Our annual Halihax member survey takes a look at compensation and skills of the Halifax tech community. If you missed last year's survey, you can read the report in this earlier post.
If you aren't familiar with our community, and have stumbled across this data organically, please check out our About Page to learn more about our group and how we came to be.
Survey results
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.
Who are we as a community?
120 total respondents (↑ 47)
654 members (↑ 234)
93.3% of respondents are university or college educated (↓ 1.3%)
32.5% of respondents work remotely (↑ 31.6%)
83.6% of respondents touch code daily (No change)
Industry experience, median, of 8.0 years (↓ 1.0 years)
Role experience, median, of 1.5 years (↓ 0.5 years)
10% of respondents are actively seeking a new job (↓ 43.8%)
12.5% of respondents will seek a new job within 12 months (↓ 46.4%)
2.5% of respondents live outside of Nova Scotia (↓ 69.5%)
Happiness score, median, of 4 out of 5*
Nightly sleep hours, median, of 7.13*
How is the community compensated?
Base salary, median, of $91,150 CAD (↑ 7.2%)
35.83% of respondents were given stock options (↓ 3.7%)
20.83% of respondents were given equity in their company
96.67% of respondents are paid in Canadian dollars (otherwise, USD)
83.33% of respondents are given health related benefits (↓ 0.3%)
75.34% of respondents state they are happy with their compensation (No change)
37.8% of remote workers have access to a relocation package*
64.17% of respondents received a raise in the last year*
7.5%, median, reported salary raise percentage*
* New statistic this year
Pretty charts and distributions
Primary Programming Language
If you code, what is your primary language?
JavaScript leads with Python and Java following
Secondary programming languages
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
Highest salaries are centred around
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
Remote workers make $15,000 more in median salary
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
What are you looking to get out of Halihax?
Write in answers include: React or JS meetups, Information on salaries for negotiation purposes, and to support and be supported by peers.
Most of our community members are looking to stay connected with locals
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
Join our community
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.
Anyone is welcome to join in on the action by applying through our website. We simply ask that members follow our community guidelines.