Main image of article Dice 2025 Tech Salary Report: Which Tech Skills Pay You the Most?

If you’ve worked in tech for any length of time, you’re well aware that mastering certain skills translates into a significant pay bump. But which skills pay the most?

According to the 2025 Dice Tech Salary Report, skills related to artificial intelligence (AI), data, and cloud engineering all enjoyed accelerating value between 2023 and 2024. Here’s the breakdown:

Natural language processing (NLP) is a crucial element in artificial intelligence, and tech pros who’ve mastered this skill can quickly become invaluable to companies seeking to build out their respective AI portfolios. As organizations depend heavily on data for AI, strategic insights, and other crucial tasks, mastering data-related skills such as document databases is likewise lucrative for tech pros.

The presence of COBOL on this list is a fascinating standout. COBOL is an ancient language by tech standards, used primarily in the mainframes that once served as the backbone for many large organizations’ data operations. Financial firms and government agencies still rely on systems that run COBOL, and tech pros who’ve mastered the language have their pick of opportunities. (The rise in COBOL-related salaries suggests that the pool of developers who know the language might be shrinking, driving up demand—it’s not like many companies are increasing their mainframe infrastructure right now.)

In general, artificial intelligence skills leads to higher compensation. According to the Report, professionals responsible for designing, developing, or implementing AI solutions command salaries 17.7 percent higher than their peers not involved in AI work—a premium that extends beyond base compensation differences. Tech professionals working on AI initiatives are also more likely to hold senior positions, particularly in management and executive roles (CEO, CIO, CTO, VP, Director). This concentration of AI responsibilities at higher organizational levels partially explains the substantial salary advantage.

The Report found that tech professionals could earn an average of a $10,000 pay bump if they master any of the following skills:

There’s much more data and insights in this year’s edition of the Dice Tech Salary Report! Check it out.