The website A List Apart (ALA) has released findings from their 2007 Web Design Survey.

An impressive 32 831 participants completed the ALA online survey. 48% of responses were from the USA, 33.5% from Europe, 5.8% from Canada, 4.7% from Australia & the Pacific and 7.8% from the Rest of the World.

ALA survey results suggest that the average web worker;

• is male (just 16.8% of respondents were female)
• is aged between 21-31 (61%)
• has a Bachelors or Masters degree (67%)
• works more than 40 hours per week (61%)
• is an employee (23.4% are self-employed or freelancers)
• has spent less than 3 years at their current job (68%)

The majority of respondents described themselves as either a Developer (25%), Web Designer (20%), Designer (10%) or Webmaster (6%).

79% of web workers were “frequently excited” by their profession.

Salary patterns to emerge include increased earnings for employees in larger organizations and for web developers and web designers with more work experience.

Salary information from the ALA survey is reproduced below.

95% of participants indicated they consulted websites and blogs to stay current in their profession while less than a third undertake in house training or attend seminars and conferences to upskill themselves.

20% of respondents felt they lacked backend skills to do their job while 25% thought they needed to improve their frontend programming skills.

Click for full results from A List Apart’s 2007 Web Design Survey

Employment, salary and job-related news that has appeared in the IT press over the last month (or so).

• Co-working: the ultimate in teleworking flexibility
  Co-working communities, which combine the relaxed, informal atmosphere of working at home with the sociability and cost-sharing of an office, have emerged as alternatives for telecommuters who miss having person-to-person interaction during work. If you live in Perth, see Myles Eftos’ blog post, Freelancer Friday – come and hang out with us!. (24/10/07)
• John Allsopp delivers his State of the Web address
  A video interview with Web Directions South organiser John Allsopp. (24/10/07)
• Website pitch too good to be true
  Local jobseekers are being targeted with seemingly genuine online job offers, backed by professional-looking corporate websites aimed at trapping unsuspecting mules, who then conduct illegal money transfers on behalf of criminals. (23/10/07)
• Skills cost rate hits government
  Spiralling contractor costs are straining the capital budget for the Department of Immigration’s mammoth $495 million Systems for People program. (23/10/07)
• Australia pays its way for IT managers
  A global salary survey has placed Australia in the top 10 of the world’s highest-paying countries for IT managers, but some within the industry are not convinced. (23/10/07)
• IT Pay around the World Survey 2007 – country rankings
  Mercer’s 2007 IT Pay around the World survey compared the total annual cash compensation and total remuneration information for IT staff in 6,545 companies in 35 different countries. (18/10/07)
• Noncertified IT pros earn more than certified counterparts
  IT professionals who have acumen in diverse business areas but whose IT skills are noncertified are bringing in bigger salaries on average than their certified counterparts, according to Foote Partners. (17/10/07)
• Getting started in the Web Industry
  A presentation by the Bam Creative’s, Miles Burke to final year multimedia students at Perth’s Edith Cowan University. (16/10/07)
• IT enrolments in dramatic decline
  A dramatic drop in information technology enrolments has cost universities about $100 million in four years, according to a study. (26/09/07)
• Australian IT salaries surge in 2007, US salaries low
  IT salaries in a Australia have surged 11.54% in the past 12 months putting them on a par and in many cases higher than in other developed nations, according to a new survey. (17/09/07)

This is the first of a two-part series examining some of Australia’ s premier sources of IT news and commentary. If you’re looking for work in the Australian web industry visit these sources to keep abreast of news, events and emerging trends in Australia’s web and IT industries.

Traditional IT media and online news bureau’s in Australia

• Computerworld – Australia’s leading IT newspaper from IDG, publishers of PC World, Information Age, CIO, IT Marketer and LinuxWorld
  RSS feeds from Computerworld Australia: http://www.computerworld.com.au//eBusiness_by_Computerworld.xml & http://www.computerworld.com.au//Computerworld_Today.xml
• Australian IT – News Limited’s site for IT news and commentary
  RSS: http://feeds.news.com.au/public/rss/2.0/ausit_topstories_366.xml
• ITWire – also worth a click is ITWire’s job site at itwire.com/jobswire
  http://www.itwire.com.au/component/option,com_rss/feed,RSS2.0/no_html
• iTnews – focuses more on international, rather than local news
  RSS: http://www.itnews.com.au/Rss/Rss.aspx
• Plugger – Australian business news service aggregating stories from multiple online sources. Recommended.
• Builder.au – CNET site. Strong web industry focus. Highly recommended. RSS feeds from Builderau.com.au:
  http://www.builderau.com.au/feeds/news.htm
  http://www.builderau.com.au/feeds/features.htm
  http://www.builderau.com.au/feeds/rss/?tag=latest_blogs
• ZDNet – ZDNet’s local Australian site
  RSS: http://www.zdnet.com.au/feeds/rss/?tag=top_headlines
• Sydney Morning Herald – technology news from the SMH
  RSS: http://feeds.smh.com.au/rssheadlines/technology.xml
• NineMSN – science & technology news from NineMSN
  RSS: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/rss/scitech
• Brainbox – Lively, opinionated and enjoys plenty of reader feedback
  RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Brainbox-Stories

Part 2 of this series will examine the Australian blogsphere and prominent
web industry bloggers.

Seek is the largest of Australia’s 100+ online job boards. Other major job boards in Australia include News Limited’s CareerOne and Fairfax’s MyCareer.

Australia’s leading job sites for IT and web industry professionals include:

1. seek.com.au
2. mycareer.com.au (Fairfax Group)
3. careerone.com.au (News Limited)
4. jobserve.com.au
5. it2.com.au (ITCRA)
6. gurus.com.au (also see nowhiring.com.au & softwaredevelopers.com.au)
7. jobsearch.gov.au (Australian Government initiative)
8. byron.com.au
9. linkme.com.au (Sensis)
10. itwire.com/jobswire

View Alexa rankings for these IT job sites.

More Australian job sites:

• australia.recruit.net (search multiple job boards)
• myspider.com.au (vertical job board search)
• jobsjobsjobs.com.au (new job site)
• jobx.com.au (new job site)

Java programming and development skills are in strong demand across Australia.
Search for Java opportunities in Canberra using these quicklinks to five of Australia’s leading job boards.

Java job listings in Canberra advertised in the last seven days on Seek, MyCareer, CareerOne, Jobserve and IT2.

• Java jobs posted on Seek
• Java jobs on MyCareer
• Java opportunities advertised on CareerOne
• Jobserve vacancies
• IT2 vacancies

Results from Ambit Recruitment’s 2007 IT&T salary index are shown below.

Ambit’s IT&T salary index also reports salary trends for .NET developers and
Java/J2EE developers.

Salary data from Ambition Recruitment suggests Sydney analyst programmers in web technologies can earn between $60,000-$90,000 for a permanent role and $45-$80 per hour contracting. Melbourne pay rates in the web industry are similar, but usually slightly lower than those in Sydney.

Under the heading ‘Hot Areas’, Ambition report that “Java skills are at a premium, as are PHP, .NET and candidates with experience in development management”. There’s positive news for contractors with Ambition stating that the contract market continues to “cry out” for application developers.

Other interesting news to emerge from the Ambition report includes,

• “the ICT sector has experienced strong levels of activity in 2006 in a market that has become characterised by its critical skills shortage”
• “we are seeing intense competition to attract and retain top level talent”
• “salary increases of around 10-12% have been common” (for permanent roles)
• “with fewer candidates available to them, the length of the recruitment cycle is increasing and counter offers are becoming more prevalent”
• “the number of 457 visas for foreign workers has rocketed … in no area has the usage of 457 visas been more prevalent than in IT”

…

Download full report.

Melbourne has a strong PHP developer community and a growing number of local web companies specialise in open source development solutions.

The city has its own PHP user group where PHP practitioners can meet, discuss, network and swap stories from the trenches.

To view salary data for Melbourne-based PHP developers see the post “Salary information for .NET, PHP, Coldfusion and Ruby developers” and click on the link to Greythorn’s 2007/08 IT salary survey.

Use the quicklinks below to search for PHP jobs advertised on all of Australia’s major online job boards.

Search criteria – Melbourne-based PHP jobs advertised in the last 7 days

• PHP jobs listed at Seek.com.au
• MyCareer job listings
• PHP jobs advertised on CareerOne
• Jobserve
• Gurus.com.au
• IT2 job listings

A Sydney-based analyst programmer can expect an average salary of $85,000 according to Hays 2007 IT salary survey. Australian IT salaries are generally slightly lower in Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth and Adelaide.

Other highlights from Hays 2007 Information Technology salary guide include;

• “the contract market is buoyant”
• “development languages in Java and .NET are still sought”
• “the overall trend has been an increase in salaries”
• “rates have increased heavily in both Western Australia and Queensland and the salary gap with Sydney and Melbourne is closing or in some cases no longer evident”

Hays IT salary tables can be found here.

Web Directions South is Australia’s premier web industry event. If you’re serious about your web career, consider the $995 entrance fee an investment in your future.

With a strong Adobe platform focus, Flash, Coldfusion, Flex and AIR developers should attend WebDu to build contacts in Australia’s Adobe community.

Oz-IA is Australia’s headline event for Information Architects. 

Search professionals should visit Search summit “Australia’s leading search marketing event” or attend a Search engine bootcamp seminar.

The range and quality of web events held across Australia is impressive. Check event calendars at AWIA, WSG, AIMIA and WIPA for more networking opportunities.

Event not listed? Please add details in the comments section below.