IT trainers poor relations of IT department
The first survey into the salaries, benefits and development plans of the UK's IT training community has been launched by the Institute of IT Training.
"The research confirms that today's IT training personnel are very much the poor relations of the IT department," says report author Colin Steed, chief executive of the Institute of IT Training.
"IT Training managers' salary levels are comparatively low (£34,120) as compared with their IT department counterparts. For example, a typical IT Training Manager is paid on average £9,000 pa less that an IT Manager (£43,480)."
Steed explained that this situation is mirrored for all levels of all of the IT training functions. "I find it incredible and somewhat mystifying why employers do not rate, salary-wise, the people who are responsible for improving the performance of an organisation's IT employees yet are prepared to pay those same people higher salaries than the people who provide them with the skills."
The research also found that IT training staff are not receiving the necessary skills development to keep them up to date on the new developments in training skills and techniques. "Under four days a year is simply inadequate for trainers to explore and learn the latest skills in training delivery - especially with the growing take up of e-learning in organisations. E-learning presents a whole series of new training skills that must be learned if e-learning is going to work in an organisation. If these vital new skills are not in place then employers are just wasting their investment," he said.
The IITT Training Salary Survey is aimed at providing the necessary data and detailed analysis to assist everyone who is responsible for the management and development of their training staff with their strategic business planning process.
The survey report investigates the following primary areas:
UK IT training market sizing and trends, including trends in training delivery methods.
Salaries for Corporate Training Departments by Job Function, including regional variations.
Salaries for External Training Providers by Job Function, including regional variations.
Trainers' experience, qualifications, professional body membership, development and benefits received.
The data has been supplied, in the main, by members of the Institute of IT Training and was compiled between September - November 2001 from returns received by the Institute. The total number of respondents was 242. The Institute intends to publish the questionnaire on its web site in order to maintain a continual monitoring service. This will provide IITT Members with instant, up-to-date trends and changes taking place. All respondents to the survey will receive the Management Summary free of charge - whilst the full report will be on sale from the Institute for £125 (IITT Members) or £195 (Non-members).
MAIN FINDINGS
Average UK Salaries
The average IT training salaries by job function are based on all types of training employment - corporate training departments, external training providers
Training management salary levels are comparatively low (£34,120) with their IT Manager (£43,480) and Systems Manager counterparts in the IT department and are fixed as on par with User Support Manager (£34,200).
Senior Trainers (>5 years experience) salaries (£28,020) are similar to Systems Developers.
Trainers salaries compare to Systems Developers - Senior Developers on par with Trainers with <5 years experience (£26,220); new Trainers with <1 year's experience (£22,850) compare with Systems Developers with <3 years experience (£21,530).
Courseware developers (£28,840) are on par with Senior Trainer salaries.
e-Learning training personnel are attracting higher salaries than their ILT colleagues, probably because of the scarcity of those qualified to perform the new skills required by e-Learning training staff.
UK training salaries are lower than their US counterparts; Managers and Senior Trainers are 10% less whilst ILT trainers salaries are 6% lower in the UK.
Average salaries for Corporate Training Departments are £28,840. External Training Providers, not surprisingly, offer higher salaries with an average of £30,280.
Training Experience
Due to the fairly short life of the IT industry, it follows that IT training experience is on the low side compared with other sectors of the economy. The majority of IT training professionals have, on average, between 3-4 years experience (26.78%).
Trainer Qualifications
Prior to the formation of the Institute of IT Training (1995), there was no focused certification programme for IT training professionals. A survey carried out by the (then) new Institute found that less than 10% of trainers had any form of professional qualification.
Since 1995, those IT training professionals who were Institute members holding a training qualification has increased dramatically from 10% to 82.1%, as revealed in this survey. This is an outstanding increase and has really been fuelled by the Institute's Trainer Assessment Programme (TAP) certification, for which 52.7% of IT trainers surveyed are now IITT TAP certified.
Whereas obviously these results are weighted towards IITT certification as the majority are Institute members, it does reveal that in its six years of operation the Institute has made a significant contribution to raising standards in the IT training field.
Vendor training certification programmes, such as Microsoft's MCT certificate which obviously focuses on Microsoft product, follows TAP with 17.7% and the CIPD's Certificate in Training Practice is in third place with 13.3%.
Professional Body Membership
It is encouraging to see that 89% of respondents belong to a professional body. Obviously, this part of the survey has some degree of bias as the survey questionnaire was targeted at the Institute of IT Training membership. Having said that, whilst two-thirds were members almost a third of the respondents were attendees at the Institute's trainer certification programmes and were not, necessarily, Institute members. It is not a requirement of our programmes to be members.
Trainer Development
The average days allocated for training currently received by respondents are 3.74 (trainer skills) and 5.89 (product skills). This is forecast to rise in 2002 to 3.88 (trainer skills) and 6.91 (product skills).
Benefits
Benefits packages from employers are an important part of the mix in attracting and, more importantly, retaining staff. It is an encouraging fact that today's staff are attracted to the benefits package offered as, combined with the salary offered, a good benefits package for staff can say much about how an organisation values its personnel.
Recommendations to employers
We asked all respondents to outline what main issues they considered would help their employers to retain current staff and additionally attract new training staff to them. We received an incredible response to this item, the top five issues (in order of frequency of response) was as follows:
Clearly defined and implemented structured career development plan
Better salary/package/increased benefits/pay the market rate
More trainer skills training for trainers
Certification of trainers/keeping up to date with new techniques
Sensible salary scales which reflect our 'worth'
Corporate recognition of training department
Note that the full report, with regional variations, is available from
The Institute of IT Training
Institute House
Sir William Lyons Road
Coventry
CV4 7EZ
Tel: 02476 418128
Email: info@iitt.org.uk
Price for the full 31-page report is £125 (Members) and £195 (non-Members). Prices do not include VAT.