The Institute of IT Training has conducted a survey into the salaries, benefits and development plans of the UK's IT trainers. The survey is aimed at providing data and analysis to assist everyone who is responsible for the management and development of training staff. The data was largely supplied by members of the Institute of IT Training. The Institute will publish the questionnaire on its web site in order to maintain a continual monitoring service. The survey reports on:
- UK IT training market sizing and trends, including trends in training delivery methods.
- Salaries for Corporate Training Departments by Job Function, including regional variations.
- Salaries for External Training Providers by Job Function, including regional variations.
- Trainers' experience, qualifications, professional body membership, development and benefits received.

The results show that IT training managers are generally paid significantly less than other IT managers, and that other IT training functions are similarly less rewarded than other comparable IT positions.

Comments
Colin Steed, chief executive of the Institute of IT Training and author of the report, said: "The research confirms that today's IT training personnel are very much the poor relations of the IT department. IT Training managers' salary levels are comparatively low (£34,120) as compared with their IT department counterparts. For example, a typical IT Training Manager is paid on average £9,000 pa less that an IT Manager (£43,480). I find it incredible and somewhat mystifying why employers do not rate, salary-wise, the people who are responsible for the performance of the organisation's IT employees - yet are prepared to pay those same employees higher salaries than the people who provide them with the skills."

Disturbingly, IT training staff are also not getting the necessary skills development to keep them up to date on the new developments in training skills and techniques. Mr Steed commented: "Under four days a year is simply inadequate for trainers to explore and learn the latest skills in training delivery - especially with the growing take up of e-learning in organisations. E-learning presents a whole series of new training skills that must be learned if it is going to work in an organisation. If these vital new skills are not in place then employers are just wasting their investment."

Main Findings: Salaries
Average UK Salaries (average IT training salaries by job function are based on all types of training employment - corporate training departments, external training providers):
Training management salary levels are comparatively low (£34,120) with their IT Manager (£43,480) and Systems Manager counterparts in the IT department and are fixed as on par with User Support Manager (£34,200).
Senior Trainers (>5 years experience) salaries (£28,020) are similar to Systems Developers.
Trainers salaries compare to Systems Developers - Senior Developers on par with Trainers with <5 years experience (£26,220); new Trainers with <1 year's experience (£22,850) compare with Systems Developers with <3 years experience (£21,530).
Courseware developers (£28,840) are on par with Senior Trainer salaries.
e-Learning training personnel are attracting higher salaries than their ILT colleagues, probably because of the scarcity of those qualified to perform the new skills required by e-Learning training staff.
UK training salaries are lower than their US counterparts; Managers and Senior Trainers are 10% less whilst ILT trainers salaries are 6% lower in the UK.
Average salaries for Corporate Training Departments are £28,840. External Training Providers, not surprisingly, offer higher salaries with an average of £30,280.

Experience
Due to the fairly short life of the IT industry, it follows that IT training experience is on the low side compared with other sectors of the economy. The majority of IT training professionals have, on average, between 3-4 years experience (26.78%). The next highest groupings are 1-2 years (16.48%) followed by 5-6 years (16.07%).

Qualifications
Prior to the formation of the Institute of IT Training (1995), there was no focused certification programme for IT training professionals. A survey carried out by the (then) new Institute found that less than 10% of trainers had any form of professional qualification.
Since 1995, those IT training professionals who were Institute members holding a training qualification has increased dramatically from 10% to 82.1%, as revealed in this survey.

Trainer Development
The old adage of 'Cobbler's Children' has certainly applied to training professionals. Most often, trainers are simply too busy training to take some themselves. Not that they are not desperate for it, but they are considered too valuable training everyone else to be spared themselves. This is, of course, compounded by the fact that they work in the IT environment in which the pace of change increases at an alarming rate.
The average days allocated for training currently received by respondents are 3.74 (trainer skills) and 5.89 (product skills). This is forecast to rise in 2002 to 3.88 (trainer skills) and 6.91 (product skills).

Benefits
Benefits packages from employers are an important part of the mix in attracting and, more importantly, retaining staff. It is an encouraging fact that today's staff are attracted to the benefits package offered as, combined with the salary offered, a good benefits package for staff can say much about how an organisation values its personnel.
Recommendations to employers
We asked all respondents to outline what main issues they considered would help their employers to retain current staff and additionally attract new training staff to them. We received an incredible response to this item, the top five issues (in order of frequency of response) was as follows:
- Clearly defined and implemented structured career development plan
- Better salary/package/increased benefits/pay the market rate
- More trainer skills training for trainers
- Certification of trainers/keeping up to date with new techniques
- Sensible salary scales which reflect our 'worth'
- Corporate recognition of training department

The full report, with regional variations, is available from
The Institute of IT Training, info@iitt.org.uk
Price for the full 31-page report is £125 (Members) and £195 (non-Members). Prices do not include VAT.