‘If you’re finding the industry tough in whatever way is relevant to you, you are certainly not alone. Post-pandemic turbulence lingers, leading to increased job changes among tech leaders, potentially impacting base salaries.’
Andy Skipper Founder, CTO Craft
We recently published our 2024 CTO Compensation Report results in collaboration with Albany Partners. Building upon last year’s inaugural survey, we’re excited to share insights from our second edition of this industry benchmarking initiative.
The compensation survey
The compensation survey again focused on discovering a transparent overview of engineering leadership compensation in a continually turbulent market. We aimed to uncover and report on global tech leadership compensation trends.
‘Our 2nd edition report aims to continue building a benchmark for tech leaders to assess market rates for both themselves and their teams. In addition, this year we delve deeper into career drivers, rates and context for fractional/interim use cases, as well as comparisons between PE and VC contexts.’
Henry Draper, Managing Partner, Albany
Who responded?
This year, our respondents were more global, with a 15% and 6% increase in respondents in the US and Eastern Europe specifically. In employer backing, there was a rise in Private Equity (+7%), a slight decrease in Public/IPO (-0.6%), and a notable difference in Venture Capital (-18%).
Seniority: This year, just over 50% of respondents were CTO/C-Suite Equivalent/Reports into CEO.
Location: Like last year, most respondents (53%) were UK-based (61% in 2023).
Gender: Men made up the majority of the respondents (88%), followed by women (11%) and non-binary/other (1%).
However, we received a 3% higher response from women, which is still far short of what we would like to achieve. Last year, we found that CTOs identifying as male received 2.4x the equity cash value as women, which held true this year (2.3x in 2024).
Age: Just over 50% were in the 36-45 age category, and just under 30% were in the 46-55 age group. This is not dissimilar to 2023, when 55% of respondents were in the 36-45 age group, and 23% were in the 46-55 age group.
Please see the full report for further information and details about seniority, ethnicity and service tenure.
Key findings
Finding 1: 44% of businesses had layoffs last year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, VC-backed employers were most affected.
Finding 2: The world of full-time office working has not returned.
98% of respondents work in hybrid or remote settings. Hybrid participants comprised the majority of the group we sampled and received the highest average total compensation.
Finding 3: North America still outpaces Europe on average compensation in the tech sector.
This impacts overall pay within the sector as the greater demand puts pressure on the talent pipeline within engineering.
Finding 4: For tech leaders with stock options, CTOs are allocated three times their salary in equity value, one-and-a-half times at the VPE level, and half for Directors. Nine out of ten respondents have linear vesting structures and a one-year cliff.
Last year’s data showed that a 4-year vesting period with a 1-year cliff is by far the industry standard, with 3 and 5-year periods following with less than 20% each. This year, we examined the vesting period regarding the commonality of linear versus backloaded structures across different types of businesses.
Finding 5: 6% of respondents are fractional, interim and advisory technologists – a category added to the survey this year for the first time. 75% charge by the day, with an average rate of £1090.
We also examine the core themes in the many problems solved by interim, fractional, and advisory technology leaders.
Insights
If that wasn’t enough information to keep you busy, our report also focuses on our 2024 deep dive insights for global tech leaders, including:
- 41% of engineering leaders are looking to leave their current business. Why?
- Women and Non-binary engineering leaders share common motivations for remaining and leaving businesses: company culture and belief in leadership/strategy are by far the strongest drivers.
- Is retention as simple as paying technology talent more? Not exactly. Higher salaries do not correlate with the desire to remain in a role. However, higher equity does.
Thank you to all who responded for your invaluable contribution to the 12,843 data points that formed the report’s basis. Together, we’re paving the way for informed decision-making, sustainable growth, and equitable pay within the tech ecosystem.
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Download the compensation survey full report or view Albany’s video to learn more about leadership compensation in 2024 and view suggested solutions.
Hot off the success of CTO Craft Con: London, and the triumphant debut of our CTO Craft Mixers in the heart of Germany’s capital, we’re excited to bring the complete CTO Craft Con experience to Berlin.
Join us in September as we gather CTOs and emerging tech leaders from startups, scaleups, soonicorns, unicorns, big tech, and beyond to address the most pressing challenges of our industry in a secure, collaborative, and inclusive peer-to-peer setting.
Find out more here: https://conference.ctocraft.com/berlin-2024
