An expert tells about high-paying professions in the IT sphere

Technical directors, software architects, and database engineers are in particular demand in the IT sector. At the same time, they are offered the highest salaries, Anastasia Malakhova, an expert in search and recruitment of top management, told Izvestia on November 29.

"Now in the IT sector we can observe a slowdown in the growth of salaries, with some companies even forced to reduce staff. Marketers, analysts, product managers, and support staff are the most likely to be optimized. However, the fact that business will be more careful in financing the development of new products does not mean that important ongoing projects will be cut. It's just that salaries will not grow as aggressively as before," she said.

According to her, technical directors, depending on the company and direction, receive from 600 thousand to 2 million rubles a month. At the same time, in 2025 we should expect salary increases of at least 15-20%, the expert believes.

"Software architects will also remain in demand. Salaries of these specialists are traditionally among the highest in the industry. According to analysts, such specialists on average in the market receive 380-400 thousand rubles, but according to the experience of hiring architects' salaries in private cases can start from 500 thousand rubles and reach 800 thousand rubles per month. Most likely, in 2025 they are also expected to increase their remuneration by an average of 20%," Malakhova added.

In addition, there is demand in the market for database engineers and SREs. Depending on their qualifications in 2025 they will be offered salaries from 250 thousand to 700 thousand rubles, the expert suggested. In the outgoing year, the average salary of specialists in these positions reached 275 thousand rubles.

"Now junior specialists in IT are invited for starting salaries in the neighborhood of 60-80 thousand rubles. Here the level may remain the same. However, mid- and senior-level specialists can count on salary growth, as developers with experience are always in short supply. If at the moment the salary level of an average specialist is in the range of 150-200 thousand rubles, then in 2025 we should expect an increase to 180-250 thousand rubles," - said Malakhova.

In addition, she clarified that the salary of senior developers can grow indefinitely, as the selection of candidates takes into account their experience and the more valuable it is, the more money will be offered to the applicant.

At the same time, in her opinion, one should not expect sharp jumps or drops in salaries - they will remain at the current level.

"However, the trend for the disappearance of super-high salaries will not affect specialists who have unique expertise. For example, they know how to work with rare programming languages. Such developers will be outside the market behavior, and their salary will not depend on its changes," Malakhova stressed.

At the same time, she drew attention to the fact that there is a trend for specialists with developed soft or flexible skills (soft skills). According to her, previously the environment of IT specialists was focused exclusively on work processes - product development, but now many of them have to make significant efforts to develop within the company.

"Employers are waiting for specialists who show initiative: introduce innovations, improve processes. Companies are looking for employees who are ready to make meaningful efforts to get interesting tasks and promotion, as well as to be independently responsible for their own development," Malakhova explained.

In her opinion, another common problem in the IT environment is the inability of specialists to speak the language of business with the employer and communicate needs to managers. This used to be done by product managers, but nowadays companies hire such specialists less often and ask development managers to take an active part in the dialog with the business customer, she said. And in this case the demand for communication skills is growing, the expert added.

"It happens that a talented developer may turn out to be a weak manager. In this case, the efficiency of the team may be jeopardized, and project financing will become unreasonably expensive. Employers are willing to pay more to those employees who are proactive, motivated, able to talk about the work in simple language, as well as competently manage the team," - concluded Malakhova.

Earlier, November 19, it was reported that the majority of surveyed Russians (85%), who work from home for more than five years, do not want to return to the office. This was found out by analysts "Contur.Tolka". At the same time, 40% of respondents said that their productivity does not fall with this format of work.