Automation Salary Survey 2023 Stats Show 86% of Industry Professionals Are Getting a Raise

Summary

Automation.com, a subsidiary of International Society of Automation (ISA), conducted its annual Automation Professional Salary Survey this year and asked participants questions about their income in 2022 and how it changed in 2023. Results are broken down by geographic region, job function, industry, years of experience and professional certification.  

Salary increases for automation professionals  

Let’s start with the good news.: 86% of participants across all sectors indicated they received or expected to receive a salary increase in 2023 over 2022. 14.8% of participants received a raise of 11% or more in 2023 over 2022. However, 14% reported receiving no salary increase, and 11.5% only reported a 1% increase in salary.  

Several respondents commented on their salary increases (or lack thereof), and several themes emerged. Some concerns arose about inflation. “Years of small 3% raises are not keeping up with inflation,” one respondent wrote. Another wrote: “Why is cost of living never considered? It seems like everyone continues to go backward in income value, but workload, expectations and skills keep going up.” 

One participant expressed understanding that his or her company was still developing, which affects salary. “In terms of salary, it’s generally low; the company I work for is new and has been growing. I hope that I will get a better salary equivalent to the experience I have,” the respondent noted. 

Years of experience 

Workers often expect their salaries to increase because of how long they’ve been working in the industry. The salary survey divided years of experience into eight categories to compare gross income based on longevity. Most interesting, a comparison to previous survey results shows a marked increase for average salaries of entry-level and early-career automation professionals. 2022 data indicates those with 0-2 years of experience made an average of $123,402 per year, and those with 3-5 years of experience made an average of $124,669; in 2020, those averages were much lower: $67,500 and $99,500, respectively. 

That leap in average early-career salaries could reflect the pressure the COVID-19 pandemic put on worker compensation worldwide. In the US, the pandemic reshaped the labor market more than any single event since the Great Recession of 2007-09, with many employers scrambling to lure replacements with raises and bonuses. Almost two-thirds of all US private sector payroll workers are in industries where the average weekly wage in the second quarter of 2021 was at least 5% higher than it was in the second quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to Pew Research, between the second quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2021, the manufacturing industry saw its wages go up 5.8% and wages for management of companies and enterprises overall went up 12%. 

Engineering management is the highest paying automation job function 

Engineering management has officially de-throned Information Technology, Cybersecurity as the highest earning job function for automation professionals. The survey indicated that in the USA, Engineering Managers earned an average gross income of $155,000, the highest average of all the other automation job functions surveyed. In our previous Automation Salary Survey, Information Technology, Cybersecurity earned the top spot at $145,000. 

See the full survey results for a breakdown of the gross salaries in the USA for all the job functions. The full Automation Salary Survey 2023 also includes tables showing most specific salary breakdowns for professionals in each salary range for each job function. 

How to read the full 2023 Automation Salary Survey 

This Automation.com 2023 Automation Salary Survey report explicates data about the salaries and work lives of automation professionals across the globe in various industries and stages of their careers. The survey was conducted online in 2023 by Automation.com, a subsidiary of ISA–The International Society of Automation. A total of 1,243 professionals provided data. 

You can read the full survey by clicking the button below.