As virtually every industry goes through a digital transformation, there are more opportunities for people with technical skills to work in exciting, high-paying fields. Folks with IT (or information technology) expertise, in particular, are well-positioned to get hired.

The Skillsoft IT Skills and Salary survey, now in its 7th consecutive year, surveyed nearly 8,000 tech workers about details like which IT certifications they have, what challenges they face in hybrid workplaces, and how likely they are to look for a new job.

The 2022 survey findings include thought-provoking insights about what it’s like to work in tech today, including the industries where IT professionals have the highest salaries on average.

Curious which industries pay IT professionals the most? Here are the industries where IT professionals earn the highest average salaries, according to the Skillsoft IT Skills and Salary survey], one of the largest studies of IT salaries, skills, and certifications.

(Heads up: This list highlights the salaries of survey respondents from North America. To check out how salaries in industries compare around the world, download the full report.)

Aerospace or Defense

Average salary: $142,066.67

The aerospace sector manufactures products and services for space, commercial airlines, missiles, military aircraft, and commercial airlines. The U.S. aerospace industry employs around 500,000 people.

Fascinated by space? Read more about how astronomers use data science programming languages like Python to research and explore our planets and stars.

System integrator and VAR integrator

Average salary: $140,574.68

A system integrator is a business that coordinates and organizes computing systems, often using automation. (System Integrator is also a role you can have within an organization, where you specialize in designing and developing computing systems.)

VAR is short for Value Added Reseller, which is essentially a company that adds features to manufacturers’ products — like hardware, installation services, consulting, or troubleshooting — and resells them as turnkey operations.

IT software

Average salary: $135,680.08

Software refers to the non-tangible applications and programs we use on the computer. Our free course Introduction to IT will teach you the basics of core IT topics, including software development, operating systems and applications, databases, and cybersecurity.

Construction, architecture, and engineering

Average salary: $127,498.78

Construction tech (or “contech”) is the intersection of construction and technology. For example, a construction company might use AR/VR technology to model and visualize a project before they begin building. There’s demand for people who not only understand the fundamentals of building and construction, but also have the data-oriented technical skills needed to future-proof the industry.

IT consulting

Average salary: $126,613.61

“Consulting” is a very broad term that can mean different things to different organizations. An IT consulting company, for example, typically advises an organization’s IT strategies from soup to nuts.

Insurance, real estate, and legal

Average salary: $126,063.24

There are a variety of ways that insurance, real estate, and legal businesses utilize software. For example, they might use CRM (customer relationship management) software to manage relationships with customers or cloud computing to store and access large amounts of data.

Average salary: $122,173.46

Your favorite film studio or go-to music streaming service needs IT professionals, too. Have a background in the arts already? Build up your marketable skills by learning about IT in our course Introduction to IT. Or take our programming personality quiz for course, career, and programming language suggestions that suit your creativity.

Professional business services

Average salary: $121,219.57

Professional business services are nonphysical services or products that help businesses. In tech, professional services can include things like IT support, web development, and cybersecurity management.

IT hardware

Average salary: $120,578.35

If you want a better understanding of how the physical components of a computer — aka the hardware — work, consider taking our Computer Architecture course. You can also start with the beginner-friendly course Fundamentals of Operating Systems to learn how software and hardware interact and make computers functional.

Natural resources: Mining, oil, and gas

Average salary: $118,515.31

The mining sector is made up of establishments that extract naturally occurring mineral solids, like coal, natural gas, and oil. In the U.S., there are around 587,700 people in the mining, oil, and gas workforce. Oil and gas companies are using new technologies, from artificial intelligence to IoT, to innovate their operations.

Whether you’re considering a completely new career, or want to know how much people with your job make on average, check out the full Skillsoft IT Skills and Salary report. You can also read a breakdown of the highest-paying IT jobs from the survey here.

If you’re feeling inspired to take the next step in your career, you’re in the right place! Be sure to check out our full course catalog to start learning valuable technical skills. The free courses Introduction to IT and Introduction to Cybersecurity are great starting points for beginners. Then get job-ready with our tips for breaking into IT and helpful advice for acing an IT job interview.

There’s a high-paying, in-demand area of tech that you might be overlooking: information technology, or IT.

Broadly speaking, IT is technology that stores, organizes, and processes information and communication. There are tons of fascinating careers that you can have in IT — from Computer Information Systems Manager to Cybersecurity Analyst — with rewarding salaries.

The Skillsoft IT Skills and Salary survey is one of the largest studies of IT salaries, skills, and certifications. In 2022, the 7th consecutive year of the survey, nearly 8,000 people who work in technology answered anonymous questions about their salaries, how they feel about work, the certifications they want to get, and more.

Here are the jobs in IT with the top 10 highest annual salaries, according to the survey. Learn what it takes to get hired in these roles, plus discover resources and relevant courses that will help launch your career in IT.

(FYI: This list focuses on the salaries of survey respondents in North America. To see how IT salaries pan out around the world, download the full report.)

Business Operations

Average salary: $105,145.51

Business Operations Managers handle a company’s most important logistics and administrative systems, often reporting to the Chief Operations Officer (COO). A Business Operations Manager focuses on streamlining an organization’s internal operations and activities so they’re efficient and productive.

IT Auditing or Governance, Risk, and Compliance

Average salary: $119,036.56

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (or “GRC”) is the part of an organization that establishes best practices and security frameworks, and makes sure that team members follow them. An IT audit is essentially an investigation of an organization’s technologies and systems to make sure that they’re safe and meet regulatory requirements. Risk management is not only a lucrative specialty within cybersecurity, but it’s also in demand. To learn more about how companies establish secure practices and policies, try our path Fundamentals of Cyber Resilience and Risk Management.

Data Science, Analytics, and Business Intelligence

Average salary: $124,773.38

If you’re fascinated by data science and enjoy translating data into actionable business insights, you might thrive as a Business Intelligence Analyst. In these types of jobs, you’d use technologies like SQL, Python, or R to perform advanced data analysis and querying; you’d also work with data visualization dashboards like Tableau and Looker. You can learn all of these technical skills and get job-ready with our Career Path Data Scientist: Analytics Specialist.

Want to learn more about data and business? Check out Analyze Business Data with SQL or Analyze Financial Data with Python. Be sure to browse all of our data science courses to fill out your knowledge gaps — you can even start learning for free with Learn SQL and Getting Started Off-Platform for Data Science.

Sales and Marketing

Average salary: $126,196.97

Tech companies need savvy sales and marketing professionals to sell and promote their innovative products. Someone who works in tech sales would be connecting customers with hardware, software, and IT services that meet a business or consumer’s needs. Marketing essentially finds creative ways to hype up the value of products offered by a company. There are lots of different marketing careers that you can have within a tech organization.

Cybersecurity, Information Security

Average salary: $129,030.74

There’s a huge demand for cybersecurity professionals who can protect an organization’s computer systems and networks from bad actors, attacks, and security breaches. Information Security (aka “InfoSec”) is a highly sought-after cybersecurity specialty that focuses on protecting information and data from unauthorized access and attacks.

Brand new to cybersecurity? Start with our beginner-friendly free course Introduction to Cybersecurity. If you want to explore further and learn to identify cyber attacks (and prevent them from happening), you can check out the path Fundamentals of Cybersecurity. And to practice answering cybersecurity job interview questions and scripting challenges, try the Cybersecurity Analyst Interview Prep path.

Product and Project Management

Average salary: $130,160.61

Product Managers manage the development and launch of a product, which is easier said than done. Product Managers have a deep understanding of an organization’s business goals so they can define what success will look like and empower technical teams to execute the company’s high-level vision.

Though Product Managers aren’t writing code on a day-to-day basis, they need technical skills to work closely with developers. (Here’s a list of the best programming languages for Product Managers to learn.) Product Managers also need to have strong communication skills, because they often liaise with engineering teams and leadership.

Sound like a career you’d like to have? Start your journey towards becoming a Product Manager by taking our Code Foundations path or head to the full course catalog to choose a programming language to learn.  

DevOps

Average salary: $134,215.24

DevOps (short for “Development Operations”) is an industry-standard approach to building software that prioritizes collaboration. DevOps practices enable businesses to be responsive, develop products quickly, and continuously improve them. IT professionals who specialize in DevOps help organizations put DevOps practices, tools, and platforms in place.

DevOps Engineers need to know how to work with data management, cloud architecture, automation, and programming languages. You can master DevOps practices and get an overview of modern infrastructure management in our free course Introduction to DevOps. As you prep your DevOps resume and start applying to jobs, be sure to review this guide to answering DevOps interview questions.

IT Architecture and Design

Average salary: $138,309.71

Enterprise Architect is a high-paying leadership role that deals with overall IT architecture and design. These IT pros are responsible for making high-level decisions about an organization’s overall IT strategy. An Enterprise Architect’s tasks can include things like setting up and creating a network infrastructure, maintaining software and hardware, communicating with business stakeholders, and managing cybersecurity systems.

You need a fair amount of professional experience under your belt to become an Enterprise Architect. Inspired to start working towards this career? Take a look at the beginner-friendly IT courses to learn the key skills used in IT architecture and design. Aspects of computer science and IT often overlap, so consider taking our Computer Science Career Path — you’ll learn how to code like a professional and understand the theory behind programming.

Cloud

Average salary: $147,298.87

The vast world of cloud computing involves storing and accessing data and programs on the internet. There are plenty of job opportunities for folks with technical skills to work with the cloud. Some of the highest-paying cloud careers include Cloud Engineer and Computer and Information Systems Manager.

Executive

Average salary: $172,027.79

Dream of running a tech company someday? Unsurprisingly, C-Suite Executives — like Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer — had the highest salaries in Skillsoft’s 2022 IT Skills and Salaries survey. Executives are responsible for calling the shots, making major decisions for the company, and often acting as the face of an organization (think Tesla’s Elon Musk or Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg). In short, that’s why they get paid the big bucks.

Want to read more of the survey findings? Download the 2022 Skillsoft IT Skills and Salaries report here.

If you’re not sure which tech career is right for you, start by taking our programming personality quiz. You’ll answer questions about your personal preferences and get custom recommendations for programming languages and courses you might want to try.