URISA Salary Survey

It is hard to know exactly who the population is in salary surveys like this. But the URISA Salary Survey is out and reveals a few interesting tidbits. For instance, this is helpful but I don't know what to make of it:

According to the results of this survey, respondents’ jobs require them to be at least somewhat proficient with a variety of GIS software. Similar to the results of the 2003 survey, ESRI products were most popular. The leaders included ArcGIS (91.2%), SDE/GeoDatabase (47.9%), ESRI Extensions – Network Analyst, 3D Analyst, Spatial Analyst (46.2%), ArcIMS (37.9%), ArcView (34.3%), and ArcPad (26.7%).

OK, so most of the URISA membership uses ESRI products. Is that just because they are the dominant force in the market? Or is it because they advertise in URISA materials, support URISA events and are, thus, a biasing factor in the survey? These must be power users because 90+% use ArcGIS but only 34% use ArcView.

Certified GIS Professionals (GISPs) earn, on average, nearly $9,000 more per year compared to those who are not certified $66,308 vs. $57,669).

But are those comparable groups? If GISPs need professional experience, then we can assume that every single entry level, unqualified, and student response got lumped in with the "not certified" group.

And education is "in" with this group.

85% have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. Three-fourths (75.3%) indicated that, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree is required for their position.

Does that mean they wouldn't hire the young computer genius who lacked the patience to suffer through school? Maybe. GIS is a well rounded field and the survey, with over 2,ooo responses represents an interesting group within the larger area of GIScience.