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to 2002 Salary SurveyThe Huntsville/North Alabama chapter of the STC (Society for Technical Communication) has sponsored a yearly salary survey since 1999. The survey is sent to technical communication professionals with job functions such as writer, editor, graphic designer, web developer, and manager. Since 2001, this has been an online survey. This year we posted the survey online from October 21 to November 1, 2002.
To solicit participation, we sent emails to a distribution list of 196 technical communicators in the Huntsville/North Alabama area describing this year’s survey and giving instructions to access the survey online. We also asked these people to encourage other technical communicators at their workplace to take the survey. The participants had the option of requesting a hard copy of the survey to mail in instead of participating online (only one chose the hard-copy option). Participants could also enter a contest to win either $100.00 or a membership in the STC ($140.00 value). This year's contest winner, from a drawing at the December 12 STC meeting, was Lenis McBride of COLSA..
Out of our total STC HNA membership of 56, we had responses from 40 members, a whopping 70%. Over twice that many non-members responded.
Gender: Of the 119 usable respondents to the survey, the majority were women (70%). Women were similarly represented in the 2002 National STC Salary Survey (70%) and the 2002 Atlanta STC Salary Survey (67%).
The remaining data are from full-time salaried workers, the majority of our
respondents (101).
Data on the 11 contractors who responded are
reported separately.
Education: 60.7% of respondents reported a Bachelors degree and 24.6% a Masters degree. In 2001, 57% of the respondents had a Bachelors and 28% a Masters degree.
Demographic Analysis (salaried respondents only, base = 101): The mean salary for entry-level respondents was $35,820 (5 respondents). Half of respondents were in mid-level, non-supervisory positions, with a mean salary of $45,171. The computer software industry employed the majority of respondents (38%), and this group had a mean salary of $50,957 The next largest industry category was government workers (23%), who averaged $52,833..
Compensation Analysis (salaried respondents only, base = 101): Over
half of the full-time salaried respondents were writers
(59%, 60 respondents), and reported a mean
salary of $50, 698 (median $49,000). The mean salary for those with the job
function graphics/layout/DTP (14
respondents) was $44,583 (median $47,500). The mean salary for editors
(5 respondents) was $34,200 (median $32,500). Managers had the
highest mean and median, followed by web developers. The highest salary
reported was for a writer earning $93,600. The lowest was for a graphic artist
with 2-5 years experience, reporting $27,000. The lowest entry-level
salary for a writer was $27,500. Writers with 11-15 years of experience
(28% of our writers) were earning an average of $51,594.
Median Salaries by Job Function (base = 101): Only
average salaries (the mean) are reported in the data tables cited above
Because averages are affected by extremes, and because this is a relatively
small sample, especially when broken down by job function, it may be more useful
to consult the median salary. The median is the salary halfway down the list of
respondents. For example, taking the surveys of the 5 editors and
arranging them from highest to lowest salary, the median salary would be that
reported on survey #3 in the list (half of the salaries are below that number,
half above it). When there are an even number in a category (e.g., 60
writers), the median is the average of the two in the middle (#30 and 31 out of
60 in the writers example).
Recommendations for Next Survey: