What kind of salaries do these common tech jobs fetch in Philly?

Cybersecurity, data science and full-stack software development are some of the most in-demand tech skills in the U.S. right now.

At its peak, the national unemployment rate last year hit a record 14.7% due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the tech industry remained resilient, with unemployment in the sector reaching a high of only 3.5%, in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Meanwhile, CompTIA reported that companies were unable to fill 60% of their open tech jobs in 2020.

As the economy continues to evolve, Motion Recruitment shared some nationwide tech employment data as well as Philly-specific salary data in a recent report for recruiters and job seekers. Motion Recruitment is the company behind Tech in Motion, the national network of technology events. These recent findings pull from proprietary data, BLS, CompTIA and other reliable sources.

‘The gap between tech talent supply and increasing demand has been widening, but the economic impact of the pandemic may be changing the course,” Motion Recruitment President Matt Milano said in a statement.

Read the report

Motion Recruitment reported that the demand for specialized skills like cybersecurity jumped by 70% last year due to coronavirus-related phishing and cyber threats to government agencies. Demand for data scientists and data analysts increased by 45% while there was a 25% increase in the need of full-stack developers. Last March, Motion Recruitment said there was a 25% increase in job applications from mid and senior-level tech professionals but since then, there has been a decline.

While demand for tech professionals has increased nationwide, tech salaries only increased by 1.45% in 2020, compared to a 4% average increase year over year in past years.

Milano said the impact of 2020’s challenges will continue into this year, “leaving many with more uncertainties and questions than answers when it comes to salaries and compensation,” so Motion Recruitment shared some specific data in the report for mid-level and senior-level tech salaries.

Below are salaries for some of the more common tech roles you might come across in the Philadelphia region. These jobs require top tech skills such as information systems, project management and an understanding of coding language Python. Motion Recruitment gathered the base salary ranges from mid-level (two to five years) and senior-level (five plus years) experienced tech professionals, including low and high ranges for each experience level:

Chief technology officer

• Low: $143,695
• High: $180,694

Full-stack software developer

• Mid-level (low): $74,449
• Mid-level (high): $100,955
• Senior-level (low): $101,009
• Senior-level (high): $126,568

Python developer

• Mid-level (low): $73,113
• Mid-level (high): $100,434
• Senior-level (low): $105,607
• Senior-level (high): $131,958

Information security engineer

• Mid-level (low): $92,454
• Mid-level (high): $117,117
• Senior-level (low): $126,199
• Senior-level (high): $153,447

Data scientist

• Mid-level (low): $72,254
• Mid-level (high): $110,388
• Senior-level (low): $104,975
• Senior-level (high): $136,429

Michael Butler is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.