Gartner EXP's IT Compensation Report Shows U.S.-Based Companies Expect an Increase in IT Staffs and Salaries in 2006

2006 IT Market Compensation Study Urges Enterprises to Implement a Total Rewards Strategy to Retain Key Employees

STAMFORD, Conn., July 11, 2006 — Chief information officers (CIOs) are shifting their priorities from managing costs to supporting business growth, and this transition is resulting in an expected increase in IT head count for many companies in 2006, according to a survey by Gartner Executive Programs (EXP), a unit of Gartner, Inc.

According to a survey of 188 U.S.-based organizations, approximately 61 percent of survey respondents have projected some level of increase in IT staff for the next 12 month period (March 1, 2006 to February 28, 2007). At the same time, the survey also reported a one percent increase in employee-initiated turnover rate across the board compared with last year’s survey results. The average FY06 budgeted-based salary increase for IT employees is expected to be 3.6 percent, a 0.1 percent increase over FY05 budget.

“In today’s market, enterprises can no long rely on the incremental increase in their overall IT salary budget to keep the turnover rate down,” said Lily Mok, research director for Gartner EXP’s human capital management content development group. “As a matter of fact, pay is only one of the levers used to attract and retain the best and the brightest IT talent. IT professionals are paying more attention to career development opportunities and work/life balance.”

For the past five years, companies have been under severe pressure to halt or decrease their investment in recruitment, retention and development of the IT workforce. However, changing business expectations are now shaping the CIO’s agenda with shifting its strategic priorities from managing costs to supporting business growth and competitiveness.

“In order to meet and exceed these business expectations, CIOs must respond with focusing on attracting, developing and retaining their IT workforce,” said Diane Berry, managing vice president for Gartner EXP’s human capital management content development group. “These results stress the importance of having a Total Rewards strategy that meets the needs of your organization and ensures you are investing the right amount for each component of your Total Rewards portfolio, which includes Direct Financial (for example, base salary, short-term incentives), Indirect Financial (for example, benefits, recognition), Career and Affiliation (for example, culture) rewards.”

The survey reported the hard-to-fill IT positions as well as hot skills in the current market. Project manager maintained the No. 1 spot of the most frequently reported difficult-to-hire position, followed by database administrator which was No. 4 on the 2005 list. Enterprise architect, network architect, and Internet/Web architect are among the top six difficult-to-hire positions. Security analyst dropped from the third position last year to seventh place this year. ERP software (for example, PeopleSoft, Oracle and SAP), Internet/Web-related development skills (for example, Java, J2EE and Microsof.NET), as well as IT compliance skills are among the top hot skills to recruit.

“The continuously high demand for project management professionals in recent years and an increasing need for seasoned professionals in architecture and planning support the CIO’s strategic priorities,” Ms. Mok said. “These priorities include delivering projects that enable business growth, link business and IT strategies plans, and improve IT governance. Security is still an important part of the CIO’s strategy, but many organizations have already staffed up the security function in the past couple of years.”

Gartner EXP’s 2006 IT Market Compensation Study provides strategic and tactical benchmarking information for IT human capital management in the area of recruitment, retention, reward, recognition, work/life balance, career development and training programs. This study provides compensation data for 135 benchmark jobs grouped into 26 IT job families. “One of the differentiators of our study is the comprehensive benchmark job list which includes data for emerging and hard-to-find jobs in the market,” Ms. Berry said.

This study provides a guide to formulating comprehensive total reward strategies that will help IT organizations achieve their long-term business goals in an increasingly fluid job market. Additional information about this report is available on Gartner’s Web site at http://www.gartner.com/hcm/hcm_compensation.jsp.

Contact:


Christy Pettey
Gartner
+1 408 468 8312
christy.pettey@gartner.com


About Gartner:
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the indispensable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,000 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants in 80 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.