Harrington Starr has released its Financial Technology Salary Survey 2023/24 – and the news is both good and bad. While the company describes the financial technology market as ‘in the grip of a generational opportunity driven by game-changing market forces’ and ‘extraordinary advances in tech’, particularly in AI, digital assets, cloud and data, firms that have under-offered have tended to lose talent.
The survey covers a range of job functions across financial markets, although in this blog we concentrate on data, devops, sales and marketing, and product management.
Data
Demand for skilled data professionals in the UK soared between 2022 and 2023, with salaries increasing at about 7%. Harrington Starr attributes this to growing demand and recognition of the importance of data-driven decision making in financial institutions. It is also expected that salaries for data roles will continue to rise in the foreseeable future, although candidates need a strong skills set, relevant experience and domain knowledge to stand out.
Looking at the numbers, there has been a 10% increase in data professionals over the past year, with median tenure at 1.4 years and an average salary of £60,700, although this belies top jobs with heads of data commanding salaries between £90,000 and £140,000, and heads of data operations, data quality, and governance gaining similar sums.
Senior and lead roles across the titles data engineer, data scientist , data analyst, BI developer, and data warehouse developer are not far behind with data engineers and scientists topping the salary table here.
DevOps and site reliability engineers
Harrington Starr describes these areas as highly competitive, although the potential for career growth and high remuneration offered makes them an attractive field for professionals. Salaries of heads of DevOps engineers and site reliability engineers came in between £140,000 and £200,000.
Looking at future salary trends, the report anticipates that salaries will remain stable until 2024, with no significant rises or falls expected in the near term.
Sales and marketing
Job vacancies outpace the number of candidates in sales and marketing, with 2022 statistics showing the highest salary budget increases in nearly 20 years. The fundamental role salary plays in an organisation’s ability to attract and retain talent suggests employers will follow this trend through 2023.
The report suggests sales talent comes at a premium and companies hiring in sales are facing shortages. In order to compete, they are getting more competitive with higher bases and commissions, and more attractive benefits. On the flip-side, firms that enforce strict in-office working policies are experiencing higher turnover rates.
Salaries reflect demand, with chief marketing officers earning between £165,000 and £200,000. The salaries attached to other jobs in the sales and marketing function at junior, mid, senior and lead levels are also strong.
Product management
Chief product officers earned £120,000 to £200,000 in 2023, with those in product management earning more than those in product ownership.
Harrington Starr notes investment in change and transformation roles and increasing salaries in these functions through 2021 and 2022, but a standstill in 2023 as a result of tougher market conditions and a flatter hiring curve.
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