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Tech Salary Trends Across the Globe

by Veronica Blatt

Hired has released its fourth annual State of Salaries report, providing tech salary trends for a variety of data points around the world. Survey data is tabulated from the Hired database and includes positions such as data scientists, software engineers, product managers, and more.

Which city is paying the highest salary for tech workers?

Tech salaries in San Francisco are the highest in the USA, for the fourth straight year. However, salaries are quickly rising in Boston and Toronto (9% increase in 2018 vs 2017). Austin, London and Washington, DC are also seeing significant salary increases. Each of those cities show an average annual tech salary increase of 6 percent.

With skyrocketing housing and other cost-of-living expenses in the Bay Area, tech workers are increasingly willing to move to get more for their money. Tech workers in Austin, Texas would need a salary increase of more than US $80K annually to maintain their standard of living in the Bay Area. Denver and Seattle offer the next best standards of living.

Which are the best-paying software engineering jobs by location?

In San Franciso, search engineers have the highest average salary at US $157,000 annually. The top-paying jobs in other cities include:

  • New York City – gaming engineers, US $147,000 annually
  • Toronto – natural-language processing engineers, US $83,000 annually
  • London – embedded engineers, US $90,000 annually
  • Paris – blockchain engineers, US $67,000 annually

Compensation and other reasons to relocate

Nearly half of the surveyed tech workers believe they are underpaid given the cost of living in their current city. More than 40% of respondents cited a desire to experience a new city, while an additional 26% would like to live in a less expensive city. Austin was cited most frequently as the city people where people would like to live. Seattle came in second despite average rents increasing roughly 35% from 2000-2017. Amsterdam has been named the best European tech city with 170 ICT organizations headquartered there.

Are advanced degrees worth the expense?

Tech workers with advanced degrees (masters or higher) are decidedly mixed about whether those degrees have helped their careers. One fourth of respondents firmly believe they would not have their current role without them. An additional 23% believe the advanced degree is responsible for the salary they earn. More than 30% believe they would have their current job even without the advanced degree, while the remaining 20% aren’t sure.

More than half of tech workers who do NOT have advanced degrees are not interested in pursuing one. Common reasons cited include believing that on-the-job training is just as valuable or more, and the cost of obtaining an advanced degree is too high. Tech workers are increasingly interested in coding bootcamps, and more than half of the hiring manager respondents said they would hire graduates of a coding bootcamp for an open role. Employers in London are especially open to coding bootcamps as a legitimate education option.

Are you a recruiter or hiring manager in the tech space? What tech salary trends have you identified? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

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