Skills Shortages and Inflation Drive Sizable Salary Increases Across Canada’s Tech Sector
September 29, 2023
Our annual Tech Sector Salary and Total Rewards Survey was recently published by Mercer Canada, showing tech sector salaries continue to grow in softening market.
The tech sector’s average salary increase budget was 4.5% this year.
We’ve seen some seismic shifts shaping the technology industry in the past few years and despite widespread layoffs, critical tech skills are in high demand. Our 2023 survey sheds light on the tech sector salary growth resulting from these macro-economic conditions.
Full Stack Developers, Software and Application Developers, and DevOps Developers continue to experience upward salary pressure in 2023 as Canadian tech companies find it challenging to recruit for these skills.
New hire pay pressure has reduced compared to 12 months ago and is now more isolated to high demand roles and senior or specialized positions. However, pay for new hires is still competitive and positioned similarly to those already in the role. With this continued external pressure, companies are making targeted salary adjustments for existing employees.
The median salary increase for tech sector employees who stayed in the same position two years in a row remained high in 2023 at 7.5%, indicating that Canadian tech companies are still relying on off-cycle pay increases to address retention concerns, counteroffers, market adjustments and internal equity.
Top 10 Hot Jobs
The top ten jobs with the highest rate of year over year median base salary increases all had increases above 7.5%, with four positions at 10% or greater - DevOps Developer/Engineer (Fully Competent), Accounting Clerk (Senior/Lead), Data Scientist (Intermediate) and UI/UX Designer (Entry).
Common incumbent (same employees) year over year median base salary increase percent by job:
DevOps Developer/Engineer - Fully Competent | 10.5% |
Accounting Clerk - Senior/Lead | 10.3% |
Data Scientist - Intermediate | 10.0% |
UI/UX Designer - Entry | 10.0% |
Hardware/Electrical Engineer - Entry | 9.9% |
Game Designer - Intermediate | 9.6% |
Accounting Clerk - Intermediate | 9.4% |
Implementation Specialist | 9.0% |
Technical Customer Support Representative - Intermediate | 8.7% |
Production - Coordinator - Film | 8.7% |
Note: Represents the same organizations participating in the survey two years in row, matching the same employees to the same job year over year. Jobs with less than 10 organizations in the sample were excluded.
A Focus on Wellbeing
Technology companies are paying closer attention to benefits, financial health and flexible work arrangements. Perquisites and benefits like RRSP matching, paid time off to volunteer and condensed work weeks are some of the fastest growing perquisites and benefits in the sector. Both RRSP matching and family leave top-up benefits have steadily grown over the years.
Remote and hybrid work arrangements continue to dominate the sector and offer competitive advantage. According to this year’s survey participants, 38% of companies are operating fully remotely and 42% are operating with hybrid work models.
About TAP Network’s Tech Sector Salary and Total Rewards Survey
TAP Network’s annual Tech Salary and Total Rewards Survey, produced by Mercer, focuses on the Canadian tech sector, reporting on local and national salaries, total compensation, detailed policy data, and more. Survey participants include start-ups, scale ups and large multinationals representing a broad cross section of subsectors such as software products, AI, clean tech, hardware design and manufacturing, VFX, animation and more. Survey submissions were collected in Spring 2023 and results were published in August 2023.
Learn more and purchase the Tech Sector Salary and Total Rewards Survey here.