Auckland IT pros... What are YOU earning?

The first half of 2014 was busier than usual in Auckland's IT recruitment market, even in January, traditionally the quietest month of the year.

As confidence in the market increased, the recently released Robert Walters market report claims the market has improved steadily throughout the year.

According to its findings, the contract market in particular saw a lot of activity due to the start of new projects and a shortage of talent in the permanent space.

"As organisations expanded into new markets, recruitment at the senior level improved significantly on the last few years with demand for roles in operations, architecture, technical leads and program management," reports Werner Kleynhans, Senior Consultant, IT Auckland.

"Many of these roles had been previously made redundant during the downturn.

Looking forward…

A number of candidates were applying for roles in the city, but often ones that they were not suitable for.

"Good, solid experience has been hard to find as good candidates have realised their value in the market," Kleynhans adds.

"In the next six months, hiring managers may struggle to find PMs and BAs in the contract space as new roles are signed off.

Other professionals in demand will be Windows 7 upgrade engineers and those qualified in SQL server and reporting, as organisations look to improve their BI functionalities.

Those with .Net development skills that are client-facing and SAP testers for SAP implementation projects will be highly sought after.

"In order to attract the in-demand candidates, employers should realise that interesting and varied work is a big attraction," he adds.

"In addition, financial bonuses and work/life balance are important to candidates.

While salaries remained fairly stable in the first half of 2014, the report claims they are likely to rise in the second half of the year as the candidate-short market continues, and employers should be aware of this.

Key trends:

• The market will continue to be candidate-short

• There will be continued confidence in the market, boosting overall hiring

• Hiring will increase in quarter three and through to quarter four

Earnings…

According to the findings, for those working in Auckland on a permanent salary, here is a brief rundown of the forecast salary expectations for 2014:

Projects:

• Programme Manager 130k+

• Senior Project Manager 100 - 120k

• Senior Business Analyst 90 - 125k

• Project Manager 75 - 100k

• Business Analyst 75 - 95k

• Project/Program Coordinator 60 - 75k

Infrastructure:

• CIO/CTO 180k+

• Solution Architect - Applications 110 - 140k

• Solution Architect - Infrastructure 100 - 130k

• Manager - IT Operations 100 - 140k

• Security Specialist 90 - 120k

• Senior Systems Administrator 80 - 100k

• Manager - Service Desk 75 - 90k

• Systems Administrator 55 - 70k

• Senior Help Desk/Desktop/Apps Support 55 - 65k

• Help Desk/Desktop/Apps Support 45 - 55k

Development/Testing:

• Manager - Development 120 - 130k

• Manager-Testing 100 - 120k

• Senior Developer - .Net, Java 80 - 120k

• Senior Tester 70 - 85k

• Developer - .Net, Java 50 - 85k

• Tester 50 - 70k

ERP/CRM/DBA:

• ERP Functional Consultant 85 - 110k

• Senior Database Administrator 85 - 110k

• Database Administrator 60 - 70k

Wellington folk, check back to IT Brief tomorrow for a full rundown of your IT market.