U.S. IT salaries rose by 4.25 percent in 2014, the largest increase in six years, according to a survey from IEEE-USA.
The median income for U.S. electrical engineers, computer scientists and other information technology professionals rose from $124,700 to $130,000 between 2013 and 2014, according to the survey of 10,215 IT workers. The survey covers income from salary, commissions, bonuses and self-employment.
The last time that IT salaries rose by more than 4 percent was 2008, according to IEEE-USA. Median salaries rose 4.87 percent that year, to $116,000, then dropped to $113,500 in 2009 as the U.S. and other countries faced an economic slowdown.
The median U.S. IT salary rose just 0.56 percent in 2013, while the annual increases from 2010 to 2012 were between 1.65 percent and 3.96 percent, according to IEEE-USA, an advocacy group focusing on the career and public policy interests of electrical engineers and IT professionals.
The highest median incomes for those IT workers surveyed for the 2014 survey were in the areas of communications technology ($150,000), followed by circuits and devices ($143,008) and signals and applications ($141,062).
The lowest median incomes came from workers in industrial applications ($120,000), systems and control ($119,572) and energy and power engineering ($116,175).
IEEE members who completed the 2015 salary survey get five free uses of the IEEE-USA Salary Calculator, an online tool that helps them benchmark their salaries and benefits against other IT professionals.
Computerworld’s 2015 IT salary survey, published in April, yielded similar results. Computerworld found that average total compensation increased 3.6 percent in 2014, compared to an average of 2 percent in the three previous years.