2023 in Review: IT Pay Held Steady Despite Economic Pressures and ChatGPT's Emergence

IT jobs have been shaken over the past 18 months as technology firms of every size have laid off employees and reduced hiring. After a decade of growth and two years of hiring sprees turbocharged by the coronavirus pandemic, the industry has been forced by investors and stakeholders to look at ways to cut back on costs.

This year’s Network Computing Salary Survey gathered information from 323 full-time IT professionals working in the United States. The results offer a look at the state of the industry through the lens of salaries, employee satisfaction, compensation, perceived value, and happiness.

Even though there have been over 330,000 layoffs in the industry, network computing jobs are still sought after, and employees, by and large, still feel secure in their roles and are seeing salary increases and bonuses. Similar to the market for other highly technical roles, network engineers, architects, and administrators are highly valued by businesses in the tech industry, as they perform many critical network and systems tasks.

That said, there is a growing body of workers who want to have more training from their organization in the form of skills training for new technologies or certifications to work with more applications and systems. Businesses have been leaning into this concept of upskilling or reskilling workers, but less than a quarter of organizations have paid for courses, suggesting a disconnect between perceived business values and actual business decisions.