Storage Pays
By Chris Preimesberger
August 31, 2007
Thanks to an overall explosion of data, pay for storage professionals is outpacing the average IT ranks.
In the past, before the certifiable explosion of the amount of data that's now being created, storage administrators were often considered only a cut above a shunned stepchild in the data center pecking order.
At large enterprise IT shops, the most experienced or the most talented members of the team are usually charged with keeping the company's main systems and applications up and running, while the less-experienced/talented technicians were given so-called "tier 2"-type assignments, such as storage, backup and data recovery.
They were also the ones who made sure the Iron Mountain truck made its regular pickup of data tapes on time.
Not so anymore. The increasing strategic importance of the services storage professionals render is finally beginning to be reflected in salary ranges, which have moved steadily upward in the last several years.
Click here to read why there is a shortage of qualified business intelligence application developers.
According to the 35,573 IT professionals in 197 different countries that participated in the 2006 Certification Magazine Salary Survey, the average IT salary once again is on the rise. The average base IT salary in 2006 was $76,500, up from last year's reported $71,100 average base salary.
Here's the good news for storage pros: Breaking out the storage-related certification numbers, researchers find that storage professionals are now earning far over that $76,500 average—they're making $87,400 per year.
In fact, two specific certifications—Brocade Certified SAN Manager ($112,920) and Brocade Certified SAN Designer ($112,890)—rank as the second- and third-highest paying jobs in the survey.
Certification Magazine's 2006 survey indicates that certified storage professionals generally earn anywhere from $72,000 to upwards of $110,000 per year, depending upon their qualifications and years in the field. This is up from $50,000 to $80,000 only seven years ago.
Here are some of the storage categories and average per annum compensation figures in the report:
Certified Brocade storage networking: $98,000-$112,000
Certified EMC storage professional: $72,000-$93,000
Certified IBM Total Storage professional: $85,000
Certified HP storage professional: $91,000
Certified Veritas storage professional: $81,000
Certified Symantec storage professional: $80,000
Certified SNIA (Storage Networking Industry of America) storage professional: $93,500