Despite asking for a salary boost the survey of employers and employees found that salary satisfaction for workers in IT has plunged year on year - dropping to 37% this year compared to 50% in 2019.

The survey of over 3,000 Australian employers and employees by IT solutions firm Modis also found that 38% of IT sector employers failed to increase salaries at all in 2019 – five percentage points higher than the national average of 33%.

And despite low wage growth across Australia, Modis’ research finds that 21% of employers in IT are expecting to give workers a healthy pay rise (7% or more) in 2020 – almost twice as likely as the national average of 11%.

According to Modis, this makes IT sector workers the second most likely in Australia to receive a salary increase of 7% or more this year, coming in just behind real estate at 23%.

However, the number of IT workers expecting to receive a pay rise of 7% or more stands at 30%, which Modis suggests that some will miss out on their expected increase this year.

CEO of Modis, Rafael Moyano, said that record low levels of wage growth are a current national issue and the IT sector has not been left unscathed.

“The issue is that a gap exists between the economy’s ongoing poor wage growth across the board and IT employees’ expectations for fair remuneration as their skills and contributions at work increase,” he said.

“With so many IT workers planning to ask for a pay rise in 2020, those in the industry hoping to increase their salaries would benefit from a solid understanding of how to build a convincing case for a raise.

“We are dealing with an environment where wage growth is continuing to head downward nationally, including in the IT sector. If you are hoping to buck the trend on an individual level, it’s worth putting in the groundwork to understand all the ways you can shift things in favour of your next big pay rise.”