Compensation in the Halifax tech community 2019

The annual Halihax member survey asks members to report on their compensation, skills and how they are feeling in the community. We use this data to produce the compensation in the Halifax tech community report.

This year's survey feedback saw requests to dive deeper into the details of remote work, overtime and well-being of our community. We also augmented the survey to present a number of optional detailed segments that focused on on-call or support, and compensation raises.

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Highlights

** denotes a statistic that is new for the 2019 reporting year

Participation

654 ( 234)
Community Members
120 ( 47)
2019 survey respondents

Experience, Education, Outlook

8 yrs ( 1)
Industry experience, median
1.5 yrs ( 0.5)
Role experience, median
10 % ( 8.1)
Actively seeking a new job
12.5 % ( 1.4)
Will seek a new job within 12 months
32.5 % ( 8.9)
Work remotely
83.6 % ( 0.3)
Touch code daily
4 /5 **
Median happiness score
7.13 **
Median nightly sleep hours
93.3 % **
University or college educated

Salary & Compensation

$91,150.00 ( 7.2%)
Median base salary (CAD)
83.3 % ( - )
Have health benefits
75.3 % ( 0.4)
Happy with compensation
35.8 % ( 3.1)
Hold stock options
20.8 % ( 1.4)
Hold equity
96.6 % ( 3.6)
Paid in CAD
64.2 % **
Received a raise this year
7.5 % **
Medain raise percentage

Primary programming language

If you code, what is your primary language?

JavaScript leads with Python and Java following


Secondary programming language

Which languages have you used in the last month?

JavaScript, Python, Java, Go Lang, PHP, Typescript, R, C#, Scala, Swift round out the top ten languages


Time Horizon of Seeking New Opportunity

In what timeframe might you be seeking a new opportunity?

49 respondents are open to but not actively seeking a new opportunity


Salary vs Programming Language

Median salary by programming language


Salary vs Company size

Median salary by company size


Salary vs Industry Experience

Annual base salary compared to years of industry experience


Salary vs Remote Work

Median salary of remote vs colocated workers


Salary vs Hours worked

Annual base salary compared to reported work hours per week


Salary vs Sleep

Annual base salary compared to reported sleep hours per night


Salary vs Happiness

Annual base salary compared to reported overall happiness (out of 5)


Reasoning for salary increase

For those who reported receiving a raise in the last year

28 respondents indicate their raise was performance oriented


Perceived In-Demand Skills

What skills do you see as in-demand currently?

DevOps, Javascript and React are the most reported in-demand skill


Compensation for overtime work

For those who reported participating in overtime

44.5% of respondents report not being given additional compensation for overtime work


Additional compensation for on-call or support

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

43 respondents report participating in on-call activities, where 51% indicate they are not provided additional compensation


Opt-in or assigned on-call duties

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

A majority of on-call participants are assigned this duty


Frequency of on-call rotation

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

34.4% of on-call participates are permanently assigned


Where are employers based?

For those respondents who work remote, where is their company based?

  • Halifax, NS
  • Boston, MA
  • Charlottetown, PE
  • Fredericton, NB
  • Mountain View, CA
  • Nanaimo, BC
  • New York City, NY
  • Ottawa, ON
  • Salt Lake City, UT
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Toronto, ON
  • Vancouver, BC

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We’ll let you draw your own conclusions on the data as the survey isn’t entirely scientific. Hopefully it gives you some insight into what the tech salary landscape is like in Halifax.

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