Your salary is important, but perks and flexibility can make just as much difference to job satisfaction. When it comes to working in IT, however, perks are still fairly thin on the ground.
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In the table below, we’ve listed the typical Australian salaries for a range of full-time IT roles as listed at MySalaryPortal, along with the percentage of people in that role that receive various common perks and bonuses.
MySalaryPortal relies on individual user submissions, so the figures need to be taken with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, they give some clear indications as to what’s commonly on offer.
| Architect ($134500) |
DBA ($89500) |
Help Desk ($53000) |
IT Security ($94000) |
Network Admin ($65000) |
Software Developer ($79000) |
Web Developer ($62500) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile phone/mobile allowance | 38% | 19% | 20% | 38% | 30% | 8% | 3% |
| Flexible working hours | 34% | 27% | 12% | 29% | 16% | 19% | 13% |
| Company paid training | 23% | 17% | 12% | 28% | 12% | 11% | 5% |
| Employee assistance program | 17% | 11% | 8% | 10% | 4% | 5% | 1% |
| Health care subsidies | 16% | 6% | 5% | 14% | 4% | 10% | 1% |
| Paid maternity/paternity Leave | 13% | 11% | 6% | 14% | 4% | 8% | 1% |
| Car park | 11% | 14% | 12% | 19% | 16% | 10% | 3% |
| Stock options | 11% | 3% | 3% | 9% | 3% | 4% | 0% |
| Extra annual leave | 9% | 3% | 3% | 9% | 3% | 3% | 4% |
| Additional superannuation | 6% | 6% | 5% | 10% | 4% | 7% | 1% |
| Car and/or car allowance | 5% | 0% | 5% | 9% | 7% | 3% | 3% |
| Gym/health club membership | 5% | 7% | 6% | 7% | 1% | 7% | 5% |
| Overtime payments | 3% | 16% | 12% | 7% | 16% | 4% | 7% |
| Child day care | 1% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 1% | 1% | 0% |
| Legal services (in-house) | 1% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 0% |
What can we deduce from this list?
- Most important: despite the frequent bleating that it’s hard to find good IT staff, perks are thin on the ground, and virtually non-existent for lower-paid roles. If employers want to attract IT pros, then working on these areas would make sense.
- I’m also very surprised at the relatively low percentage of companies that pay for training for their staff. Even in the best-case scenario, IT security, the figure is only 28 per cent. Hiring staff and then not keeping them skilled is very short-term thinking
- The most common perks across a range of roles are mobile phone allowances and flexible working hours. The least common? Child care and in-house legal services. (We imagine the former would be more popular if they were on offer.)
Which perks matter most to you when choosing a job? Tell us in the comments.
Comments
13 responses to “Which IT Roles Have The Best Perks?”
Missed half the article due to it still not displaying properly on Windows Phone (too wide)
HAHAHAHAHA!! Who in the world actually has time for windows phone?
Who in the world actually h….
Cuts off on iPhones too. But then, iPhones cut off the last half word on every line too.
Hang on, isn’t paid maternity/paternity leave required by Australian law these days?
Yes, but I believe you have to with your employer for a certain amount of time first. It’s possible this was in addition to the minimum legal obligation, similar to extra annual leave.
This is so company dependent that is renders the stats worthless. Also, all but about 2 of these are general HR perks that all IT and non-IT staff get without prejudice in every company I have worked for. The percentage of the perk is often matched with your title/salary, but that is all.
In my company, all IT staff get the same except for parking.
Missing from this list are actual perks of the position but most perks of the position go to IT Managers (in which some managers spread the love and others don’t), but IT Management has been left of this list even though it is an IT role.
And if you’re in government, you can pretty much zero most of these things off
Candidate for “accompanying photo that least represents reality” award, I think…
My apologies but i did tell them to let me button up my shirt.
What’s with the incredibly low amount of car parking?
Unless the business has less car parking than staff, I would expect every staff member to have a car park.
Unless they mean dedicated car parking space?
My workplace is like that, with just a couple of floors of parking for the entire building and spots are allocated to specific people. It basically means that unless you’re upper-management or willing to pay exorbitant amounts per day in another nearby carpark, you’re taking public transport.
Ah bummer. I guess I’m lucky that we have just enough car parks that even on high staffing days, as long as you’re willing to turn up to work 15 mins early you’re bound to get a spot. Only the last few miss out, but there’s plenty of street space available.
I think “IT BDMs” / “Account Managers” have been missed.
Better perks than any mentioned on that list…..for a lot more $
Same on a nexus 4.it looks like lifehacker needs to hire one of those software developers who know how to squeeze a table onto a mobile device
Who uses Crapple Iphones?