What's next for technology hiring? from eleenaben's blog

This story is part of the CIO Dive Outlook on 2021, a series on the trends that will shape the industry in 2021. For a look at the business trends affecting other industries, see the Dive Outlook on 2021.

Incoming employees can expect higher salaries in line with higher demand in 2021, as companies hire more IT workers across sectors. With too many open IT jobs and not enough talent to fill them, demand for IT employees rises following the digital transformation spurred by the pandemic. Six-figure salaries have become the norm across experience levels and job titles and growth is on track to continue, according to Randstad's 2021 salary guide. 

At the top of the list, businesses demand more cloud engineers, DevOps developers, front-end developers, machine learning engineers, and security analysts — but they must be willing to pay to secure the talent, according to Randstad. 

The average annual salary for DevOps developers is $137,830 and mid-level cloud developers can expect to make $135,191. It's a "pay-to-play hiring environment," Randstad wrote in the report, so businesses will have to budget to spend a considerable amount of cash to hire a high-quality IT department. For cybersecurity positions, demand is even higher. Companies posted more than 166,000 jobs for security analysts in the last 12 months, and the field faces a 28% growth forecast over the next decade, according to Randstad. 

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