Average salaries rest comfortably in the six figures for data management and financial information professionals in North America and Europe, with those working for hedge funds best paid, according to a survey for the Financial Information Services Division (FISD) of the SIIA.
The survey, conducted for FISD by Lakefront Data Ventures, questioned over 300 professionals. The majority of respondents work at sell-side banks or data vendors, are of management, vice president level or above, and work in real time and reference data management.
Globally, the highest average base salary by industry went to hedge funds at $192,029, with data vendors averaging $132,186, sell side banks averaging $138,698, with retail banks bringing in the lowest average salary at $94,361 among other industries. Salaries were further broken down by job title, size of firm, gender, region, and years of experience among others.
Most of the salaries ranged between $50k minimum to around the high $300k. Although one survey respondent listed their total compensation as $1,425,000. Overall, men had a higher total compensation than women in the global data industry taking in an average of $179,246 compared to $150,776 for women.
Dale Richards, CEO of Lakefront Data Ventures, says "This type of data is particularly critical now as the financial information services arena continues to evolve. We look forward to continuing to collect and report this type of data for the industry."
The salaries were entered in US dollars, UK pounds sterling and Euros in the responses but were all listed as US dollars in the results. The exchange rates were converted as of December 31, 2008.
The entire survey can be viewed here.