Multimedia Maestros Reap Skills Shortage Benefit

Salaries for IT employees are expected to stabilise over the next few years as the level of wages for computer-related jobs continues to fall.

In a national survey of salaries for permanent IT jobs, research company Corps Business found that people with traditional IT skills, such as pro- gramming in most languages or technical support, cannot command as high a salary as they could previously. This is partly because there is less of a shortage in traditional IT skills, which in turn has been driven by the reduction in IT department sizes and the increasing reliance on contractors.

The survey also highlighted a serious shortage of multimedia skills such as Web design and other forms of production. The range of salaries for permanent jobs in this sector are between #20,000 and #30,000, but this is expected to stabilise over the next five years as more people come out of college with specialised multimedia degrees.

Demand for other types of computer-based designers is falling, therefore they are often not achieving the salary levels they expect.

For example, art workers, such as people skilled in Quark Xpress desktop publishing, expect salaries of up to #30,000 but are typically earning between #19,000 and #25,000.

Large companies are still paying programmers #40,000 a year, especially if they have object-oriented techniques. The average wage on offer is between #23,000 and #30,000.