Hot IT Skills to Bring You Six-Figure Income

Technology professionals enjoyed their largest annual salary growth since 2008, according to a recent salary survey from Dice, a leading career site for technology and engineering professionals. After two straight years of wages remaining nearly flat, tech professionals on average garnered salary increases of more than two percent, boosting their average annual wage in 2011 to $81,327 from $79,384 in 2010.

A more considerable jump was noted in both size of average bonuses, up eight percent to $8,769, and the number of technology professionals receiving bonuses: 32 percent in 2011, compared with 29 percent in 2010 and 24 percent in 2009. The industries most likely to pay out bonuses: Telecom, Hardware, Banking, Utilities/Energy and Software.

Finally! Compensation has mustered some momentum, as more and more top tech markets are notching increases in pay. Silicon Valley’s compensation moved first and wrote the playbook for highly qualified tech professionals to ask for more — whether that be in Seattle, Houston or Raleigh,” said Tom Silver, SVP, North America at Dice. “The increasing popularity of bonuses shows companies are rewarding their top performers. While everyone loves a bonus, anyone who has been through a cycle knows that bonuses both reward and punish. In fast-changing markets, it’s imperative for highly skilled tech professionals to capitalize on their career and compensation options.

The following informaiton is from the ITBusinessEdge slideshow featuring the skills that commanded six-figure salaries and had above average year/year growth.

ABAP — Advanced Business Application Programming
2011 Average Salary: $109,157
Yr/Yr Growth: 3 percent

SOA — Service Oriented Architecture
2011 Average Salary: $108,210
Yr/Yr Growth: 6 percent

ETL — Extract Transform and Load
2011 Average Salary: $106,521
Yr/Yr Growth: 6 percent

Weblogic
2011 Average Salary: $103,702
Yr/Yr Growth: 5 percent

JDBC — Java Database Connectivity
2011 Average Salary: $102,630
Yr/Yr Growth: 5 percent

UML — Unified Modeling Language
2011 Average Salary: $102,579
Yr/Yr Growth: 6 percent

UML — Unified Modeling Language
2011 Average Salary: $102,579
Yr/Yr Growth: 6 percent

WebSphere
2011 Average Salary: $100,348
Yr/Yr Growt: 7 percent

(Eight IT Skills Commanding Six-Figure Salaries, ITBusinessEdge)