Wall Street technology managers are modestly paid

Tom Burroughes

5 August 2009

Hedge-fund information-technology chiefs tend to earn more in than others. Data managers at financial firms receive modest compensation compared with other financial-sector professionals in the U.S., according to a survey by the Software and Information Industry Association and Lakefront Data Ventures, based on information from 300 data managers in the financial-service space and other industries. Hedging pays

Senior managers at financial-service companies get an average base salary of $198,988. Among buy-side data managers, average base salary is $120,226, according to a summary of the report in Wall Street & Technology. Sell-side firms paid an average of $138,698. Consultancies, technology integrators, hedge funds and rating agencies tend to pay more. Firms with one to ten employees -- most of them hedge funds-- pay far higher base salaries (on average $172,826) than firms with more than a thousand employees, which average $133,592. Data managers at U.S. financial firms can get decent bonuses, however. Hedge funds pay 45.90% of compensation in bonuses on average, raising average total compensation for their data managers to $280,169. Ratings agencies pay an average 46.51% in bonuses, bringing total pay for data management jobs to $256,400. On the sell-side, broker-dealers and investment banks pay a relatively modest 38.14% in bonuses, bringing their average data-manager pay to $191,604. Buy-side firms pay 26.17% in bonuses, for an average total compensation of $151,692. -FWR

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