IT Workers With Hot Skills Make Buckets of Money (So we're told)

The results of this little survey are a surprising based on all we've been hearing about high-tech layoffs (ack), the floundering economy (yawn), and a general malaise in the tech industry (funny, there seems to be plenty of news to write about). I'm sure that by posting this story, I'll be conducting my own little grass roots survey based on the emails I get from you folks in the business. According to a consulting and outsourcing firm called Hewitt Associates, IT professionals with what the company calls "hot skills" (defined as skills in short supply and high demand, resulting in rapid changes in market value) are still receiving pay and perks comparable to, if not higher than, past years. Hewitt surveyed 198 companies, reporting data on nearly 42,000 employees with "hot skills," and found that the median increase for base pay during the last 12 months was 7.5 percent, while the median total cash increase (annual base salary plus bonuses received during the year) was more than 6 percent. In contrast, in 2000, the median increase for base pay was nearly 5 percent and the median total cash increase was close to 6 percent. Approximately 61 percent of these hot skill employees received a bonus, which, on average, equaled 13 percent of base pay. The most common types of bonuses were planned individual (36%) and group incentive (30%). 15% of employees received a long-term incentive such as stock options or grants. Study participants ranked casual dress (73%), discounts on entertainment (71%), and on-site ATM or banking services (68%) as top convenience/personal services offered. You guys get discounts on entertainment? I'm gonna have to talk to Tom and Omid about that. Here (a drum roll please) are the "Hot Skills" that Hewitt says will have you laughing all the way to the bank:

PeopleSoft Application Development: Supporting the design/construction and implementation phases of a system and/or upgrade project
PeopleSoft Production Services: Recommending improvements to strategy, application usage or process, applying knowledge of the business processes in various functional areas
SAP Basis Infrastructure: Building, maintaining, and modifying the central basis network and infrastructure for SAP operability
SAP Application Development: Supporting the design/construction and implementation phases of a system and/or upgrade project
SAP Production Services: Recommending improvements to strategy, application usage or process, and applying knowledge of the business processes in various functional areas
Object Engineering : Analyzing, modeling, designing, constructing, and testing reusable classes of objects for use in business, scientific and engineering applications
Data Warehousing: Gathering and organizing information, creating a data warehouse for end users
Data Visualization: Applying techniques such as virtual reality to scientific and engineering projects
Microsoft Exchange Management: Managing email connectivity, internal databases, management functions, and security

I have to admit that the PeopleSoft positions make me a little suspicious because they are so application-specific. Remember that these are Hewitt's findings and not THG's but I thought you might find them interesting. If you're really interested in finding out all of the information collected in the survey, it's going to cost you $2,400 ($800 if your company participates in the survey) and you can find out more at Hewitt's website . And if you're really interested in a high-paying job, it looks like research companies aren't doing too bad.