The big bucks in tech come from working remotely

Remote tech workers are paid nearly twice as much as their full-time office counterparts, a global survey from Landing.Jobs has found.

Technology professionals in every region reported higher salaries if they were fully remote or had flexible working arrangements compared with people working full office jobs, according to the Global Tech Talent Trends 2022 survey.

On average, full office tech workers earned 1.9 times less than people in completely remote positions.

“This may be because less competitive companies are less inclined for remote work, consequently losing attractiveness to the best tech professionals, and hurting their competitiveness even more,” the Landing.Jobs report said.

The rate at which remote worker salaries were increasing is also far quicker than those stuck in the office.

More than half of the over 6,500 global respondents who were working in the office full-time said their salary either hadn’t changed or had actually decreased in the last 12 months.

On the other hand, greater than 60 per cent of full remote IT professionals said their salaries had increased over the last year.

For the most part, technology professionals also earned higher salaries when working across borders, for companies outside their homeland, with the notable exception being where the high salaries are located: North America.

Interestingly, a majority of tech workers around the world said they were willing to relocate to another continent, preferably either Europe or North America, and European professionals were the only group to prefer staying in their country or continent.

Quality of life is the largest single reason people would move continent for work with nearly a quarter of respondents saying better lifestyle would take them overseas.

But better career opportunities and salaries combined were the main driver to move for nearly 40 per cent of survey respondents, with better safety and cultural curiosity also factors to consider.

Show me the money

Attractive overseas salaries is an concern for Australian employers who risk losing staff to US companies where salaries are higher as the latest Local Talent Index found Melbourne and Sydney were among the most likely places IT professionals would flee from thanks to uncompetitive salaries.

More troubling news for employees comes via a new survey from recruiters Robert Half which found more than half of Australian technology workers are in the process of, or will consider, moving jobs in the next six months and a further 30 per cent said they are willing to change.

Andrew Brushfield, Director of Robert Half, said “the labour market still favours the worker”.

“It is a great time to explore the job market and take advantage of opportunities that offer better pay, a greater challenge and more flexibility,” he said, adding that, while remuneration is important, there are other factors workers should consider before jumping ship.

“While rising inflation rates position remuneration as an employee’s primary concern as it relates to their work life, salary alone is a fragile reason to take on a role, particularly for a lateral move.

“Career progression can often accelerate remuneration faster than job hopping between incremental offers, while the negative impact of poor work-life balance, toxic company culture, or repetitious workload will quickly outweigh the perks of a salary bump.”

The latest data from job ad site Seek shows an overall month-on-month drop in the number of advertisements around Australia.

But while employees in most industries can look to a greater than 20 per cent year-on-year growth in the number of job ads, ICT postings on Seek have been relatively subdued, sitting at just 3.6 per cent growth rate.

“The ICT industry saw significant growth in job ads until mid last year but has oscillated within the same range since then, whereas other industries have continued to rise,” a Seek representative said.