For Software User Assistance Professionals

A central element of any job we hold is the compensation we receive. While compensation is only one factor in our descision to accept a position, it's how many of us keep score and the way all of us pay the bills. The WinWriters Salary Survey provides you with detailed and comprehensive information about compensation for user assistance professionals. Our 2001 Salary Survey results have been viewed on our web site by over 18,000 visitors. We hope you find these new survey results useful in gauging where you stand amongst your peers.

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Methodology

During a two-week period in early November we accepted responses via a survey form on our WinWriters web site. The final results presented here represent 1,725 responses from people in 50 states of the U.S., in seven Canadian provinces, and in other parts of the world. This is a great response—a 40% increase over last year—and we appreciate the input from everyone who participated!

The total annual user assistance payroll represented by these respondents is in the neighborhood of $107 million USD. The links in the gold sidebar take you to an analysis of the areas where we identify significant results.

We separated the following groups of responses from the main data set: Canada, Other than U.S./Canada, Part-time (individuals working less than 35 hours per week), and Contractors (independent contractor or through an agency). These groups have significantly different data values than the core group. We are presenting information for these groups on their own pages in this survey. The data for these groups is not included on any other pages of the survey, including this one.

This study comes with a couple of biases. First, the majority of respondents are most likely customers of WinWriters. We received most of the responses in response to email broadcasts we made to our mailing list. However, the WinWriters constituency is large and probably is a fair representation of the overall user assistance community. We allowed anyone to participate and we did not require any personal identification.

Salary Range

The overall average U.S. salary is $64,957, an increase of 3.7% over last year. The salaries range from $19,500 to $160,000 and fall into the following quartile groupings:

Benefits

While the bulk of this survey report focuses on salary, employee benefits can add up to a significant value. These often include medical and dental insurance, tuition reimbursements, professional society dues, and 401(k) plans. Since benefit packages vary widely and are valued differently, we asked the respondents not to include benefits in their salary figure.

We asked respondents how they rank the importance of stock options. This year 40% indicate that they receive no stock options. Of those who receive stock options, only 8% rate them as Very Important. The widespread drop in stock prices has probably put a damper on enthusiasm for this once very popular benefit.