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2012 Salary Survey

Salary Survey, 2013

The Information Architecture Institute conducts an annual salary survey to capture information on compensation, daily work habits and demographics of information architecture practitioners. Summary data, as well as open-ended responses are presented, helping formulate questions for next year's survey. The most recent Salary Survey as well as past years surveys can be found online at http://iainstitute.org. Please send any feedback or requests to info@iainstitute.org.

The 2013 IAI Salary Survey was conducted from July to November 2013. Members of the IA Institute, IxDA and sigia-l were invited to participate. A link to the survey was also promoted via the IA Institute homepage, newsletter and Twitter account. A total of 149 responses were collected. Respondents who did not enter a salary range were filtered out for salary calculation purposes. You may download the expanded results at expanded results ( XLS Document, 211KB XLS 211KB). We remain a relatively small community, so we removed city data from the results due to concerns about the privacy of individuals in places where a small, easily identifiable population of respondents live. A list of cities is available in the full survey download ( PDF Document, 1.1MB PDF 1.1MB) and a narrower analysis by location is available by request.

Since respondents gave us a salary range instead of an exact salary figure, it is impossible to estimate a true average or median salary. In our analysis, we have estimated the median for various data points by taking the midpoint of the salary range a person selected and then averaging that figure for various data points, eliminating the "Over $200,000" and "Under $10,000" groups, which do not have a midpoint. We also present median salary estimates, based on midpoints, for comparison purposes, but it is better to read the survey results in terms of a percentage that falls within a range rather than thinking in terms of a specific salary.

DOWNLOAD THE 2013 SALARY SURVEY PDF

About the Information Architecture Institute

The Information Architecture Institute (IA Institute) is 501(c)6 professional organization dedicated to promoting the concept, craft and community of Information Architecture. Through education, advocacy, services, and social networking, the Institute supports a community of practitioners, leading the way in demonstrating the value of information architecture to the world at large, and providing a framework for members to improve their skills and enhance their professional standing.

Salary Ranges

The salary range with the most responses was USD$90,000-99,999 USD, representing 15.0% of the total responses.

The ranges between USD$80,000-89,999, USD$70,000-79,000, and USD$60,000-69,999 were second, third and fourth highest.

The top five ranges clustered between USD$60,000 and USD$109,000, representing 53.4% of the total.

Using midpoints, the average salary was estimated to be USD$97,686, down from last year.

Using midpoints is inexact, particularly since the top and bottom ranges do not have identifiable midpoints.

When excluding the top and bottom ranges, the average salary is USD$95,422, or 2.3% lower, than when these ranges are included.

Salary rates appear to be about $1,500 per year lower than last year's report. In the previous year, salaries had increased by $6,000.

Freelance Hourly Rates

Responses for freelance hourly rate ranged from USD$40.00 to USD$225 per hour.

Zero outliers were found and removed from this chart, leaving the maximum rate at USD$225/hour.

Zero non-numerical responses were eliminated from the study.

The average freelance rate (excluding outliers) was USD$109.76, the median was USD$100.00 and the modal rate was USD$100.00, with six people indicating that rate. These were up from USD$96.59 average and USD$90 median in 2012.

Note on Outliers: We performed a Grubbs test and found no outliers. The Interquartile Test for outliers is somewhat more aggressive, as follows:

Grubbs Test: Eliminates all numbers with a Z value higher than 3.2121641719. (http://www.graphpad.com/quickcalcs/Grubbs1.cfm), in this case no outliers were found.

Interquartile Test: Eliminates values that are more than 1.5 times the interquartile range (45) above the 3rd Quartile (130) or more than 1.5 times the IQR below the 1st Quartile (85). This removes figures above $175 or below $17 in this sample. This test is somewhat more aggressive than the Grubbs test.

We asked if freelancers were paid hourly, per diem, per project or by commission or equity share. Respondents were able to select more than one answer.

80.6% are paid hourly.

6.5% were paid per diem.

35.5% are paid per project.

6.5% receive Commission and Share of Equity.

Region

The Australia and Pacific Rim once again held the top median salary by Region at USD$114,999 (3 responses). At 33 responses, second place US: West has a more reliable median salary at $104,999, followed by US: Northeast with $94,999 (50 responses).

The United Kingdom's median looks better this year at $84,999, but with there were very few responses.

The regions rankings are as follows (with number of responses in parentheses): Australia and Pacific Rim (3), US: West (33), US: Northeast (50), Canada (11), United Kingdom (4), US: Midwest (18), EU (except the UK) (13), US: South (13), South America (1), India (1)

No responses were collected for Asia (non-India), the Middle East, Africa or US: Alaska & Hawaii in this year's survey. We need to do a better job reaching out to these markets.

Note that a careful cost of living analysis should be considered when comparing one region or metro area to another, since living costs can be much higher in some areas than in others. Also when comparing one region to another, consider differences in benefits that are offered through the employer versus those that must be paid for by the individual or that are subsidized by government programs. In the United States, for example, while medical insurance is considered a benefit, the difference in actual cost of medical care can be significant compared to other countries.

Once again our survey had an overwhelming response from the United States, with 77.6% of responses coming from the US. We will need to do better outreach in 2014 to represent non-US regions more thoroughly.

Country

Higher count indicates greater reliability; unfortunately, few countries had enough responses to indicate a reliable median salary outside the United States.

Switzerland was the top earner (based on a single response) with a median salary of USD$154,999. This sample is too small to show any reliability for the country as a whole. Of those countries with more than five responses, Australia was the highest at USD$124,999 (8), followed by the United States (229) at USD$104,999, Canada (25) at USD$84,999 and the United Kingdom (9) at USD$54,999.

Other countries with less than 5 responses included Germany (3) at USD$94,999, Sweden (2) at USD$59,999, Italy (2) at $49,999, The Netherlands, Argentina and Spain at USD$44,999, China at USD$39,999, Brazil and South Africa at USD$34,999, Latvia and Poland at USD$24,999, Colombia at USD$19,999, India and the Philippines at USD$14,999 and Thailand at Under USD$10,000.

Metropolitan Area

Responses sorted by metro area were higher in the US than in other countries. A few cities in The Netherlands, Canada and UK. Also, given low response rates in some metro areas, the data potentially could be personally identifiable; therefore we hesitate to report results for metro areas with response rates below three people.

The top ten metropolitan areas by salary were all US cities and Montreal, Canada. The top five cities reported median salaries above USD$100,000. The metropolitan area with the highest salary was San Francisco at USD$144,999 followed by Montreal at USD$134,000 , Chicago at USD$114,999, Washington at USD$104,999, Boston at USD$104,999. New York City, Seattle and Los Angeles tied at USD$99,999. The next ranking cities were Philadelphia and Baltimore at at USD$94,999, Denver, London and Toronto at USD$84,999, Detroit (including Ann Arbor, MI) at USD$79,999. Vancouver and Minneapolis came in at USD$74,999. Houston was at USD$64,999 and Utrecht came at USD$44,999.

Use caution when interpreting these figures as the number of responses for each city was rather small.

Salary Increases

47.3% of respondents noted 1-5% annual increase in salary, up 9.0% from 2012.

11.5% indicated a 6-10% annual increase, down 1.8% from 2012.

2.7% noted a decrease in income, the same rate as 2012.

8.1%reported an increase of 11-15% over the previous year, versus 6.2% in 2012; 3.4% had an increase of 16-20% versus 6.3% in 2012.

10 people reported an increase over 20% of the previous year’s salary.

20.3% entered “not applicable” which could indicate no change.

Age

The field is predominantly 26-40 years old, although there is also a large group (13.6%) in the 41-45 year old category. 51-55 year olds have the highest median Salary at USD$149,999. This is 42.9% greater than the next youngest group.
In the 56-60 age group, median salary dropped by 42.2%. There were no respondents over age 60.

We looked at responses for gender, education level, experience level and years in the industry to see if there might be a reason for the 43% drop after age 50.

If education level was a factor, one wold expect those with higher education to receive higher salaries. This may be true overall, but it does not appear to be true for those over 50, of whom over 81% have masters degrees, compared to only 47.4% of those aged 50 and under.

Gender could be a factor along with age. 80.0% of the 56-60 group are female, versus 33.3% of those aged 51-55.

There was a slightly lower percentage of part time workers in the 56-60 age group, 80% versus 93.3% in the 51-55 age group. If our oldest group is working slightly more hours for less pay, this could be a factor.

The number of people working below management level steadily declined from the age 21-25 group through the 46-50 age group, then the number began to increase again, with 83.3% below management in the 51-55 age group and 100% below management in the 56-60 age group. This could explain a decline in salary for the oldest group.

Industry experience may contribute to lower salaries for the 56-60 age group, where 20% of respondents had less than 10 years experience in the IA field. This could also be a factor of our industry being so young. It is likely that those over 50 started their careers in a different field.

It seems that the main difference for the drop in salary after age 50, as last year, may be attributed to more women serving in lower level positions in the highest age group studied. Having a higher degree does not appear to increase salary over age 56, though it is more common in these age groups.

Those aged 56-60 reported feeling the least satisfied with their jobs, with only 60% saying they are "Satisfied" or "Very Satisfied". Those aged 46-60 also had low satisfaction rate with 66.7 feeling less than "Satisfied." The 31-35 and 41-45 age groups had the highest rates of satisfaction, reporting that they are "Satisfied" or "Very Satisfied" at rates of 90.3% and 90.0% respectively, followed by the 55-60 age group at 83.3%. A decline in satisfaction at age 36-40 could indicate either a desire to take on more responsibility or an adjustment to greater responsibility. Salaries show a sizable jump in this age group of 30.8% over the previous group, which implies that salary is not the reason for the decline in job satisfaction.

Gender

This year the gender breakdown was 53.7% female and 46.3% male respondents.

The median salary for females and males was the same (USD$94,999) and unchanged since 2011.

Average salaries were higher for males at USD$99,411 versus USD$96,202 for females, a difference of $3,209. Salaries have fallen slightly since 2012 where males averaged $100,156 and females averaged $97,781.

Women are losing the gender parity they enjoyed in previous years. The salary lead for men widened to $3,209 over women. The gender disparity was $2,376 in 2012 and $1,619 in 2011 with men leading in each of these years.

Education level for males and females was similar to 2011.

62.0% of women and 38% of men reported a Masters Degree as their highest education level. This is slightly higher for women versus 2012, but lower for men versus 2012.

In both gender groups, 27.8% reported a Bachelors Degree as their highest education level, a slightly higher level for women and lower for men since 2012.

7.6% of women and 6.3% of men claim "Some graduate school."

No women reported having a PhD or post-doctoral studies while 3.8% of men do.

Most reported their position at the Experienced/Senior Level, including 41.8% of women and 38.0% of men.

Slightly more men occupy management and higher positions than women, with 19.0% of men versus 15.2% of women. Last year, about 16% held management and higher positions for both male and females.

Women also showed a slight decline versus men at the Executive/CEO/President level, 3.8% versus 5.1%. In 2012, 4.9% of women held executive positions versus 3.1% of men.

The percentage of women working as Freelancers was 20.3% versus 15.4% in 2012. Males also were more likely to work freelance this year with 22.1% versus 17.0% in 2012.

Education Level

The highest level of educational attainment for the majority of respondents is a Master's Degree (53.7%), followed by Bachelor's Degree (29.9%) and Some Graduate School (7.5%).

94.6% of respondents have at least a Bachelor's Degree.

64.6% of respondents have pursued post-baccalaureate degrees and/or certificates. This is similar to last year's survey (64.9% in 2012).

Though the median salary for respondents with a Master's Degree remained the same as last year, $94,999, while Bachelor's Degrees declined from that level to $84,999. The average salary was $10,466 higher for Master's Degrees than Bachelor's. Even some graduate school credit is helpful. In fact those citing some graduate credits, though not a Master's, earned $18,182 more than those with Bachelor's Degrees and are in a higher median bracket.

While the number of respondents holding Doctorate Degrees is only 1.4% of total respondents, figures indicate that on average they earn nearly 23.0% more than those with Master's Degrees and 37.5% more than those holding Bachelor's Degrees.

Six respondents (4.1%) indicated their highest educational attainment was High School and also held a healthy median salary of USD$114,999, indicating, perhaps, that with diligence, a High School graduate can earn a salary comparable to that of their peers with degrees.

It is interesting to note that those who completed a certificate program earned over $20,000 more than those with Bachelor's Degrees. This could indicate that certain certificate programs may provide greater value than a traditional Master's degree, particularly since there are so few degrees that are specific to Information Architecture and User Experience. A list of certificate programs cited by respondents is included below.

Note: We did not ask whether the Certificate was pre- or post-baccalaureate. Certificates may be earned with or without a Bachelor or Junior College degree. Therefore, placing it after Bachelor’s degree is somewhat arbitrary.

Job Title

74 respondents, or 50.3% of the total, described themselves as User Experience Designer/Planner/Architects. Of these, 36 respondents held Experienced/Senior level positions with 18 in Experienced/Mid Level and 13 in Senior Management/VP/Director.

The next largest group was Information Architects at 15.6% of respondents and Interaction Designers at 8.2%. Interaction Designers were primarily Experienced/Mid Level, while Information Architects were split somewhat evenly between Experienced/Mid Level and Experienced/Senior Level.

Median salary was $94,999 for User Experience Designer/Planner/Architects, which may reflect a higher proportion of Senior Management using this title. Median salary was $74,999 for Information Architects and $99,999 for Interaction Designers. Information Architect salaries were lower than Interaction Designers, despite having more Senior Level workers as a proportion of the total. This is a reverse of last year's figures.

Only two respondents entered a title in the "Other" category, including "Director of User Experience" and "Also IA UX Designer." We note that UX directors tend to select others, presumably because they identified the "Planner/ Designer/Architect" label with lower seniority levels. Because the Job Title question is not intended to represent seniority, we moved this entry to the "User Experience Planner/Designer/Architect" column to reflect a User Experience focus. The "Also IA UX Designer" had selected "CEO/President/Owner" as their the Job Title, which we left alone.

Experience Level

Most respondents (42.9%) identified their position level as "Experienced/Senior Level".

The next highest in number were Experienced/Mid level at 32.0% of respondents followed by Senior Management/VP/Directors at 13.6%. Entry Level/juniors were 6.8% of respondents and Executive/CEO/Presidents were only 4.8%.

Management and higher positions appear to require at least 8 years of experience in the field. Most of these respondents had more than ten years of industry experience.

Men and women occupy higher-level positions at a similar rate, with only 11 men and 9 women in Senior Management/VP/Director positions and four men and one woman in Executive/CEO/President positions.

Tenure

The largest group of respondents, 26.5%, has been in their current job for 1-2 years.

The next largest group, 21.8% has been in their current job for over five years.

Nearly one third (28.6%) have been in their current job for less than one year.

Respondents with more than two years at their current job typically have higher salaries. The 4-5 year range only had three respondents so the data is a bit off compared to adjacent groups.

Most typical time in current job by experience level:

Interns: There were no intern respondents.

Entry-level staff typically stayed in their current job no more than 2 years.

Most of the Experienced/Mid Level staff were in their current job for 1-2 years with other tenure groups fairly evenly represented below 4 years of tenure. Data suggests that they tend to move on to new opportunities after two to three years, but are more likely than entry-level staff to remain.

Experienced/Senior level staff also represented a broad range of tenure at their current positions, with most clustering at 1-2 and 2-3 years of tenure.

Senior management/VP/Directors also exhibited two manor tenure groups, including 30.0% in the 1-2 year group and 25.0% in the Over 5 years group.

80% of Executive/CEO/Presidents have been with their current position more than four years (based on seven responses).

Industry Experience

Just over one-quarter of respondents (27.2%) have been in their current field between 1-5 years. This is slightly higher than 2012 figures.

Only 2.0% have been in working in the field for less than one year.

As in last year's report, almost a third (29.9%) have been in the field from 5 to 10 years.

Respondents who have at least ten years of experience in the field reported higher median salaries than those reporting less than eight years in the field. Between 2 and 5 years of experience the difference in median salary doesn't show much change.

Median salary for those reporting more than ten years experience was 108.3% higher than those reporting between 9 and 10 years. 71.9% of those making more than $100,000 median salary had over 10 years experience.

Those with at least ten years experience earn 177.8% more than those with less than a year of experience.

Median salary for those reporting more than ten years experience showed a notable drop from the 8-9 year group. We looked at the lower end responses for the 9-10 year group to see if there was a reason. Of two respondents in the $44,999 salary range, we noted that both were in the EU (except the UK) region and one was a CEO/Founder who was not taking a standard salary. Those with 9-10 years experience only had a salary premium of 33% over those with less than a year of experience, versus a premium of 111.1% for those with 8-9 years of experience. Given the trend line it may be reasonable to assume that ten years of experience would result in closer to a 100% premium, or twice the salary of entry level staff.

The premium for those with more than ten years experience was 177.8% over entry level, down from 288% in 2012.

Industry experience reported by Entry Level/Junior employees ranged across several categories, with most having 5-7 years of experience.

Most Experienced/Mid Level respondents had between either less than three years of industry experience or more than ten, indicating that this may be a common entry point for career transition. A large proportion of Experienced/Senior Level staff had over 10 years experience (44.4%). 30.2% had between 5 and 10 years of industry experience. There were clusters of respondents in the 2-3 year group ((12.7%), the 5-6 year group (also 12.7%) and the 6-7 year group (7.9%).

Management and higher positions appear to require at least 5 years of experience in the field. Most of these respondents had more than ten years of industry experience. 65.0% of Senior Management/VP/Directors had over 10 years industry experience. Three of six Executive/CEO/President respondents have over 10 years of industry experience and none have less than five.

Hours Worked

The majority of respondents worked 40-50 hours per week (63.3%), with the second largest group (22.4%) working 30-40 hours.

Only 1.4% work less than 30 hours per week and 2.8% work more than 60.

Two respondents did not answer this question.

Generally, the more hours worked, the higher the salary, except for a slight drop in the over 60 hours group.

Management

Of 147 people who participated in the survey, 62.0% indicated that they manage staff, up 78.9% since 2012.

Full-time employees represent 77.0% of staff under management. Contract staff comprises another 17.1% and Temp agency staff make up 1.6%. There is a distinct move toward managing full-time staff over previous years.

4.3% of the staff under management are at the management level themselves, versus 27.8% in 2012 and 7.7% in 2011.

These figures indicate that management level employees must be able to supervise a still significant number of contract and temporary employees.

Type of Organization

The highest paid group was Freelancers who earned a USD$139,999 median salary. One of the higher paid freelancers commented, "I work for any client that has complex systems or applications and interesting projects."

The next highest paid group was Consumer projects at USD$104,999, followed by those working at Interactive/design agencies, Software/Application developers, and Service Companies at USD$84,999 and Consulting firms at USD$89,999.

Financial services was a large enough write-in from the Other group to consider pulling it out into its own category. Financial services worker earned a median salary of USD$84,999 as did those at Not for Profit organizations. The "Other" category included a number of insurance, Internet providers, game developers, retail/e-commerce companies, manufacturers and specialized advertising and marketing companies. We may consider adding Advertising/marketing, Healthcare and Media/Entertainment selections next year.

Those at Government (USD$74,999) and Educational Institutions (USD$64,999) were paid the least.

Type of Product

The median salary by product type was fairly uniform across all categories at USD$94,999. Those working on Public Kiosks/Billboards (ATM, interactive billboard, ticket kiosk, etc.) and Physical projects or devices (Medical, home, in-dash systems, etc) earned slightly more at USD$104,000 and USD$109,0999 respectively.

All 147 respondents entered answers to this question. We allowed respondents to select more than one answer.

82.3% worked on public facing websites in 2013 versus 87.3% in 2012, a slight decline. Mobile is the fastest growing project type having increased 4.2% since 2012. 74.8% worked on mobile applications in 2013, versus 70.6% in 2012. In other 2013 categories, 53.1% work on Desktop/web software, 21.1% work on social media applications, 16.3% work on email marketing campaigns, 14.3% work on public kiosks, 9.5% work on physical products, and 4.8% work on entertainment consoles, including game systems, DVDs and BlueRay applications. Social media applications have declined by a similar amount from 25.5% in 2012. Intranet/Extranets (57.1%) and Email marketing (16.3%) were new additions this year.

In the Other category, which represented 6.1% of responses, we received the following write-in responses:

Analytics and data visualization tools for information security managers/execs

Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse applications

Business Intelligence, Health Care Intelligence

e-Commerce, B2B websites, eProcurement punchouts

Enterprise Content Management Systems (Document Management, Records Management, Collaboration systems), Portals.

Other internal CMSs that aren't for the web.

PC Games

Specialist computing

Working Environment

30.4% of respondents work at organizations employing more than 3,000 people, versus 35% in 2012. 9.5% were self-employed, an increase of 3.9% over 2012. 22.6% work at organizations employing less than 50 people, which is similar to the rate in 2012.

44.1% work on a team of 1-5 people, versus 72.5% in 2012. 32.4% indicated that they are the only person performing IA work in their workgroup, versus 24.7% in 2012. 19.6% indicated that they were the only person at their company performing IA work, versus 14.1% in 2012.

59.9% spend 75-100% of their time working at their Employer/Company offices, which is similar to 2012's rate of 57.0%. 78.2% spend up to 25% of their time working at home, up from 74.3% in 2012. There are also a significant number of respondents who spend up to 25% of their time working at Client office/premises (36.7% of respondents). We noted a large increase in respondents working at "Other" locations, such as airports, trains, cars, cafes, etc. (57.8% of respondents, up from 38.8% in 2012).

Tasks Performed

We noted a higher response rate for this question than last year. As in previous surveys, the most frequently performed, hands on tasks are Wireframing/sitemaps and User flow/scenario development. 94.6% of respondents reported either performing or review/delegating Wireframing/sitemaps tasks and 93.2% reported working on User flow/scenario development at least some of the time. These task categories were closely followed by Usability Testing (91.8%) and Interaction Design (91.2%). Interestingly, when asked if the task is performed frequently, 50.3 agreed that Interaction design was performed frequently but only 45.6% indicated Wireframing/sitemaps was a frequent task and 48.3% indicated User flow/scenario development was performed frequently.

The most frequently reviewed and/or delegated tasks included Graphic/interface design and Content generation/copywriting.

The most frequently cited hands-on task, i.e. tasks not delegated to others, included Wireframing/sitemaps at 85.0%, User flow/scenario development at 82.3% and Strategic work (business models, high-level categorization, requirements analysis, life cycle assessment) at 80.3%.

The most frequently reviewed and/or delegated tasks included Graphic/interface design (43.5%) and Content generation/copywriting (36.1%).

Tasks that were least likely to be performed by survey respondents included Database design (74.8% are not involved), General IT consulting (also 73.5% not involved), Programming/IT integration (68.7% not involved), and Non-IA Business administration and operations (68.7% not involved). The flip side is at least a quarter to a third of all respondents have some involvement in these more technical/admin tasks on a delegated or occasional basis. In fact, respondents were 35.3% more likely to have some involvement with Programming/IT Integration, 24.2% more likely have involvement in General business consulting/analytics, and 19.0% more likely be involved with General IT consulting.

We also noted a continued increase in the number of respondents who are doing Content management/strategy work, Database design Content generation/copywriting and Taxonomy development (Thesauri, metadata, controlled vocabularies, etc.).

Staff training/recruiting/team development was a recently added category. While most respondents do not perform this task frequently, 65.3% have some involvement and 15.0% perform this task frequently.

Benefits

The most cited benefits were Health/Medical Insurance, cited by 88.1% of respondents, Life Insurance Plan (76.9%), 401K or Other Pension/Investment Plan (76.9%), Flexible Schedule (72.4%), Disability Insurance at (69.4%), Family Leave (Maternity/Paternity/Partner/Adoption) (67.2%), Professional Training/Continuing Education/Tuition Reimbursement (62.7%), Pretax Flexible Spending Account (e.g. medical or childcare use) (58.2%), Conference Registration (51.5%), and Bonus Pay (47.8%). Except for Bonus Pay, the number of responses in these categories was up across the board from 2012, a reverse of the prior year's downward trend.

Other types of time off has declined across the board as 38.8% get Personal Time off or Sabbatical Leave, only 22.4% get Compensatory Time, or additional time off. (Check your local laws, though. Compensatory time off in lieu of pay is illegal in many areas.)

In addition to the 76.9% receiving a 401K or Other Pension/Investment Plan, 28.4% receive a Stock Options/Purchase Plan from their companies, 19.4% indicated Other Profit Sharing Plan. Each of these categories is up over 2012. While employers may be more generous with profit sharing and pensions, corporate discounts have declined to only 33.6% in 2013 versus 38.4% in 2012.

As for family related benefits, Family Leave (Maternity/Paternity/Partner/Adoption) benefits increased from 59.9% in 2012 to 67.2% in 2013, and Flexible Schedules increased from 68.5% in 2012 to 72.4% in 2013. In 2013, 34.3% receive benefits covering Domestic Partnerships, which is similar to 2012; only 13.4% had access to a Dependent Care/Child Care/Babysitting Program (up down from 20.4% in 2012); and 14.9% get Housing/Relocation assistance.

A healthy 27.6% get a Health Club/Gym Membership reimbursement, similar to the previous year. Transportation/Commuting Reimbursement (24.6% up from 21.5% in 2012) and Meals/Entertainment (23.1% up from 21.1% last year) round out the physical needs of our respondents.

76.2% receive more than two weeks of vacation, with the majority, 31.3%, in the 11-15 Days range.

79.6% also get an additional four to eleven public holidays in addition to their paid vacation. A lucky 6.8% get more than 11 public holidays to top off their vacations.

Write-in benefits and additional comments included:

Telework

Financial advisor, health advocate

I am independent, but this was funny to answer.

Laptop, tablet, car (leased)

snacks, soda, and beer in the office

Tech budget (comes from same pool of money that you would use to pay for meals, health gym/memberships, and transport/commuting reimbursement (that isn't client-related). It's a flexible account to cover personal expenses that aren't medical and aren't part of client work (personal use).

Free bus pass

I'm a consultant, so you could say I get all of these or none of these.

One response that appeared to be a phone number was removed.

Overall Job Satisfaction

Overall job satisfaction was positive with more 79.7% stating they are either satisfied or very satisfied with their job, up from 75.4% in 2012. Responses were almost equally split between these two categories. Autonomy, flexibility, respect, and innovation were frequently cited by those who were satisfied with their jobs, along with good pay and working environment.

Among those who were Unsatisfied (8.10%) ore Very Unsatisfied (1.4%), comments included a negative work environment, low pay, lack of mobility or educational opportunities, hectic or disorganized schedules and a lack of challenge on the job.

Complete question-by-question results from the 2013 IA Institute Salary and Benefits Survey, including tasks and benefits, are included in the Appendix of the full survey download ( PDF Document, 1.1MB PDF 1.1MB)

This page was last modified on March 19, 2014 08:36 AM.

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