The tech industry has always moved at a breakneck pace, but it seems like things have gone turbo in recent years\u2014which means there\u2019s more pressure on the professionals tasked with innovating to stay one step ahead of the game. The more capabilities and larger skillset an employee has, the more in demand they\u2019ll be\u2026 and that means it\u2019s likely tech salaries will reflect that demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s exactly what the industry was seeing from 2018 to 2019. In The Dice 2020 Tech Salary Report, we took a look at the occupations that had the highest tech salaries, ranking 25 positions ranging from Architect and Engineering roles to Developer and Support positions. Then, we took a closer look at the top roles that are growing the fastest. And while you probably know the roles that are topping the list, you might be intrigued to learn why, and exactly how much they\u2019ve grown over the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall trend in rising salaries correlated with jobs that allowed for data management and analyzation, the opportunity to build applications, and to ensure those applications have a successful, bug-free launch. As such, the top salaried role was that of a Systems Architect, checking in at $138,277, which is up 7.7% from 2018 to 2019. That role is quickly followed by Data Architects, who actually saw their salary fall by 0.5% over the course of the year. Still, that wasn\u2019t enough to take that role out of its second-place spot with $128,890.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rounding out the top five is Cloud Engineers<\/a>, who make $128,347 with a rise of 5.6% from 2018 to 2019. Product Managers and Security Engineers are running neck and neck, with the former bringing home $121,316 at a 6.3% rise, and the latter just slightly behind at $121,228, but with a big 9.5% leap from 2018 to 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The numbers continue to tell an interesting story when you do a deeper dive into the occupations that are growing the fastest. For example, Security Engineer<\/a>, one of the occupations with the fastest growing salaries, shouldn\u2019t be a shock given privacy concerns, ever-emerging threats, and the seemingly constant information breaches facing the industry at large. The average salary comes in at $121,228 with a growth rate of 9.5% year-over-year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The role of a Security Engineer comes with a lot of complications, of course, which requires special skillsets such as familiarity with network security and the ability to perform vulnerability assessments and threat analysis\u2014especially in the face of complex corporate IT infrastructure. The more specialized a Security Engineer is and the more skilled they are at patching vulnerabilities, the more their salary reflects those capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n