SQL Advisor

Database Jobs Provide Security, Survey Says

A recent salary survey indicates that database-related jobs provide good job security, and don’t rank too badly on the salary side of things, either.

• By David Ramel
• 01/12/2012

A recent salary survey indicates that database-related jobs provide good job security, and don't rank too badly on the salary side of things, either.

Visual Studio Magazine's 2012 .NET Developer Salary Survey noted that, "In terms of top job functions for security and retention, database administrator/developer ranked highest (46.5 percent), followed by senior engineer/senior software developer (43.5 percent) and software architect (43 percent)."

As far as technologies that provided perceived job security/retention, SQL Server was No. 2.

Salary-wise, the average base for database administrator/developer types was $91,276, pretty much aligned with the median base salary of all respondents, $92,000.

That compares to a $95,212 average base salary reported by database developers in Redmondmag.com's 2011 Windows IT Salary Survey last August. Interestingly, in that survey, the data devs' salary had fallen from No. 1 the previous year to No. 4.

Some more tidbits for you data types in the new .NET developer survey:

"Only 4.2 percent of survey respondents categorized their role as database administrator/developer. However, 67.5 percent of 1,104 respondents reported a background -- they had worked on a project for at least six months -- in database development: 45.3 percent in database administration and 24.2 percent in data warehousing."

It seems to me in this still-shaky economic climate that high job security is comparatively better than a high salary. Remember, if you're a working database developer, you're lucky to have a job, and probably thousands of equally qualified unemployed workers would gladly trade places with you at just about any salary.

Or, as one respondent put it, "There is a salary freeze and I do not anticipate any changes (which is fine with me ... I'm employed)."

What is it about the database field that provides (relative) job security? Comment here or drop me a line.