Salary Surveys on the Web

Please review the following organizations for further information about their salary surveys.

Society for Technical Communication:
STC publishes an annual salary survey for technical writing positions in both the U.S. and Canada. U.S. results are broken down as far as the first two digits of zip code; both U.S. and Canadian data are broken out by region. Note that these surveys are credible enough to be cited by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in their Occupational Outlook Handbook. You can compare STC's prior-year surveys with the current one and get an idea of salary growth rates by region, education level, experience level, etc. You must be an STC member to access the survey.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
They publish salary information for both the U.S. and by state, in cooperation with each state's unemployment insurance division. Look for the Occupational Employment Survey, both at the BLS and via the New York state government's employment office. The latter will give within-state breakdowns by Metropolitan Statistical Area, using on the same data provided to the Feds for aggregation in larger geographic units—excellent resource, and nobody can argue that it isn't authoritative.

Another BLS resource is the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which provides standardized job descriptions, job creation/growth rate projections, educational requirements, skills used, and non-BLS salary information for every occupation code defined by the federal government. The latter may be helpful despite its very general content.

Economic Research Institute:
They publish analyses and time-series forecasts of salary information based on data from the U.S Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Although full reports must be purchased, many free services are available online, including statistically valid, projected salaries for today by job title and Metropolitan Statistical Area within state. U.S. data only. Job titles match those from BLS, and include technical writers.

Yale University:
A list of Web sites with salary and career information—good source for commercial, government, and academic salary sites.

JobStar:
A list of published salary surveys by profession—good resource.

True Careers:
A comprehensive index of published salary surveys, both general (like you'd see in Fortune or U.S. News & World Report) and industry-specific—very nicely done.

Content developed by Teresa Elms, a technical writer in Southern California.