In the world's hottest and fastest-growing AI field, the average salary fell last year?
According to IEEE Spectrum, the average annual salary of technicians nationwide rose by 6.9 percent in 2021, breaking through from five figures ($97,859, or about 620,000 yuan) to six figures: $104566 (about 660,000 yuan).
However, compared with 2020, the salaries of machine learning, natural language processing and artificial intelligence have been reduced by 2.1%, 7.8% and 8.9% respectively, a decline of more than $11,739.
△ The chart is from the IEEE
In the past few years of the outbreak of artificial intelligence, it seems that for the first time, there have been signs of declining wages in the industry.
This report comes from Dice, a job search site that is biased towards the tech industry.
Let's take a look at the source report and see what other data is worth paying attention to.
AI salaries fell overall
Let's start with 3 AI-related areas: artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, and deep learning.
△ Source: Dice
It can be seen that whether it is AI, NLP or ML, it has continued to grow in the three years from 2018 to 2020, but by 2021, there is a trend of annual salary decline.
The annual salary of artificial intelligence in 2021 is 8.9% lower than in 2020, and even lower than the 120709 US dollars in 2018 (the overall is 120168 US dollars in 2021).
In addition, the overall annual salary in the NLP field decreased by 7.8% compared with 2020, and the machine learning decreased by 2.1% year-on-year, which also showed a downward trend.
Earlier, deep learning began to fall sharply from 2020 (fewer than 100 people participated in the survey in 2018, not included in the statistics), a 12.8% decrease compared to 2019.
Although there was a slight recovery in 2021, it was still down 9.3% compared to 2019.
It is worth noting that such trends do not only occur in the fields of NLP and ML.
The fields of big data and data science related to AI have also shown a downward trend in 2021.
Among them, data science showed a steady growth trend in the three years from 2018 to 2020, but in 2021, it fell by 3.1% compared with 2020; big data also fell by 1.3% year-on-year.
Is the tech industry's good days at their peak?
In fact, this is just a trend in the field of AI, and the overall technology industry in 2021 is good.
Overall salaries in the technology sector rose
In fact, according to Dice, the tech industry in 2021 will not only see an overall increase in annual salaries, but also reach an average of more than 6 figures (US dollars) for the first time:
△ Image source: IEEE
According to Dice, salaries in 2021 rose by an average of $6,707, or 6.9%, compared to 2020:
At the same time, the unemployment rate in the tech sector also hit a new low in 2021.
In terms of positions, in addition to IT management (CEO, CTO, CIO, etc., average annual salary of 151983 US dollars), system architects and cloud engineers are the most popular.
Among them, the salaries of system administrators (6.2%) and system architects (5.1%) increased significantly year-on-year, in addition to software developers (8%) and UI/UX designers (10.1%) who focused on website construction also saw significant growth.
Overall, salaries for many positions have basically risen (mostly green):
△ Chart from Dice
Among them, the fastest-growing position is web development engineer, with a 21.3% increase in the next few big cuts. In addition, the potential for DBAs (database administrators), data analysts, and technical support cannot be underestimated.
In all positions, except for the data architect (the statistics are less than 100, the reference is not strong), there is no obvious decline, and it is basically reduced by about one percentage point.
For this "anomalous" phenomenon in the field of AI, Dice's CMO Michelle Marian believes that it may be because more people are learning AI skills:
As the talent pool increases, the corresponding salary is reduced.
We looked at some of the other data in the report and found some interesting points.
Metaverse field salaries are rising
For example, compared with AI, NLP and other fields, such as AR, VR and metaverse-related fields, there has been a certain increase in salary.
The annual salary in the AR field has been rising steadily in recent years, with an increase of 5.9% in 2021 compared with 2019:
The VR field had a brief decline in 2019 and rose back in 2021, with an increase of 2.1% compared to 2019.
In addition to this, there are some other interesting data in the report.
Solr became the most popular professional skill
In the computer field, some skills are particularly highly paid, and the top three are: Solr, Mokito and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), and the average salary has reached 140,000+ US dollars (about 890,000 yuan).
For example, Solr is an enterprise search application server and a high-paying skill with the highest increase (15.8%), and Mokito is an open source mock toolkit.
According to Dice, most companies are willing to pay high salaries for skills related to enterprise-grade infrastructure, especially data storage and cloud (such as the second-fastest-growing cloud database RDS).
The first way to raise a salary is not to jump jobs
According to Dice, 61 percent of tech workers received a raise in 2021, up from 52 percent in 2020.
However, the reason for everyone's salary increase is not from job hopping, but from merit raise, accounting for up to 34%, as for job hopping and internal promotion points account for the second and third places respectively.
Of course, these are mainly foreign data in the field of science and technology.
What is the general situation of AI salaries in China?
Domestic AI salary situation
We first looked at the monthly salary of AI jobs in major factories, which remained basically stable, and some of them also rose.
For example, ByteDance's master's degree in machine learning is 30-60k, and the undergraduate degree starts at 20k.
Ai company SenseTime, according to the statistics of The Friends Collection, the average salary in 2021 is 31355 yuan / month, compared with 27846 yuan / month in 2020, an increase of 13%.
Regarding the average monthly salary of AI positions, it is currently around 35 to 56k, which basically exceeds the average salary:
Of course, this is only the AI salary situation of some large domestic manufacturers.
According to the statistics of Lagou Network, the domestic artificial intelligence industry, the overall salary is still showing an upward trend.
In 2021, the salaries of positions including algorithm engineers and big data development engineers will rise as a whole, with the former rising by 56% and the latter increasing by 58%.
On the other hand, the domestic demand for jobs in the field of AI is still expanding. In 2021, Lagou.com counted the demand for jobs in the artificial intelligence industry, an increase of 95% year-on-year:
△Source: Lagou Data Research Institute
Looking at it all, are these statistical reports different from how you actually feel?
Or has the salary changed for a partner working in AI or other tech industries?
Welcome to discuss in the message area~