates will continue to have plenty of very good options in 2018 when moving roles, so counter-offers will continue to remain a problem for employers. The importance of a good recruitment agency to manage the process and highlight problems before they arise is paramount.”
To read about the 2017 ABRIVIA SURVEY SPOTLIGHTS ICT EMPLOYER TREND, please click here >>> |
