Early Thoughts About the 2017 Data Professional Salary Survey Results

The 2017 Data Professional Salary Survey is going on now, but with over 1,300 2,400 results in already, I’ve noticed some interesting trends in the raw data. (I did this analysis on Friday, so if you redo it, you’ll see even higher response counts and possibly different results.)

2017/01/06 responses by job title, count:

A good chunk of the responders are DBAs (no surprise, BrentOzar.com is a DBA-focused blog.) Since DBAs are near and dear to my heart, I’m going to filter for just them, and then analyze responses by country:

Good! We’ve got just over 500 responses from US DBAs. (Update Monday: over 800!) Let’s filter for that (because I’m Merican), then look at their primary database platform:

Again, no surprise here – mostly SQL Server. (Although when you step back, this means the majority of responses (887 of 1378) are not SQL Server DBAs from the US. That’s kinda cool.

Team Size and Management Duties

Filtering just for US SQL Server DBAs, let’s see how many of them manage other staff:

About 20% do. On average median, do they make more money?

Yes, managers make more money. But what about people who aren’t managers – if we filter them out, and only focus on the 395 non-managers, how many other people are on their team, doing the same job?

162 DBAs work alone, and 84 more have just one coworker. I’ve long believed that there’s a huge population of DBAs who work in solitude, and that that’s a big driver behind the strong online community for SQL Server DBAs. We see each other as our virtual coworkers.

Alright, back to the 491 US SQL Server DBAs.

Is Certification Still Relevant?

How many of the 491 US SQL Server DBAs hold certifications?

Only 31% of the audience hold current certifications. (Interestingly, if you rule out managers, only 22% do.) But surely those who are certified make more money, right?

It turns out that the best way to make money is to get a certification – and then let it expire. BWAHAHAHA

Does Higher Education Help?

How many have post-secondary education:

Wow, more than half of the responders have a 4-year degree! I’m stunned. Doesn’t seem to affect salary much, though. (And maybe that master’s or PhD isn’t such a good idea.)

And of those who have a degree, is it computer-related? Maybe that helps.

HAHAHA, computer-related degrees actually earn less than non-computer-related degrees. Ah, data.

Want to Ask Questions About the Data?

Don’t even think about leaving a comment here, buddy – I’m not your personal data scientist. Go get the answer yourself. Take the 2017 Data Professional Salary Survey, and grab the raw data in Excel format from that same link. Encourage other folks to take it, too – it closes this Sunday, and the more responses we’ve got, the more valuable it is for all of us.

Blogger heads-up: the survey will close Sunday night, January 15th. Monday morning, I’ll update the above link to include the final set of raw data in Excel. That’s like a starter pistol: use that data to write whatever analytics post you want on your own blog, and leave the URL in the comments. I’ll post an official survey results announcement post on BrentOzar.com on Thursday, January 19th. In that post, I’ll include a list of YOUR analytics posts, so you’ll get a nice bump of traffic. If you want to show off your skills in Power BI, Tableau, Access, whatever, go ahead and grab the current raw data set, rehearse your method, and be ready to jump into action on Monday, January 16th with the final raw data set. Enjoy!