Irish digital and tech business owners are losing up to 25pc of their staff to bigger multinationals that can offer more attractive salaries, bonuses and benefits, according to the latest salary survey from Prosperity.
Dublin-based tech and digital media recruitment consultancy Prosperity’s Digital Salary Survey 2016 reported a significant upsurge in hiring activity in the second quarter of 2016.
But the buoyant economy is seeing staff retention difficulties in indigenous digital and tech firms and advertising agencies.
“Anecdotally, we are hearing that some business owners have lost up to 25pc of their staff to bigger multinationals that can offer more attractive salaries, bonuses and benefits, and the glamour of having a large international brand on one’s CV,” explained Gary Mullan, chief executive of Prosperity.
Prosperity’s Gary Mullan
‘Irish companies have become increasingly innovative in their benefits – often simply offering health insurance and contributory pensions doesn’t quite cut it anymore, and free food, social clubs, education, income protection and many other benefits are beginning to appear on job offers’
– GARY MULLAN, PROSPERITY
Mullan pointed out that this is not a one-way street and, indeed, there are a number of companies with Irish founders that are also creating their own unique buzz, including Stripe, which is establishing its European HQ in Dublin, as well as Intercom, Newswhip and 3D4Medical.
“The success of these companies has had extremely positive reverberations in the Irish digital community, and is testament to the fact that Dublin is managing to attract and retain international talent,” Mullan said.
Despite the threat posed by multinationals, Mullan said that Irish businesses are fighting back with their own generous salary packages and strategies aimed at retaining staff.
“Many international candidates were first attracted to Dublin to work for the multinationals, and previously, when they changed jobs, they tended to move between the behemoths – from Google to Facebook or vice versa – but we are finding that these candidates are now far more inclined to move to indigenous companies and this reservoir of talent is a major factor in the success of these companies.
“Of course, Irish business have had to re-examine their packages to make them more attractive to talent. Some Irish businesses are doing a great job of addressing the challenge of attracting and retaining staff, offering good salaries, more flexitime, four-day weeks and the opportunity to work from home.
“Further to this, Irish companies have become increasingly innovative in their benefits – often simply offering health insurance and contributory pensions doesn’t quite cut it anymore, and free food, social clubs, education, income protection and many other benefits are beginning to appear on job offers.”
Who’s earning what?
According to the Digital Salary Survey 2016, there has been a surge in pay scales for people working in digital companies. An ad operations manager with five-plus years experience can expect to earn over €55,000, a content manager can expect to earn between €55,000 and €70,000 while a content writer with five-plus years experience can expect to earn over €60,000.
CRM skills are in high demand and a CRM director with over five years’ experience can expect to earn between €110,000 and €130,000.
A social media executive starting out can expect to earn under €35,000, rising to between €50,000 and €60,000 after five years.
In digital agency land, an experienced digital account director can expect to earn up to €85,000 per annum, while a digital creative director can expect to earn up to €100,000 a year.
In the design realm, an experienced art director can earn over €70,000 while web designers now typically earn over €55,000.
A UX director would be paid €70,000 and higher while a UX designer with five years’ experience would earn over €50,000 in Ireland, according to the survey.
At the higher end of the strategic scale, a CIO of a company could expect to earn over €300,000 a year while a CTO with over five years’ experience could earn €200,000.
A VP of engineering/head of IT position would pay in excess of €160,000 a year in Ireland in 2016.
On the software engineering side, an experience Java developer could earn over €70,000 a year, a C# developer over €80,000 a year, an iOS developer over €70,000 a year, an Android developer over €70,000 while Python, PHP and Ruby on Rails developers could earn €70,000, €60,000 and €70,000 a year respectively.
After Brexit, strong growth envisaged
“In terms of the skills that are in demand, there remains a shortage of developers, particularly Java, .NET, Python, Ruby on Rails and Scala,” Mullan explained.
“In advertising, programmatic is a skill that is in demand on both agency and client side. We are also experiencing strong demand from the SMBs in traditional sectors that are building their own internal digital teams, with requirements for design and build specialists, e-commerce professionals, and PPC, SEO, and general digital marketing candidates.
“With a possible need to now circumvent the UK market and increase online reach to more far-flung markets, we foresee continuing strong growth in digital hiring requirements across all sectors of the Irish economy.
“And if indeed we do manage to attract more FDI and UK and US companies to this only English-speaking country in the EU, we hope to see a significant increase in hiring activity across both the indigenous and international levels of the digital sector in Ireland for the remaining quarters of 2016 and into 2017,” Mullan said.
