Full-time technology employees in the U.S. received an average pay increase of 1.7 percent last year, while independent technology contractors earned an average 3.7 percent raise, according to Dice's annual salary survey.

The survey also found the salary gender gap widened in 2007 to 11.9 percent, up from 9.7 percent in 2006. Indeed, the pay of the average female IT worker could be generously described as remaining flat last year - it actually declined 0.05 percent - while men's salaries increased an average 2.3 percent. 

Specifically, women were paid an average of $67, 507 in 2007, down from 67,542 in 2006 though still more than the $63,678 they earned in 2005. Male technology workers were paid $76,582 in 2007, up from $74,822 in 2006.

More than likely, the unequal gender representation within IT has a lot to do with the salary gap, says Robert Stevenson, managing director for the storage sector of TheInfoPro, an analyst company based in New York. "If you have 100 people and 80 are men while 20 are women, the probability is that more men will be promoted into management positions," he explains.

Managers Did Well

Overall, the survey found IT managers received the highest salary increases. Project managers received an average 5 percent increase in their paychecks; MIS managers saw an average 7.8 percent bump. Demand is driving the increases, an examination of Dice job postings shows: The number seeking a "project manager" or "project management" has grown by 25 percent since January 2007, and 50 percent since January 2006. The survey showed project managers averaged a salary of more than $100,000 last year.

Similarly, those with hard-to-find skills benefited. The highest paid were specialists in:

• ETL (Extract, Transform and Load), who reported an average salary of $96,559
• ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning, who earned an average $95,589
• SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, who earned an average $95,387

Contract workers saw larger increases compared to both full- and part-time IT employees. Consultants earned $93,017 last year, compared to $89,718 in 2006. By contrast, full-time employees earned $72,003 in 2007 compared to 2006's average of $70,777.

Those who didn't fare so well include part-time employees, who saw their earnings drop about 5 percent, from $33,365 in 2006 to $31,838 last year, and tech professionals in banking and finance, whose pay rose just 0.6 percent, a tough nut to swallow after the 8.5 percent increase they received in 2006.

Strength in California

Overall, the nearly 4 percent raises earned by tech workers in Silicon Valley and Boston kept pace with the national average for all occupations, as reported by Towers Perrin in a September 2007 survey. Silicon Valley IT employees earned close to $94,000 in 2007, while Boston workers earned about $83,500.

Sacramento technology workers earned a whopping 11 percent annual raise, with their salaries averaging $83,400 in 2007, compared to $83,400 in 2006 and $75,000 in 2005. Sacramento has a high concentration of computer and microchip businesses, which saw a strong rebound in the last couple of years, says Gary Simon, president of Sigma Energy Group, a Sacramento-based education training organization. The firm has also identified more than 50 new companies in the area focusing on clean energy research and technology. "It's been a relatively hot area," says Simon.

More than 19,000 job seekers took the Dice survey during late summer and early fall last year.