Business knowledge prized, as IT salaries remain static

Technologists working in investment banking who are able to demonstrate business nous have seen a 5% uplift in their salaries in the last three months, while pay elsewhere in IT has remained static, according to a new salary survey.

The average IT worker in an investment bank saw their pay slip by 2.4% in the second quarter of this year, according to a survey by financial IT recruiters JM Group, but salaries haven't slipped any further this quarter.

The JM Group reckons that the bulk of front-office technology roles remain in the FX and equities space, and that while the market is generally slow it is "far from stagnant".

Rory Ferguson, director and head of the firm, says: "There are well-funded and ambitious teams benefiting from acquiring some great talent in a buyer's market."

But the real winners are technologists who are able to show how IT can help the firm's bottom line - those with business acumen have seen a 5% salary increase in the last quarter, says the survey.

Read on for Q3 salaries (not including bonus).

Project managers

Project development managers: Associate - , Senior (VP) 85k

Programme managers: Associate 70k, Senior (VP) 85k

Project managers with financial product knowledge: Associate 75k, Senior (VP) 90k.

Architects

Technical architects: Associate 75k, Senior (VP) 95k

Data/information architects: Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 85k.

Business analysts

Front-office business analysts (vanilla products): Associate 70k, Senior (VP) 80k

Front-office business analysts (exotic derivatives): Associate 75k, Senior (VP) 90k

Back-office business analysts (settlements and reconciliation): Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 80k

Business analysts (compliance/MiFID): Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 80k

Data analysts: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 75k.

Developers (with financial product knowledge)

Java (core Java, J2EE): Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 80k

.NET/C#: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 70k

C++ (Microsoft/Unix): Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 85k

HTML/JavaScript: Associate 45k, Senior (VP) -

Excel/Access VBA: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 75k.

Databases (DBA/Dev)

Sybase DBA: Associate 60k, Senior (VP) 75k

Sybase developer: Associate 70k, Senior (VP) 75k

Oracle DBA: Associate 60k, Senior (VP) 75k

Oracle developer: Associate 65k, Senior (VP) 75k.

Systems administrators

SUN Solaris: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 75k

HP-UX: Associate 50k, Senior (VP) 70k

NT: Associate 50k, Senior (VP) 70k.

Support

Applications support manager: Associate - , Senior (VP) 90k

Trade floor support: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 65k

Windows server support: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 65k

Desktop/market data support: Associate 50k, Senior (VP) -

Web systems engineer: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 65k

Front-office applications support: Associate 55k, Senior (VP) 70k

Back-office applications support: Associate 50k, Senior (VP) 55k

Network support engineer: Associate 45k, Senior (VP) 60k.