New Zealand technology workers are the highest earners in the country, with IT jobs taking the top five places for average rates of pay during the last quarter of 2014.
According to Trade Me Jobs Employment Survey results, recorded during October - December 2014, IT architects demanded the most money across the country, with an average salary of $150,386.
Coming in second place, a whopping $25,000 behind, IT Project Managers commanded the second highest wage in New Zealand, taking home an average pay rate of $124,360.
Rounding out the top five places were Kiwis working in IT Management ($123,179), IT data warehousing & business intelligence ($118,901) and IT functional consultants ($118,262) respectively.
Head of Trade Me Jobs Peter Osborne says the IT sector continued its “meteoric” long-term growth trend with the number of roles advertised up a further 11.6% year-on-year.
One of the key reasons why salaries in IT made up all five of the highest-paid roles, was down to employers continuing to face a continued short supply of experienced IT staff.
“It’s a good time to be schooled up in technology, as IT Architect salaries top the bunch at an average salary of $150,000, an increase of 11% on the previous year,” Osborne adds.
According to Osborne, the underlying trend is that 2014 has been a “very solid year” for the New Zealand employment market, which closed with double-digit growth in the last quarter of 2014, according to an analysis of over 56,000 roles listed on Trade Me Jobs.
The number of jobs advertised onsite lifted almost 14% year-on-year for the October to December quarter, and each of the major population centres finished on a high: Auckland was up 20%, Canterbury up 10% and Wellington up almost 8%.
Many other regions followed this positive trend with Bay of Plenty up 26%, Manawatu/Wanganui up 13% and Otago growing over 10%.
As a result Osborne believes double-digit growth in advertised job numbers has become the new normal.
“Looking back over the whole of 2014, it’s been a bumper year,” he says. “With New Zealand being in good economic health, retail jobs were also up, and these factors have collectively helped to create a very buoyant job market.”
Auckland in particular - which makes up approximately 40% of the national jobs market - showed remarkable growth according to Osborne.
“In the City of Sails, the theme is very much about going full steam ahead on major development and industry projects,” he adds. “We saw the number of jobs advertised in Auckland go up 20% quarter-on-quarter throughout 2014.”
Regional pay
For those IT workers keen to increase their salaries, Wellington currently stands tall as the highest paid city in New Zealand, with an average pay rate of $77,772 compared to Auckland on $75,020.
Further afield, Kawerau in the Bay of Plenty, Kaipara in the Northland and Waikato on average paid salaries of $68,365, $64,362 and $62,986 respectively.