A new comprehensive piece of research shows that LinkedIn offers the best average salary for junior employees in the tech arena.
By trawling through the salaries of 46,000 individuals largely based in the UK but also including some from throughout Europe, Emolument.com established that within the tech sphere, junior employees are paid far better at LinkedIn and Amazon than they are at HP and eBay.
By crowdsourcing the data, the results allow us to see how different areas of tech may be benchmarking their rates.
And if this evidence is anything to go by, it pays more to work in software than it does to make hardware. However, it would be nice to see a comparison by country, given the different costs in the standard of living, and the extremely competitive Irish market with regard to tech employment.
Add to that the major engineering hub in Shannon for Intel and such a report could well skew the figures in another direction.
Ifs and buts
But within this study, LinkedIn leads the way, with an average salary of UK£60,000, perhaps explained by the fact it must compete with better-known, perhaps better regarded, employers like Google and Facebook.
Indeed that duo (paying UK£48,000 and UK£49,500 on average, respectively) actually trail a trilogy of Microsoft (UK£51,000), Amazon (UK£55,000) and the top-dog professional social meeting place.
Indeed that means that LinkedIn is having to pay 20pc extra, on average, to compete – quite the sum.
“As well as attracting customers, brand image plays a significant role when it comes to recruiting the kind of talent that will keep pushing technology companies forward,” founder and CEO of Emolument.com, Thomas Drewry, said.
Criteo (UK£41,000), Intel (UK£40,000), Sungard and IBM (both UK£35,000), eBay (UK£33,000) and HP (UK£30,000) trail a good bit behind the leading five.
At the other end of the experience spectrum, it’s interesting that Apple (UK£76,000) significantly improves on Microsoft’s average of UK£60,000.
“Offering a level of salary transparency allows individuals to see beyond the short-term factors like starting salary and company brand to really understand what a career at a specific company might mean five, 10 or 15 years down the line, empowering them to make more informed choices in these big life decisions,” says Drewry.
Software companies, via Shutterstock
