11/2/2000 -- According to Online Learning magazine's recently-released 2000 salary survey, U.S.-based IT trainers who teach online make $2,900 less per year on average than those who teach non-technical topics online. The magazine reports that the average salary for online IT trainers is $50,179, while non-IT trainers average $53,097.

IT trainers are those respondents who described themselves as trainers who primarily teach computer skills, non-IT are those who said they primarily teach non-computer related skills.

Online Learning Managing Editor Kim Kiser, who compiled the survey results, speculated that level of experience might contribute to this disparity. "More than half (56 percent) of the non-IT trainers said they had worked in the field more than eight years; 43 percent of the IT trainers reported having worked in the field less than five years," she explained. "[When you look at experience level] IT trainers who had less than five years' experience had an average salary of $45,703; the non-IT trainers with less than five years' experience reported earning an average of $41,590."

However, at higher experience levels, IT trainers still make less than their non-IT colleagues. "The IT trainers with more than eight years of experience reported earning an average of $55,397; the non-IT trainers with that level of experience reported making $58,919, on average," she said.

There is some good news for IT trainers, depending on where they live: IT trainers average much higher salaries in what the magazine calls the West Central region of the US(e.g., Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and Utah) -- apx. $13,000 more than non-IT trainers in the same region. The same is true for the North East, although the difference is significantly less (apx. $1,000). However, non-IT trainers still average higher salaries in the West (+$7,619), Central (+$4,703), Great Lakes (+$1,908) and South East (+9,897) regions.

Kiser notes that the survey did not ask respondents to break down how much of their time is spent teaching online vs. in a traditional classroom setting, so the figures above may or may not account for teaching in a more traditional classroom environment.

The magazine surveyed more than 2,000 e-learning professionals for its annual survey, 411 of whom classified themselves as a "trainer." The survey also breaks down salaries for training department managers, instructional designers, multimedia developers and more. To view the survey results, visit http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/new/oct00/cover.htm. -B.N.

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