Level of experience is one of the most important aspects in determining salary level. Generally, we estimate experience based on the number of years a person has been working with a particular activity. We asked the respondents how long they have been involved with the following three activities: technical communication, general user assistance development, and Windows Help development.

As might be expected, there is a clear increase in salary as the overall years of experience increase. Entry level annual salaries for individuals with three years or less of technical communication experience are roughly two-thirds of the salaries for those with ten or more years experience.

The best way to bump your salary at a given experience level is by enhancing your foundation technical communication skills by adding skills specifically targeted at general user assistance and Windows Help development. Of the respondents with four years in the field, the ones with Windows Help experience earned $6,000 USD more than their counterparts with Technical Communication experience. This increases to $16,000 for those in the 5-9 year experience range. While the type of Help being developed for Windows applications is currently in flux, Windows applications are still dominant in the PC software arena.

As the Web and Web-based standards have grown in importance in the software industry, their importance has also grown for user assistance professionals. The figure shows a clear increase in salary levels as our experience with Web development increases.

However, only a small percentage of us have enough web experience to enjoy the highest salaries. Slightly more than half the respondents indicated more than a year's experience and only a fifth have been involved with Web development for more than four years.