This is the 8th year now that we’ve been running our annual Data Professional Salary Survey, and I was really curious to see what the results would hold this year. How would inflation and layoffs impact the database world? Download the raw data here and slice & dice it to see what’s important to you. Here’s what I found.
First, without filtering the data at all, salaries are up, but response counts continue to drop:
If we filter for just United States folks whose primary database is SQL Server or Azure SQL DB, the salary numbers are higher, and are still continuing to rise:
Because this blog’s primary readership is SQL Server folks, I wouldn’t use the survey to draw conclusions about any other platform. The number of responses for other platforms is really low:
So with that in mind, for the rest of this post, I’m going to focus on only SQL Server & Azure SQL DB folks. What are your career plans for 2024?
Most respondents intend to stay in the same employer, in the same role. Folks who are planning to make a change also happen to be getting paid less – and that’s probably not a coincidence, heh. If you’re thinking about changing roles, you’re probably interested in who’s bringing home the cheddar:
Normally I wouldn’t draw conclusions from just 4 respondents, but I think it’s safe to say that data scientists are in such high demand that they command higher pay. (However, it’s also harder to get a data scientist job than most of the rest of the jobs in this list.)
Another way to make more money is to go independent:
This marks the first year of the survey where female pay is actually higher than male! The response rate is pretty skewed, but it always has been:
Download the raw data here, and hope this data is useful to you when you have salary and career planning discussions with your manager. Here’s to you getting another raise in 2024!
13 Comments. Leave new
I always enjoy sifting through this data every year. What are your guesses as to why responses continue to drop?
Oh that’s a really good question. I think in the beginning, when we started it, it was such a revolutionary thing and everyone wanted to know the answers. Over time, the data stabilized, and people have a rough idea of what salaries look like, and how they’re trending. They no longer need to fill it out every year in order to get that rough idea, especially since they can download the past data at any moment.
That makes a lot of sense.
Food for thought for next years edition: inflation has certainly been a hot topic this year. I wonder how many in this line of work are planning on staying with their current employer & role, but are going to attempt to ask for a raise. Will we see a push from employees to increase salary to offset this inflationary period?
It may also not be worth your time. Thanks for all you do Brent!
Very useful information.
Thank you.
Seems that the female beasts beats us old DBAs
[…] Brent Ozar counts the cash: […]
As for myself, I didn’t answer (but I used to) because I changed roles in 2023 and I’m not a DBA anymore. I’m managing software developers now, so I figured that my answer wouldn’t be revelant.
I meant “relevant” lol I need a coffee
Thanks Brent! As a boss/hirer of DBAs, it’s good to see how we pay our people as compared what other companies pay. So thanks for doing this – from not a DBA!
Hi Brent, does the Independent income total take into account that 1099’s generally have more gross income than W2’s but also can have more expenses (e.g. self employment tax)? Otherwise I am not sure it is an apples to apples comparison
Hi Gabriel, did you look at the columns to check out your filtering choices?
Never one to take something entirely at face value, I couldn’t help seeing that one outstanding federal employee who earns a 1,000,000 USD salary tuning queries and troubleshooting servers. I’m just saying.
I don’t know that particular individual, but I will say that I know a couple folks in the private sector making that, and I know one federal contractor who makes that. They’re really hard jobs to get, though – typically involve security clearances, long hours, and unusual locations.