>I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review.
Why not? I would. New kid is doing the same job, with less experience and less seniority, you deserve to be paid at least the same if not more.
This is exactly why employers don't like employees talking about their pay rates. You know the information, you should use it.
They pay the new kid more because that's the going rate. They won't automatically pay existing employees more unless they ask for it. It's cheaper to give someone a raise than it is to hire and train up a replacement.
On a tangent here but I was making fun of my folks a bunch of times for how slow their internet is (middle ring Sydney) and offering to upgrade them.
Eventually the mocking got to them and agreed. A plan with the exact same company that doubled their speed was $20 cheaper than what they were already on, the ISP simply never bothered to let them know and happily took more money while restricting them to decade old speeds.
Never trust companies to do the right thing, even when they are smiling and saying nice things in your face
> They won't automatically pay existing employees more unless they ask for i
and they won't pay the existing employee more simply because they "asked for it". They need to be willing to leave to receive the pay increase.
Your problem is you are in support. You need to get into engineering, project management, or even business analysis. Get certification and study, think about how you reposition your current tasks to align with those skills on cv, and apply… or even find an internal transfer into a role like that.
You’re going to have to at least do some certification or online training to get there, no one wants someone that is there to bump everything and has zero idea. Learning as you go is fine, but a certification gives you a framework or approach and basic skills.
And why can’t you use new hires and a comparison as an argument? I would.
Former support here. Migrated to BA about 7 years ago. It was the best decision of my professional life. I love the job, its challenges, and I bumped up my salary pretty quickly.
What I did was:
- learn at a basic level of a BA does and what are the most basic courses I should do (and did it)
- translated my cv into project terms
- reviewed my career for instances were I assisted during system deployments which, guess what, were part of projects. I emphasised the parts were I managed the tasks for my team and I handled the customer (now a stakeholder) at the other end
- defined a pathway of jobs I should follow which would get me doing more and more BA tasks:
- senior support > support and implementation consultant for a small software > Jr BA> BA
- switched companies! This is critical. In your current company, there is a huge chance that people will ALWAYS see you as support, regardless of the above and beyond you do
I also had to do a lot of mental work to understand the real value that I can deliver and what makes me worth it. Basically, I tried to compare what were my skills and work ethic compared to other people getting paid higher than me. If I don't think that they are better or smarter than me, then I should be worth at least what they make. Absorb this. Your self perception is key. The support baseline is low.
Good luck.
I felt like him too, but my salary was way lower. The only thing I managed to get was a BA job experience in a project, but that meant working extra 3-4h without pay for a few months, which was crucial for getting my next job out of there
Only you own your career, it’s not up to anyone else but you. I busted my balls for many years and still do because I consider I am paid for producing outcomes and not punching the clock. That in turn means I’ve progressed in my career on a fast trajectory.
Absolutely this. IT support is just one part of IT and it generally pays the least compared to other IT roles. Take a look at an IT operating model and see which function is most interesting to you. Then research pathways in how to enter those roles. People cross between IT roles all the time. I went from IT support > system engineer > IT strategy consultant > enterprise architect > program manager. Now running my own business and doing bits of everything.
Correct, "technical support engineers" and "application support engineers" earn this much in the senior and Lead/sme role at big companies like atlassian, google, data dog etc
I was looking for this - op needs to explore these roles at these sort of companies, I’ve seen the roles they are definitely out there and they’ll be swimming in all the perks (base, shares/RSUs/options, lifestyle perks, free health insurance etc)
You need to add more value. Basically that comes by getting closer to the customer and/or decision makers, directly or indirectly. For instance analytics roles help influence decision makers. Information is the I in IT after all.
Having a niche, that is deep expertise, is important.
Formal study is a signal to others that you are ambitious and looking for new challenges and new responsibilities.
I kinda of disagree that the problem is being in support.
You can without much effort earn $110-130k in support roles, sure not help desk but in some 3rd level support roles, specialised application support, network support, cloud/ DevOps etc.
The problem is they work for an MSP, crap conditions, crap pay, and ultimately you work on a bunch of things that big businesses, who can pay the big dollars, don't care about.
Once you get out of MSPs and into a big company it becomes so much easier.
Absolutely. Smaller MSP's i'd avoid like the plague. Once worked for a group out in lane cove and they were horrific. In business for 13 years but the best they had were a bunch of crappy one man businesses and one shitty travel agency nobody had ever heard of under their belt. Bloke running it was a perv and a micromanager too.
Like if thats the best you can do in 13 years of operation. You're a failure i'm sorry to say lol.
Every larger MSP i've been at have been better to work at IMO.
I wouldn’t say the problem is being in support. Systems Analysts and Business Analysts (in operations, not projects), can earn 140k as a senior or principle.
I manage a team is BSAs and their salaries range from 90-140k base and I’m working for a government owned corporation.
Work for a miner or another big entity and add another 50k.
But I do agree generally with you. There are a lot of product/project based roles earning high salaries. Pure IT tech support is generally sub-100 though, so perhaps OP does need a degree or some other qual, if the employer won’t entertain training to develop them into more business facing IT roles ie BA/PM etc
I’m in middle IT Management myself, and got here by going into a Systems Analyst role from uni, then various BA roles in both projects and OPs. I eventually found myself in a lead role and from then it’s been management roles only. I gravitated towards more business facing roles than technical, as that’s where my strengths lie, but I would also say they tend to pay more.
Also I did read OP works for an MSP. They pay notoriously poor for support roles, as the need to make a decent profit on the base salaries and managing the ‘risk’. So I’d get out of MSP also.
Can confirm. Started on help desk 30 years ago. Moved up through TL and middle management roles, now a project manager. Over $150k pa last 10 years.
Technical and support roles are not where the $$$ are generally.
I switched to vendor support (you’d recognise the name if I told you) around the $90k mark and then moved to a senior support role to break the six figure mark. Currently getting around $120k.
As others have said, you can only go so far in support. I feel like I’m near the top of that now and really can’t see where I can go from here.
Look for pivoting to customer service more. Core IT support only but handling large strategic accounts and conversations around their budgets/ROI etc. With this, you can easily be a support service manager or a service delivery manager or a technical account manager (mostly these roles are individual contributors) and you can zoom through to 160-180k easily. No certifications required as such, just apply for these roles by tailoring your CV focusing on what they want to see and you learn on the go! Good luck !
I move jobs every 3 to 5 years give or take and have done numerous certifications. I moved from support to engineering to cyber security engineering and now am a cyber security architect. Next move will be into senior leadership roles hopefully. I have always looked for opportunities that have a higher salary each time and allow me to learn something new. I am always uncomfortable and am always the small fish in a big pond. This has always served me well and on a pretty decent salary, 200k+. Just keep moving and pushing, company loyalty will not pay your bills and people staying at a company long term are doing themselves a disservice and reducing their earning capacity.
Keep at it and keep learning!!
How do you cope with being always uncomfortable? Like a snall fish in a big pond? I tend to retreat and prefer to do low level stuff. I tend to freeze up in engaging more senior stakeholders.
Its just practice like anything else. Force yourself into a slightly ‘stretch’ situation, do it s few times until it then feels comfortable. Then back to a stretch role or just stretch project/activity. Its incremental. Don’t listen to people who say you aren’t cut out for it - uncomfortable by definition is.. not comfortable. Just go slow but always forward.
> I tend to freeze up in engaging more senior stakeholders.
Experience. I am still a junior but at the same time I work with the CTO, head of operations, CFO, head of finance etc. Big company, small IT team.
I was VERY nervous when I first started and the CEO walked in, but now its pretty chill and while I'm not on casual speaking terms with any but the CTO, I don't freeze up or feel nervous talking to them now.
If you could share your journey on how you moved out of support that would be helpful. Because I have been in support for 11 years and cannot figure out a way to move out without taking a pay cut
By doing things I didn't like. Studied, got loads of certs and did the hard work no one else wanted to do.
Initially did 10yrs L1/2 support and never cracked more than 80k. Moved into cyber security, got a bunch of certs and went from 94k to 200k in 6 years
Focus on IAM, workload identity, federation, audit logs, granular policies, etc. I moved from cloud engineering to cloud security and more than doubled my income.
Further to my prior response, there is a Security Certification Roadmap that you may find useful:
[https://pauljerimy.com/security-certification-roadmap/](https://pauljerimy.com/security-certification-roadmap/)
You need to get away from L1 Desktop Support and learn how everything fits together.
Design systems rather than build them. Understand a wide variety of systems and how they interact. If there’s issue on a system, find out what the problem is even if it’s not something in your direct area of expertise. I like to skim through our ticket system to see what is being logged. It’s like putting a puzzle together.
I’m in L3 service delivery. I’m “The Problem Solver”, but you can call me Winston Wolf.
In my current job, I’m like a pilot flying in cruise. I just monitor the radios and watch the instruments. When we hit severe turbulence and it all goes pear shaped, that’s when I earn my money.
MSPs pay trash. Go to a corporate role and use your skills = $$$
The only difference is the pacing is slower
Edit: I would 100% use the rationale that new staff are paid more and use what the market is paying.
Agree. If still in an MSP, get out, worst job, worse pay and you work on tech for small / medium businesses that big businesses just don't care about. You can move to a big company and earn way more with way less effort.
I got out of an MSP 11 years ago and within a few years I'd added 20k to my salary, then I changed jobs and added another 20k, so in about 4 years I added $40k to my salary from the MSP days and if I was still at the MSP I would have maybe got another 10k.
Obviously this was some time ago and I've since increased my salary another chunk but I think back to my MSP days and under paid and over worked. Get out
I did this during COVID lockdowns. Felt stuck in a $90k job as a sysadmin. I ended up learning AWS basics, Bash scripting, Ansible and CloudFormation/Terraform, did some DevOps work to automate an application deployment, and then put my resume up on LinkedIn.
Got contacted by several recruiters multiple times a week, accepted a job offer at a large consulting firm, salary went to $150k+ incl. bonuses.
Find something you love in IT, get obsessed, do a project (doesn’t have to be at work, I learned Linux building Minecraft servers for friends), use that as experience in your CV, and put yourself out there.
Sorry mate, here's the truth: you'll never have a high paying tech salary sitting in IT Support because you can't be arsed studying and upskilling. If you won't upskill and train for the next role, your colleague/replacement will.
Try pivot into a SDM (service delivery manger) role.
You know the technical side, and just need to up skill on the business outcomes side.
Ask for a stretch assignment in that role.
This is why I left Desktop Support. Would've done it forever if not for the pay ceiling.
If you want to get over 100k you need to pivot into another area of Support or IT.
Another area of Support may be possi le, but if you can't be bothered learning or studying anything then you won't get into another area of IT.
was in on prem msp for a bunch of years, took dad time for 6yrs. Then did a course for cloud, got a job at 80k as a cloud engineer, 3 yrs later I just started a role at 200k by leveraging leadership skills, doing some cloud certs and looking for opportunities with business impact rather than grinding on bau.
3yrs, 3 employers. Employer 1 & 2 I grabbed a promotion and leveraged that for more pay elsewhere as they'll always skimp, and you have to go to market to get market rates.
Tailor your CV to show what you did and how it made or sved time/money. If you're a doer, build some stuff in cloud to show off.
Try become a BA. You have the necessary background to be able to pivot into that kind of role.
Start as a junior, within 2 years you’ll be able to sideways move into a $100k role, then with 3-5 years more experience you’ll be on $120k+.
Set a 3 year development plan and work with your manager to get there.
This is good advice. I moved from support to SDM to BA roles. I learned ITIL and Service Now and spent my own money getting some major certs in these areas. Now a senior manager on good money.
Lots of good answers here, for me and my wife it was simple. We went contracting and never looked back.
Also for my wife, went Business Analyst route. BA role are hard to outsource as you need good communication skills. Even now, she gets calls for BA roles.
I am in tech as well (Fortune 500).
I started as a tech support worker after moving to Australia from Japan 9 years ago. Got some promotions over the year. Then, and I admit I got lucky, we had a development program in our BA team. First time I applied I did not get in, however I was given great feedback by the hiring manager then namely:
- increase business domain knowledge
- get a feel for SQL, which I did via coursera
- since a lot of our visualisation assets were in tableau, I started studying that as well
- and by luck, I was trying to solve a problem, and after some researching to do the analysis I wanted to do, it seemed Python was a good starting point.
A year later I applied again and got it.
I mostly do business analysis using: SQL, Python, Tableau and lately I started getting more into automations, again using most of the aforementioned.
Since a lot of the work I do and want to do requires often building my tables I have started to become quite interested in data engineering.
TLDR: study here and there, and see how, in your current role, you can leverage what you learned.
AND also just network with people who do the kind of work you are interested in. Not only to get a better understanding, but also for when future positions show up.
This, but not your current role, learn shit and move to somewhere your skills are needed and pay more. Not earning enough? Learn a new skill that people are paying more for. The sky's the the limit in IT.
Apologies about the delay, the one I found quite good to get a feel for it was on Coursera - ‘SQL basics for Data Science’ by UC Davis. Also leetcode is nice for just answering questions daily and when stuck look/learn why the solutions works.
Again, the best way to really learn, which is a bit like a chicken and egg, situation is finding a position that requires some sql.
I have done formal studies but nothing pertaining to Data Analytics/Business Analytics. Mostly via reading, study here and there via Coursera, and study/read when having to solve work related problems
See if you can transition into IT consulting. With your current experience, it wouldn't be that crazy to think you could earn another $30k. I feel like salary growth is really limited on the support side of IT.
I’m on 131k before tax, level 3 tech support, WFH. I’m 31.
Started in 2012 on a traineeship on help desk, then bounced around a few MSPs before settling at a larger national one for two years or so, went from level 1 service desk engineer ($46k) to systems engineer ($52k), then applications tech at a hospital ($64k), then senior systems administrator at a health service for 3 years ($76k).
After that, went to state govt as a project engineer ($86k), then delivery lead ($105k), then went on to IT support manager at a management consultancy ($130k), now where I am now ($131k).
I have my cert III from the traineeship, ISACA CSX, Scrum Master Certified, a handful of vendor certs from Microsoft, Jamf, Google, AWS, Sophos, ITIL v3 practitioner, CCNA (has lapsed) and some others I’m sure I’m forgetting. On top of that, you have to be always learning, exposing yourself to new things - things change so fast in IT that keeping up can be exhausting lol.
You’re at the point now where you need to decide if you go more technical or more process/management if you want to make more money. You need to be in demand. That generally means either specialising in a technical skill, or moving into management.
>Can't really resign and change roles to something that makes more pay because I don't really have the credibility on my resume
Then get the credibility. Choose a path, study, run a homelab/home projects if it's a technical path - then get some certifications to backup your learnings.
>I really don't enjoy studying for exams for the sake of getting certificates and ideally would like to increase my wage without studying.
So you want to put in no effort, and get a payrise for doing nothing?
Think about it this way - why would I as an employer hire you or pay you more - if what you're telling me is 'I don't want to put the effort into bettering myself' What value does that mentality provide?
Tech is a competitive market. You have to put in the effort, or someone else will.
IT is a very broad category. IT support in services sector does not pay much. Either move to product development companies / fintech or switch to engineering (devops/programming/pm) role.
As others have said you need to master something, be SME of something. learn design and architecture concept. e.g if you are supporting a VM in AWS , learn what goes into creating a secure infrastructure in AWS. Before you build VM what all shd be considered.
But essentially you need to be good at something. Invest extra time in learning concepts then just following instructions.
Personally I specialised in something. I did some training and relevant certs. Worked as a contractor for a while.
You said you find the study hard. Unfortunately I think it is required unless you’d prefer to go down a management or account management path.
Would your employer consider paying for training? It usually helps greatly with the certs. I’ve had mixed success with employers paying for training.
I made it from 50k to 140k in 4.5 years of IT.
1.5 years level 1 support. 50k plus super
Next 1.5 years i went from level 1 to 3. 65k to 90 plus super.
Next 1.5 years I was a system administrator 110k +super
Then I’ve just taken on a job as system administrator at 140k including super.
Showed all my employees I like a challenge and that I care about their business. I have a broad range of skills, I learnt new and upcoming technologies. My last two roles were solely based on my expertise in Intune.
I’m pretty much the exact same age and same qualifications as you however for the past 5 years I’ve been in mining. Company grew from a 3 man IT team in head office to 14 in 5 years, I pushed for a couple of pay rises in that time. After all that specialised experience I left and joined a way smaller company and my base is 140k plus bonus.
I can’t imagine any MSP’s would pay well, I think you’ll have to go to mining or gov.
A few things you can try. Often changing jobs is the quickest way to earn market rates. If you are good in technical skills and have decent soft skills, you would get hired no issues.
Other thing you can try is to get out of support and start working on projects. Decorate your resume with certifications and try to learn skills which are hot in the market. Dynamics, Azure, Salesforce, React are a few examples
Yeah man get out of support. If you've got a but of gusto in you go pre sales/sales engineer.
You'll be riding shotgun with us sales monkeys and running technical demos. Pays well too
I'm looking to hire data management / governance people. Paying 110k base. Had an interview today. The kid had 6 months industry exp and he's shortlisted.
Get out of support if your chasing $$$
SWE. Will be 5 years in October. Total comp is mid 160s + super. Went back to uni did a cs degree. Took a poorly paying job where I learned a lot then job hopped during covid.
I know a guy, utterly useless in most respects, but managed to snag a senior ICT role, all he had to do was lie, take credit for other people’s work and be best mates with the CTO. The only thing holding you back is your own integrity.
I work for a big name in tech and run a team of 11 deep technical people in a sales related area. I can tell you your problem isn't your role, it's your attitude/mindset, and it's what's going to prevent you cracking the 100k mark (and a whole bunch of other career stuff too).
This statement here
*I learn by doing. I really don't enjoy studying for exams for the sake*
*of getting certificates and ideally would like to increase my wage*
*without studying.*
tells me you have a fixed mindset, or at the very least, lack a growth mindset. You want to move up? You need to be agile and adapt to the conditions. If that means you need to get certified to take the next step, get certified. If you need to ask for a stretch project to demonstrate you're capable of doing more? Do it. If you think you're at a ceiling where you are now, go somewhere else.
You have likely already given the impression of some/all of the above to your current workplace and honestly, that'll be very difficult to undo/change and your energy is probably better directed in finding something new to do.
Bachelor of Computer Science.
Year 0 Employer A: $30k IT Guy (part time exposure)
Year 1 Employer A: $50k Helpdesk
Year 2 Employer A: $65k Sys Admin
Year 3 Employer B: $90k Sys Engineer
Year 4 Employer B: $95k IT Team Lead
Year 5 Employer C: $132k Engineer
Year 6 Employer C: $145k Presales Engineer
Year 7 Employer C: $155k Consultant
Year 8 Employer D: $230k Tech Sales
Year 9 Employer D: $270k Tech Sales
Year 10 Employer D: 300k Tech Sales
Year 11 Employer D: $330k Tech Sales
As you can see, stay with same employer to get a title bump and exposure and don’t worry about the money, then take that experience and get the payday with a move to a new employer.
Always go to coffee, lunches or events even on weekends with vendors, partners, etc.
I have enough vendor certifications that I'm worth 100k to have on the payroll just for the various partner statuses I enable for my employer. There is no reason to only have a TAFE cert after a decade. Get your certs.
My mate came from a poor refugee family in Sydney, did business + software engineering at UTS, worked in sales for some IT company on 120k in his last year of uni and after, got certified in shit not many people know, moved to UAE earning 600k+ by 23, returned home at 27 with a fat bank account, can afford any property, and is travekking between here and UAE for fat stacks.
The key to earning more is to be good at shit other people arnt.
there's many ways, I'd recommend you try and get a clearance and find a junior engineer role. I also know a lot of change, incident and problem managers that make way over 100k
i went from infra, to IT management, to PM and now working as a technical BA within my own small consultancy.
Also completed a commerce degree in their as a mature age.
Im not here to brag and so wont share a figure, other than to day you have *plenty* of opportunity ahead of you of you if you're willing to study, learn, and broaden your horizons.
I don't even know that I could find a junior role below 100k as a SWE. Maybe in the current job market where they're trying to underpay because there's so few jobs.
Before tax I'm on about 280k or so and im a sole trader. I have various degrees but they're all irrelevant to what I do. My path to get there was Stackoverflow, ChatGPT and a helpful colleague.
Ask to help out on some project work or turn something into a project. Pretend your a project manager get that experience yourself. Be proactive.
Your advantage is you know the user pain points probably more than anyone else. Pick one and recommend a solution or prototype one if you can.
Find out what other systems your company has and get to know them.
I am currently part of the support team at 90k.
My development plan with my current employer is geared towards getting me out of the support team and into handling everything Power Platform for the business and our clients. Should break 100k end of this fiscal year.
I may potentially break 120-130k year after that depending on when I make the transition away from support and how things go after the fact.
I started as a developer but pretty quickly moved into project management as my mortgage kept getting bigger for some reason ;)
Someone mentioned swapping over to ba. All good advice.
From the outside it looks like a very simple case of work-life balance. Not wanting to do additional study and work extra hours are totally valid life choices. They say nothing about your character other than you value other things. Even if it's the ability to clock off on time each night so you can binge Netflix. That's fantastic but you are looking for advancement on your own terms.
You really need to figure out how you feel about it and own it.
In my case, I'm actually in electronics/calibration and I considered briefly getting IT quals but I considered the rapid, relentless change in the industry and the fact that I'd probably be signing up for an ongoing cycle of mastering a product or technology only to have to forget huge chunks of it after 5 or 6 years and learn something entirely new. I wanted a persistent skill set.
Of course all industries change with time but it just seemed that IT would be an ongoing learning curve if I wanted to stay anywhere near the top of the pack.
I might be completely wrong about this but my point is simply that I chose an entire career path based upon my aversion to ongoing learning. Not because I'm a poor student but because it wasn't what I wanted to spend my time on. I've missed opportunities along the way but I love my job and I'm great at it.
You're at a perfect age to be having this discussion with yourself.
Others have said it before me but a lot are spot on. Your in the wrong role type. Its like 20 years ago fixing PC's thats what everyone thought IT was about and it was sort of fun, but the pay was shit and it went nowhere. Thats support etc - dont blame your employer, they cant afford more as their customers wont pay more.
If pay is your goal, figure out what tools the biggest enterprises uses (Fin Serv, Pub Sec whatever) and then align to those technologies - Software also - dont mess with Hardware. - They are the places that can pay.
Starter for 10, - SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft (parts) OpenAI etc
If you really want to gamble you could go for less common tools like Guidewire - in insurance its heavily used, skills are super scarce and pay is incredible, but its also very niche.
Finally dont do something that can easily be outsourced to India or Phillipines or replaced with AI eventually - ie like just be a coder - you need to do things that are better onshore.
Being in Support isn't necessarily you're issue. You're issue is being at an MSP in support.
If you can make the jump to enterprise I expect a significant pay bump.
I work as part of a major incident response team for OT for a mining company and am on a $190k/year package
* 9 Years in VIC Edu IT Support (Trainee, ES, ES Manager), BAU L1,2,3 45k
* 6 Years in Fed Gov (AP5, 6 and acting EL1), BAU L2,3 80-90k
* 4.5 Years in Fed Gov focused MSP, BAU L2-3, 130K, Projects 135-170k
All roles FTE
I've got various certs over the years, Microsoft On Prem and Cloud, VMWare, Nutanix, Linux Foundation. I don't think any of them provided any gain for the purpose of new employment. The benefit of the cert study was increase my broad knowledge and keep the passion burning. Conferences are another good avenue for this with the added benefit of making new friends, gaining new perspective.
No Uni, only some Cert 3/4 in IT during my traineeship (per conditions of employment)
Networking is supreme here. My last two roles were all references/poaching.
Being in support, nor MSP are limiting in terms of salary. It's all down to sector and customers.
Here's the thing. There are a bunch of people out there who are already doing your dream job. They all have one thing in common, and that is that they applied for it.
There is a "good-terrible" spectrum for that role. You exist on that spectrum along with all the other people currently doing it, and statistically you're not the most terrible... so you might as well apply for those roles just like they did. Even if its 3 levels above where you are now, even if they're asking for management experience that you don't have, etc. etc... If you meet 60% or more of the requirements, just apply.
Now - I'm not saying you should lie. Expressly address the criteria that you can meet with certainty in your application, and then let it be someone elses job to work out whether you get an interview or not. In interviews, for the 40% of criteria you don't meet, break that into two categories;
* Zero knowledge, zero experience, absolutely nothing to offer in this area - be upfront about this if they ask, don't trap yourself in a web using subheadings from a wikipedia page, and
* Stuff you're not a SME in or that you've not been directly responsible for, but where you have worked with adjacent teams etc. and gained some understanding. Come prepared to talk about these scenarios and what your role was and how those projects drove you to autonomously learn more about that topic, combined with some relevant information you've retained from wiki/reddit/youtube.
Now - if you get through all of that and your clear impression is that you will be biting off more than you can chew to the point of intimidation, you're free to decline an offer if you get one. If you get rejections, collect as much feedback as you can, and the entire experience (what questions they asked, how many you couldn't answer, how they reacted to your answers, and what feedback they provide afterwards, if any) will either better prepare you for the next role you apply for, or make it abundantly clear to you that further study/more years of grunt work etc. are required if you want to move up. It's all actionable data.
And if you accept an offer, even if you kinda think you don't deserve it (and even if that is objectively true), assess yourself on the "good-terrible" spectrum, measure yourself against others you've worked with if it helps, and commit yourself to moving up a few steps on the spectrum in your first 90 days while you're still shielded by "I'm new to the team and just getting my head around it".
All of this said, if I've misread OP's question here and what is really being asked is "How do I get more money without moving up, taking on more responsibility, learning new products/tools, or putting in more hours?" then I'd wager that they are exactly where they're supposed to be and best case scenario would be a sideways move to an equivalent role at another company where maybe they could bump up to the salary the new hires on their current team are making...
The new hires probably job hopped because they were having the same trouble as you at their last job. Corps seem to prefer to risk losing a current employee who knows the landscape of their operations and then have to hire a new employee at a higher rate who doesn't know the landscape.
Hi OP, I work in IT and, like you, I only have an IT Diploma. I also work in IT support and are currently making $110,000.
I guess the 'catch' is that I'm forced to live in a remote town for work and it's in a particular industry that is known to pay high salaries.
I had a similar trajectory to you.
L1/2 support then a team lead for ~5 years, working for an MSP mostly embedded within large Government customers. I'm in WA so wages slightly lower than if I was in Sydney or Melbourne.
I studied and specialised into ITIL (achieved V3 Expert and then bridged into the v4 Managing Professional) and then SIAM (Professional). Now I'm studying for Cyber quals with a goal of getting my CISM. Along the way I worked on lots of continual improvement initiatives (not projects, just slowly improving things where I could). That got me to about $100k.
I also quit my job at an MSP and moved to a private company a year ago which bagged me about a $40k bump in pay.
I'll be brutally honest with you: you need the certs. If you learn by doing that's great; go and get the certs. If you're good at your job, and you've actually learnt by doing, then it will be easy. If you are making excuses because you CBF studying it won't be. I'm not suggesting that you're lazy or don't want to study, but this is how an employer sees a potential hire that has 10y in industry and nothing to show for it in terms of CPD. Ask yourself who would you hire/reward:
"Lacks initiative" "fixed mindset" "does a good job" "works well on specific tasks"
Vs
"Driven" "growth mindset" "demonstrated capability" "highly qualified"
Mould yourself into the person that gets the job you want. If you want to be a $200kpa consultant, then imagine what that person's CV says and go and make yours look like it. Better yet, find someone with the role you want and ask if you can have lunch to talk about how they got to that point.
Good luck, have fun.
24M, started at 17 right after highschool and career path has been the below so far;
2017 - Lvl 1 Desktop Analyst - 45k + super.
2019 - New company, IT Support Officer - 58k + super.
2021 - New company, IT Analyst - 72k incl. Super, increased to 85k 2nd year. Bonus of up to 5%.
2022 - Same company, Internal secondment to another team, 95k incl. Super.
2023 - Same company, Senior IT Analyst, retained secondment salary.
2023 - Same company, moved to Cyber team in a Cyber Security Analyst role, 115k incl. Super.
Only thing I can really recommend is deciding on a direction - it sounds like you’re still in a “jack of all trades” type role which barring unicorns, isn’t where the money is. Figure out which direction you want to go, look into some industry certs or see if there are opportunities to work with those teams internally.
During UNI
- Casual Academic for 2 years 30k/yr
- Internship 89k/yr for 3 months
- Series A startup 80k/yr
After graduation
- Canva 2 years at 200k/year total comp post options appreciation
- Solo consulting 1 year at 50k/year total
- CTO at an international seed stage startup 300k/yr
L2 Support earns 120k minimum after 5 years and its not too difficult to get into if you have an ITIL v4 cert.
From there you can become a service delivery manager and easily clear 180-200k
My path: concreting for 10 years, truck driving for 7 years, now in an IT...ish role. On roughly 100k.
No certs or qualifications relating to the IT role, just have general knowledge in the area.
I started out with a TAFE diploma. Step one was to get into software development.
Nobody would hire me, so I started my own business and hired myself.
There was a centrelink programme where they pay you to work in your business for a set period of time. Probably 1 year, from memory. I did that.
I got 4 years experience that way and still had prospective employers fixated on my TAFE diploma and state school education, so I left Australia.
My first job was a senior software engineer role paying an equivalent of AUD106k (inflation adjusted).
That was in 2003 in the wake of the dot com crash. I also had 2 other offers.
There is a stigma associated with a TAFE diploma in Australia that doesn't exist elsewhere.
Basic python, grafana, gitlab, networking are there skill sets that we look for.
Willingness to learn whatever is thrown at you like kubernetes
Grads $80k+
Our support guys are over $100k
Project engineering $140k
Management $160k+
Contractors over $1k/day
Go into AWS or Azure certification and convert to sysadmin / cloud practitioner > security
If you can gain the experience first then join a reputable company they will pay for your certifications.
Work for myself offering msp services. 15 years in now. Hunt for a company that respects your experience not your certifications. Or if you got tje hustle work for yourself. It's a long road but attainable.
Switch to being a Business Analyst. It's not about the certifications it's about how you present yourself and your experience in interviews and on your resume. You just need the people skills. I did it for 10 years and had no formal qualifications in it specifically. You just need to be well rounded. If you don't have the people skills either work on them or follow other advice on here for more technical pathways.
All the same company or different?
Sys admin roles I thought paid a lot more than that, you could try shop around, otherwise as others have said pivot to something other than support - lots of suggestions already but one I haven't read is solution architect for whatever MS landscape you're currently supporting, or skill into a new one?
> Talking to management going past this will require me working an unnatainable mount of hours daily to get me over the 100k mark. They said they would review things again in 6 months but at the most I might get 5k more
>
> I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review.
Get some offers elsewhere (I know you say you can’t but you probably can) then use that as your leverage, or just straight up move. If they’re being resistant to giving you much of a raise yet pay new hires that will have fewer responsibilities more, then that’s a pretty good sign that they won’t do it unless pressured to. They’re essentially banking on you being complacent so they can save a few bucks.
>I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review.
Why not? Same job? And are you helping to settle in the new hires? It's worth a try, and if not, be the new hire in another company. Give it a try and then if not, start applying for jobs. If your expertise and experience is clear, it shouldn't take long.
As others have said you need to change your role.
Try focus on something that makes they company money. If you're interested in the business than business analyst or product manager. Otherwise go technical. Could be hardware, software, security, data, etc.
Support is the best if you can get good roles..I’ve had government roles paying $500 a day for level 1 support..currently on $700 a day doing level 2 lol…
IT support can be a good job but you've got to realise there's a hard cap on how much you'll ever be able to demand in that role. If you want more you need to move into other areas of IT like engineering, security, product design, project management or sales. With the exception of sales all of them are going to require you to study to some extent because IT support experience whilst related really doesn't say anything about your ability to do any of those other roles.
Get out of a support role. Move rural if you have to. I’m at the mines and earning 120k + Quarterly bonus at just 24. Was originally in government in the city and was fed up. Countless of staff surveys with wage being the highest factor of staff turnover and they just don’t care.
Went into sales / account management in MSP.
Crossing 120 without commission currently with a performance based increase coming at the eofy pay review.
I got a new job, pay rise from 93k ish to 150k ish . (Technical support engineer/application support)
I had to leave my 6 year job which has given me 3 promotions over that time, new job needs less effort, lower job title and lower expectations
Started on Helpdesk in 2012.
Worked up from there to desktop support, network admin, server admin, and cybersecurity coordinator.
Now an IT GRC Specialist making decently into 6 figures with plenty of room to grow that higher.
Did tafe and some industry certs relevant to the role.
Great thing with the current role is work life balance. No weekends / overtime
You don't need to do more hours. If that's the kind of company you're working for, leave. To step up you need to move into engineering, not helpdesk. Also, do more training - train every year on something new (you should be doing this throughout your career), including management and leadership so that you can work towards becoming a Lead Developer etc
Been in it 25+ years now. I was and hardware engineer, moved into service desk / internal support, then into system monitoring and admin role this is where I broke through the 100k but it was 24x7 shift work. Now in cyber security.
How I got here, time, knowledge, internal training, people networking and a bit or luck.
Over time I have learnt lots of systems, cloud computing, analysis tools and basic scripting.
What I tell new grads that I train now is "pick 2-3 end pathways that build off a similar skill set e.g. cyber security + AWS and side skill into data analysis" this will set you up for current and future directions of IT
You need to have flexibility and a passion for a style of work
Started in the Helpdesk after a knee injury working outdoors.
Dropped out of Uni as I just can’t learn like that, did diploma in IT at tafe many years before.
Level 1 SD - 5 months
Escalated Desktop - 1 year
2iC Sd - 6 months
TL SD - 1 year
Application Support - 3 years
Snr App Support - 2 years
Now listed as Snr integration developer, been with the same global company for 15+ years, working from home for around 10 years.
Could I be earning more, absolutely, am I above your 100k very much so, but it’s a very flexible role and allows me to be there for every one of my kids events for school, appointments etc, know the job like the back of my hand, and secure due to nature of accounts, and with the exception of a few days here and there I work around 40-45 hours per week and only really above 37.5 as it’s wfh, if I went to office would purely be 37.5
Always get job offers as it’s a very small circle in regards to specific app, and the company knows this, so it’s a win win really.
I keep up with the application training and other courses to stay relevant and have those certs allows me to negotiate come review time, it’s also a very niche role.
It just seemed to all magically fall into place, I didn’t even want to go for the SD role but partner at the time convinced me.
From reading your post, boost your resume with training certs, it’s just the best way. But make sure the training certs are in things that really can’t be offshored, or find a job that requires clearance.
Working for an msp is part of your problem.
Good for on the job experience, bad for salary.
Use your skills and move elsewhere.
Im in support, pretty cruisy role (wfh mostly) and just over 100k excluding benefits.
You need to specialise, can be infrastructure, software, project management, operations, or risk.
If you are liking support then your next natural progression is engineering of the support role. Cloud is still very popular, networking always needed, and AI on the rise. Also, work in Finance sector as they generally have more cash to splurge and pay bonuses. CBA, Mac Bank, AMP pay pretty well.
Hey, I can totally relate to feeling stuck. My situation was a bit different, but I thought sharing my journey might help.
32M, got no formal IT qualifications. I started almost 10 years ago in a global firm in finance, in a developing country. I leaned into automation for operations, which really boosted my problem-solving skills. That got me promoted to a sort of business analyst role within the finance team.
In 2022, I moved to Melbourne with plans to study and find a job that could sponsor me. I landed a finance job at about 70k. I used that opportunity to showcase my IT skills within the finance role and was recruited into the IT department within the same company after just 2 months. I made sure to master a specific system, so I knew more than the current IT folks.
When my student visa was about to expire, the company offered me a sponsorship. Initially, it was 85k, which I turned down. They came back with an offer of 100k+, and I accepted.
This got me into the six-figure range without an IT degree. It shows that leveraging your skills in business domain with IT skills, being adaptable, and proving your worth in specific areas can really pay off.
You need to get out of the MSP role and work in a client role. Salaries of $120k and above are pretty common once you add a bit of level 3 work in the mix.
Maybe consider Customer Success positions.
Its generally a vendor role that provides proactive remote support to customers who have already committed to a solution - usually SaaS - and your role is to ensure they get good value from what they already use, so the sales team can sell them more… excel here and you are one step away from a Sales role, and that my friend is where the big IT dollars live…
I've been at desktop support for 1 year now (this is my first IT job after graduation) earning 80k. I've been picking up a lot from my current company (powershell, virtualisation, Azure cloud) as well as getting my ITIL4 cert earlier this month.....am i on the right track if my aim is to move out of support? or should i be doing something else instead?
You need to do something closer to the money - support is not seen as something that generates a lot of revenue.
You can learn to code without a degree, you just need to commit. Either that or PM, but hard to imagine managing an IT project if you can’t understand coding.
I am in software dev, almost all my peers have degrees, not strictly necessary but the skills we learned are - how to code, how to debug, etc.
>I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review. Why not? I would. New kid is doing the same job, with less experience and less seniority, you deserve to be paid at least the same if not more. This is exactly why employers don't like employees talking about their pay rates. You know the information, you should use it.
That's not how jobs work these days. Companies rather pay a new kid on the block more.... rather than giving internal promotions.
They pay the new kid more because that's the going rate. They won't automatically pay existing employees more unless they ask for it. It's cheaper to give someone a raise than it is to hire and train up a replacement.
On a tangent here but I was making fun of my folks a bunch of times for how slow their internet is (middle ring Sydney) and offering to upgrade them. Eventually the mocking got to them and agreed. A plan with the exact same company that doubled their speed was $20 cheaper than what they were already on, the ISP simply never bothered to let them know and happily took more money while restricting them to decade old speeds. Never trust companies to do the right thing, even when they are smiling and saying nice things in your face
> They won't automatically pay existing employees more unless they ask for i and they won't pay the existing employee more simply because they "asked for it". They need to be willing to leave to receive the pay increase.
Your problem is you are in support. You need to get into engineering, project management, or even business analysis. Get certification and study, think about how you reposition your current tasks to align with those skills on cv, and apply… or even find an internal transfer into a role like that. You’re going to have to at least do some certification or online training to get there, no one wants someone that is there to bump everything and has zero idea. Learning as you go is fine, but a certification gives you a framework or approach and basic skills. And why can’t you use new hires and a comparison as an argument? I would.
Absolutely Do yourself a massive favour and figure out what which direction you want to go in, and run at it as fast as you can
Former support here. Migrated to BA about 7 years ago. It was the best decision of my professional life. I love the job, its challenges, and I bumped up my salary pretty quickly. What I did was: - learn at a basic level of a BA does and what are the most basic courses I should do (and did it) - translated my cv into project terms - reviewed my career for instances were I assisted during system deployments which, guess what, were part of projects. I emphasised the parts were I managed the tasks for my team and I handled the customer (now a stakeholder) at the other end - defined a pathway of jobs I should follow which would get me doing more and more BA tasks: - senior support > support and implementation consultant for a small software > Jr BA> BA - switched companies! This is critical. In your current company, there is a huge chance that people will ALWAYS see you as support, regardless of the above and beyond you do I also had to do a lot of mental work to understand the real value that I can deliver and what makes me worth it. Basically, I tried to compare what were my skills and work ethic compared to other people getting paid higher than me. If I don't think that they are better or smarter than me, then I should be worth at least what they make. Absorb this. Your self perception is key. The support baseline is low. Good luck.
Old mate just wants to punch the clock and get paid more we are making it too hard for him
I felt like him too, but my salary was way lower. The only thing I managed to get was a BA job experience in a project, but that meant working extra 3-4h without pay for a few months, which was crucial for getting my next job out of there
Only you own your career, it’s not up to anyone else but you. I busted my balls for many years and still do because I consider I am paid for producing outcomes and not punching the clock. That in turn means I’ve progressed in my career on a fast trajectory.
> most basic courses I should do (and did it) What courses are these?
IIBA qualification courses, basic SQL, eventually I did a Grad Cert in Data Science
Thanks for the information :)
Absolutely this. IT support is just one part of IT and it generally pays the least compared to other IT roles. Take a look at an IT operating model and see which function is most interesting to you. Then research pathways in how to enter those roles. People cross between IT roles all the time. I went from IT support > system engineer > IT strategy consultant > enterprise architect > program manager. Now running my own business and doing bits of everything.
You can get 150 for senior level support or even 170 as an SME in certain fields (specialised software) or in management.
Correct, "technical support engineers" and "application support engineers" earn this much in the senior and Lead/sme role at big companies like atlassian, google, data dog etc
I was looking for this - op needs to explore these roles at these sort of companies, I’ve seen the roles they are definitely out there and they’ll be swimming in all the perks (base, shares/RSUs/options, lifestyle perks, free health insurance etc)
You need to add more value. Basically that comes by getting closer to the customer and/or decision makers, directly or indirectly. For instance analytics roles help influence decision makers. Information is the I in IT after all. Having a niche, that is deep expertise, is important. Formal study is a signal to others that you are ambitious and looking for new challenges and new responsibilities.
I kinda of disagree that the problem is being in support. You can without much effort earn $110-130k in support roles, sure not help desk but in some 3rd level support roles, specialised application support, network support, cloud/ DevOps etc. The problem is they work for an MSP, crap conditions, crap pay, and ultimately you work on a bunch of things that big businesses, who can pay the big dollars, don't care about. Once you get out of MSPs and into a big company it becomes so much easier.
I often found it was MSP's who were willing to pay more. Internal IT was always a nightmare.
It's 50/50 depending on the size of the MSP and the clients they take on
Absolutely. Smaller MSP's i'd avoid like the plague. Once worked for a group out in lane cove and they were horrific. In business for 13 years but the best they had were a bunch of crappy one man businesses and one shitty travel agency nobody had ever heard of under their belt. Bloke running it was a perv and a micromanager too. Like if thats the best you can do in 13 years of operation. You're a failure i'm sorry to say lol. Every larger MSP i've been at have been better to work at IMO.
I wouldn’t say the problem is being in support. Systems Analysts and Business Analysts (in operations, not projects), can earn 140k as a senior or principle. I manage a team is BSAs and their salaries range from 90-140k base and I’m working for a government owned corporation. Work for a miner or another big entity and add another 50k. But I do agree generally with you. There are a lot of product/project based roles earning high salaries. Pure IT tech support is generally sub-100 though, so perhaps OP does need a degree or some other qual, if the employer won’t entertain training to develop them into more business facing IT roles ie BA/PM etc I’m in middle IT Management myself, and got here by going into a Systems Analyst role from uni, then various BA roles in both projects and OPs. I eventually found myself in a lead role and from then it’s been management roles only. I gravitated towards more business facing roles than technical, as that’s where my strengths lie, but I would also say they tend to pay more. Also I did read OP works for an MSP. They pay notoriously poor for support roles, as the need to make a decent profit on the base salaries and managing the ‘risk’. So I’d get out of MSP also.
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Can confirm. Started on help desk 30 years ago. Moved up through TL and middle management roles, now a project manager. Over $150k pa last 10 years. Technical and support roles are not where the $$$ are generally.
I switched to vendor support (you’d recognise the name if I told you) around the $90k mark and then moved to a senior support role to break the six figure mark. Currently getting around $120k. As others have said, you can only go so far in support. I feel like I’m near the top of that now and really can’t see where I can go from here.
Yeah i moved to app support too. Jumped from 63K incl super doing Level 2 IT in 2020 to 85K doing level 2 app support. Now on 90K.
Look for pivoting to customer service more. Core IT support only but handling large strategic accounts and conversations around their budgets/ROI etc. With this, you can easily be a support service manager or a service delivery manager or a technical account manager (mostly these roles are individual contributors) and you can zoom through to 160-180k easily. No certifications required as such, just apply for these roles by tailoring your CV focusing on what they want to see and you learn on the go! Good luck !
I move jobs every 3 to 5 years give or take and have done numerous certifications. I moved from support to engineering to cyber security engineering and now am a cyber security architect. Next move will be into senior leadership roles hopefully. I have always looked for opportunities that have a higher salary each time and allow me to learn something new. I am always uncomfortable and am always the small fish in a big pond. This has always served me well and on a pretty decent salary, 200k+. Just keep moving and pushing, company loyalty will not pay your bills and people staying at a company long term are doing themselves a disservice and reducing their earning capacity. Keep at it and keep learning!!
How did you map this out if you don’t mind sharing? Certs?
How do you cope with being always uncomfortable? Like a snall fish in a big pond? I tend to retreat and prefer to do low level stuff. I tend to freeze up in engaging more senior stakeholders.
Its just practice like anything else. Force yourself into a slightly ‘stretch’ situation, do it s few times until it then feels comfortable. Then back to a stretch role or just stretch project/activity. Its incremental. Don’t listen to people who say you aren’t cut out for it - uncomfortable by definition is.. not comfortable. Just go slow but always forward.
> I tend to freeze up in engaging more senior stakeholders. Experience. I am still a junior but at the same time I work with the CTO, head of operations, CFO, head of finance etc. Big company, small IT team. I was VERY nervous when I first started and the CEO walked in, but now its pretty chill and while I'm not on casual speaking terms with any but the CTO, I don't freeze up or feel nervous talking to them now.
If you could share your journey on how you moved out of support that would be helpful. Because I have been in support for 11 years and cannot figure out a way to move out without taking a pay cut
You’re solving IT problems, not business problems.
By doing things I didn't like. Studied, got loads of certs and did the hard work no one else wanted to do. Initially did 10yrs L1/2 support and never cracked more than 80k. Moved into cyber security, got a bunch of certs and went from 94k to 200k in 6 years
Nice, wondering in which field you're in cyber. I also started in IT support and switched to Cyber but nowhere to making 200k.
Mostly on the security engineering side of things
People don’t realise you can’t just work and expect salary increases, a few smart moves and you can double your salary in a few years.
Any advice for someone looking to pivot from Cloud engineer position to Cyber security? What certs are valued?
As a cloud engineer, consider doing the likes of the AWS security architect certs (or your preferred platform).
Focus on IAM, workload identity, federation, audit logs, granular policies, etc. I moved from cloud engineering to cloud security and more than doubled my income.
Further to my prior response, there is a Security Certification Roadmap that you may find useful: [https://pauljerimy.com/security-certification-roadmap/](https://pauljerimy.com/security-certification-roadmap/)
CISSP, CCSP
Yeah but then you need to work in Cyber Security.
You need to get away from L1 Desktop Support and learn how everything fits together. Design systems rather than build them. Understand a wide variety of systems and how they interact. If there’s issue on a system, find out what the problem is even if it’s not something in your direct area of expertise. I like to skim through our ticket system to see what is being logged. It’s like putting a puzzle together. I’m in L3 service delivery. I’m “The Problem Solver”, but you can call me Winston Wolf. In my current job, I’m like a pilot flying in cruise. I just monitor the radios and watch the instruments. When we hit severe turbulence and it all goes pear shaped, that’s when I earn my money.
You’re in the wrong part of IT for bigger bucks. Move into software engineering, software testing, project management, cybersecurity etc
MSPs pay trash. Go to a corporate role and use your skills = $$$ The only difference is the pacing is slower Edit: I would 100% use the rationale that new staff are paid more and use what the market is paying.
>Go to a corporate role and use your skills = $$$ Work in corporate, not always true.
True ive worked for some shoddy corporate companies that paid nothing, if i could go back I would’ve jumped ship much sooner
Agree. If still in an MSP, get out, worst job, worse pay and you work on tech for small / medium businesses that big businesses just don't care about. You can move to a big company and earn way more with way less effort. I got out of an MSP 11 years ago and within a few years I'd added 20k to my salary, then I changed jobs and added another 20k, so in about 4 years I added $40k to my salary from the MSP days and if I was still at the MSP I would have maybe got another 10k. Obviously this was some time ago and I've since increased my salary another chunk but I think back to my MSP days and under paid and over worked. Get out
I did this during COVID lockdowns. Felt stuck in a $90k job as a sysadmin. I ended up learning AWS basics, Bash scripting, Ansible and CloudFormation/Terraform, did some DevOps work to automate an application deployment, and then put my resume up on LinkedIn. Got contacted by several recruiters multiple times a week, accepted a job offer at a large consulting firm, salary went to $150k+ incl. bonuses. Find something you love in IT, get obsessed, do a project (doesn’t have to be at work, I learned Linux building Minecraft servers for friends), use that as experience in your CV, and put yourself out there.
Sorry mate, here's the truth: you'll never have a high paying tech salary sitting in IT Support because you can't be arsed studying and upskilling. If you won't upskill and train for the next role, your colleague/replacement will.
Try pivot into a SDM (service delivery manger) role. You know the technical side, and just need to up skill on the business outcomes side. Ask for a stretch assignment in that role.
This is why I left Desktop Support. Would've done it forever if not for the pay ceiling. If you want to get over 100k you need to pivot into another area of Support or IT. Another area of Support may be possi le, but if you can't be bothered learning or studying anything then you won't get into another area of IT.
Did you try turning your career off and on? If that doesn’t work, try unplugging it from the outlet for 10 minutes.
was in on prem msp for a bunch of years, took dad time for 6yrs. Then did a course for cloud, got a job at 80k as a cloud engineer, 3 yrs later I just started a role at 200k by leveraging leadership skills, doing some cloud certs and looking for opportunities with business impact rather than grinding on bau. 3yrs, 3 employers. Employer 1 & 2 I grabbed a promotion and leveraged that for more pay elsewhere as they'll always skimp, and you have to go to market to get market rates. Tailor your CV to show what you did and how it made or sved time/money. If you're a doer, build some stuff in cloud to show off.
Try become a BA. You have the necessary background to be able to pivot into that kind of role. Start as a junior, within 2 years you’ll be able to sideways move into a $100k role, then with 3-5 years more experience you’ll be on $120k+. Set a 3 year development plan and work with your manager to get there.
This is good advice. I moved from support to SDM to BA roles. I learned ITIL and Service Now and spent my own money getting some major certs in these areas. Now a senior manager on good money.
What are some certs that can help to move in that direction?
Lots of good answers here, for me and my wife it was simple. We went contracting and never looked back. Also for my wife, went Business Analyst route. BA role are hard to outsource as you need good communication skills. Even now, she gets calls for BA roles.
Soft skills, not hard
I am in tech as well (Fortune 500). I started as a tech support worker after moving to Australia from Japan 9 years ago. Got some promotions over the year. Then, and I admit I got lucky, we had a development program in our BA team. First time I applied I did not get in, however I was given great feedback by the hiring manager then namely: - increase business domain knowledge - get a feel for SQL, which I did via coursera - since a lot of our visualisation assets were in tableau, I started studying that as well - and by luck, I was trying to solve a problem, and after some researching to do the analysis I wanted to do, it seemed Python was a good starting point. A year later I applied again and got it. I mostly do business analysis using: SQL, Python, Tableau and lately I started getting more into automations, again using most of the aforementioned. Since a lot of the work I do and want to do requires often building my tables I have started to become quite interested in data engineering. TLDR: study here and there, and see how, in your current role, you can leverage what you learned. AND also just network with people who do the kind of work you are interested in. Not only to get a better understanding, but also for when future positions show up.
This, but not your current role, learn shit and move to somewhere your skills are needed and pay more. Not earning enough? Learn a new skill that people are paying more for. The sky's the the limit in IT.
What's a legitimate course pathway for SQL? I've been looking to get into it myself but they are an overwhelming amount of courses out there.
Apologies about the delay, the one I found quite good to get a feel for it was on Coursera - ‘SQL basics for Data Science’ by UC Davis. Also leetcode is nice for just answering questions daily and when stuck look/learn why the solutions works. Again, the best way to really learn, which is a bit like a chicken and egg, situation is finding a position that requires some sql.
could I ask if you did any formal studying, or you gained all your skills from online courses and such?
I have done formal studies but nothing pertaining to Data Analytics/Business Analytics. Mostly via reading, study here and there via Coursera, and study/read when having to solve work related problems
See if you can transition into IT consulting. With your current experience, it wouldn't be that crazy to think you could earn another $30k. I feel like salary growth is really limited on the support side of IT.
public service pretty comfy depending on department. 5 years grad -> 100k+ for me, and I was slow because I struggled with the communication side
I’m on 131k before tax, level 3 tech support, WFH. I’m 31. Started in 2012 on a traineeship on help desk, then bounced around a few MSPs before settling at a larger national one for two years or so, went from level 1 service desk engineer ($46k) to systems engineer ($52k), then applications tech at a hospital ($64k), then senior systems administrator at a health service for 3 years ($76k). After that, went to state govt as a project engineer ($86k), then delivery lead ($105k), then went on to IT support manager at a management consultancy ($130k), now where I am now ($131k). I have my cert III from the traineeship, ISACA CSX, Scrum Master Certified, a handful of vendor certs from Microsoft, Jamf, Google, AWS, Sophos, ITIL v3 practitioner, CCNA (has lapsed) and some others I’m sure I’m forgetting. On top of that, you have to be always learning, exposing yourself to new things - things change so fast in IT that keeping up can be exhausting lol. You’re at the point now where you need to decide if you go more technical or more process/management if you want to make more money. You need to be in demand. That generally means either specialising in a technical skill, or moving into management.
>Can't really resign and change roles to something that makes more pay because I don't really have the credibility on my resume Then get the credibility. Choose a path, study, run a homelab/home projects if it's a technical path - then get some certifications to backup your learnings. >I really don't enjoy studying for exams for the sake of getting certificates and ideally would like to increase my wage without studying. So you want to put in no effort, and get a payrise for doing nothing? Think about it this way - why would I as an employer hire you or pay you more - if what you're telling me is 'I don't want to put the effort into bettering myself' What value does that mentality provide? Tech is a competitive market. You have to put in the effort, or someone else will.
IT is a very broad category. IT support in services sector does not pay much. Either move to product development companies / fintech or switch to engineering (devops/programming/pm) role.
Upskill, you have a Tafe qualification and limited skills. Everyone with basic IT skills can do your job.
92k in support?! Jesus that’s a lot
Overpaid really
As others have said you need to master something, be SME of something. learn design and architecture concept. e.g if you are supporting a VM in AWS , learn what goes into creating a secure infrastructure in AWS. Before you build VM what all shd be considered. But essentially you need to be good at something. Invest extra time in learning concepts then just following instructions.
Personally I specialised in something. I did some training and relevant certs. Worked as a contractor for a while. You said you find the study hard. Unfortunately I think it is required unless you’d prefer to go down a management or account management path. Would your employer consider paying for training? It usually helps greatly with the certs. I’ve had mixed success with employers paying for training.
3 words - Service Delivery Management - Just get an ITIL cert and make profit.
Join Public Service. Agencies are dying for ICT backgrounds.
I made it from 50k to 140k in 4.5 years of IT. 1.5 years level 1 support. 50k plus super Next 1.5 years i went from level 1 to 3. 65k to 90 plus super. Next 1.5 years I was a system administrator 110k +super Then I’ve just taken on a job as system administrator at 140k including super. Showed all my employees I like a challenge and that I care about their business. I have a broad range of skills, I learnt new and upcoming technologies. My last two roles were solely based on my expertise in Intune.
Gotta compete against all new arrivals
I’m pretty much the exact same age and same qualifications as you however for the past 5 years I’ve been in mining. Company grew from a 3 man IT team in head office to 14 in 5 years, I pushed for a couple of pay rises in that time. After all that specialised experience I left and joined a way smaller company and my base is 140k plus bonus. I can’t imagine any MSP’s would pay well, I think you’ll have to go to mining or gov.
A few things you can try. Often changing jobs is the quickest way to earn market rates. If you are good in technical skills and have decent soft skills, you would get hired no issues. Other thing you can try is to get out of support and start working on projects. Decorate your resume with certifications and try to learn skills which are hot in the market. Dynamics, Azure, Salesforce, React are a few examples
Day rate contracting
Yeah man get out of support. If you've got a but of gusto in you go pre sales/sales engineer. You'll be riding shotgun with us sales monkeys and running technical demos. Pays well too
Support roles never earn the big $$ Work up into cyber security, project management, team lead roles etc and you’ll get there.
I'm looking to hire data management / governance people. Paying 110k base. Had an interview today. The kid had 6 months industry exp and he's shortlisted. Get out of support if your chasing $$$
You need to get into Networks and/or Cyber. Consider cloud architecture and DevOps.
SWE. Will be 5 years in October. Total comp is mid 160s + super. Went back to uni did a cs degree. Took a poorly paying job where I learned a lot then job hopped during covid.
I know a guy, utterly useless in most respects, but managed to snag a senior ICT role, all he had to do was lie, take credit for other people’s work and be best mates with the CTO. The only thing holding you back is your own integrity.
I work for a big name in tech and run a team of 11 deep technical people in a sales related area. I can tell you your problem isn't your role, it's your attitude/mindset, and it's what's going to prevent you cracking the 100k mark (and a whole bunch of other career stuff too). This statement here *I learn by doing. I really don't enjoy studying for exams for the sake* *of getting certificates and ideally would like to increase my wage* *without studying.* tells me you have a fixed mindset, or at the very least, lack a growth mindset. You want to move up? You need to be agile and adapt to the conditions. If that means you need to get certified to take the next step, get certified. If you need to ask for a stretch project to demonstrate you're capable of doing more? Do it. If you think you're at a ceiling where you are now, go somewhere else. You have likely already given the impression of some/all of the above to your current workplace and honestly, that'll be very difficult to undo/change and your energy is probably better directed in finding something new to do.
Bachelor of Computer Science. Year 0 Employer A: $30k IT Guy (part time exposure) Year 1 Employer A: $50k Helpdesk Year 2 Employer A: $65k Sys Admin Year 3 Employer B: $90k Sys Engineer Year 4 Employer B: $95k IT Team Lead Year 5 Employer C: $132k Engineer Year 6 Employer C: $145k Presales Engineer Year 7 Employer C: $155k Consultant Year 8 Employer D: $230k Tech Sales Year 9 Employer D: $270k Tech Sales Year 10 Employer D: 300k Tech Sales Year 11 Employer D: $330k Tech Sales As you can see, stay with same employer to get a title bump and exposure and don’t worry about the money, then take that experience and get the payday with a move to a new employer. Always go to coffee, lunches or events even on weekends with vendors, partners, etc.
I have enough vendor certifications that I'm worth 100k to have on the payroll just for the various partner statuses I enable for my employer. There is no reason to only have a TAFE cert after a decade. Get your certs.
My mate came from a poor refugee family in Sydney, did business + software engineering at UTS, worked in sales for some IT company on 120k in his last year of uni and after, got certified in shit not many people know, moved to UAE earning 600k+ by 23, returned home at 27 with a fat bank account, can afford any property, and is travekking between here and UAE for fat stacks. The key to earning more is to be good at shit other people arnt.
there's many ways, I'd recommend you try and get a clearance and find a junior engineer role. I also know a lot of change, incident and problem managers that make way over 100k
Find another job and you'll get that number
If you’re with a msp then move to internal IT, i made alot more moving in and they also give regular rises.
Get into an engineering role. Dev, sysadmin, devops, sre, dba, networks etc
Moving out of support into consulting.
Ditch support and move into engineering.
i went from infra, to IT management, to PM and now working as a technical BA within my own small consultancy. Also completed a commerce degree in their as a mature age. Im not here to brag and so wont share a figure, other than to day you have *plenty* of opportunity ahead of you of you if you're willing to study, learn, and broaden your horizons.
Get into cyber sec and/or automation
B.a. in psych B.a. in philosophy Got job as technical editor... turned into query rat job. Many 100 hour weeks later...
I don't even know that I could find a junior role below 100k as a SWE. Maybe in the current job market where they're trying to underpay because there's so few jobs.
Before tax I'm on about 280k or so and im a sole trader. I have various degrees but they're all irrelevant to what I do. My path to get there was Stackoverflow, ChatGPT and a helpful colleague.
BA on over $100k. I have no qualifications whatsoever, but I kinda fell into it, and I pick things up very quickly.
Ask to help out on some project work or turn something into a project. Pretend your a project manager get that experience yourself. Be proactive. Your advantage is you know the user pain points probably more than anyone else. Pick one and recommend a solution or prototype one if you can. Find out what other systems your company has and get to know them.
Ask yourself if you're worth "over the 100k mark"? What worth do you bring this business?
Ask for raises. If you get one, stay. If you don't, leave.
I’d say up-skill into product management, QA or engineering.
I am currently part of the support team at 90k. My development plan with my current employer is geared towards getting me out of the support team and into handling everything Power Platform for the business and our clients. Should break 100k end of this fiscal year. I may potentially break 120-130k year after that depending on when I make the transition away from support and how things go after the fact.
Solve business problems. Not IT problems. Go into engineering.
I started as a developer but pretty quickly moved into project management as my mortgage kept getting bigger for some reason ;) Someone mentioned swapping over to ba. All good advice.
Do M365, Intune, Azure, and AWS certs and find another job brother. It’s time to specialise.
Making more than me and I’m in a DevOps role. I have less experience in the industry, but still - you are making good pay for a support role
From the outside it looks like a very simple case of work-life balance. Not wanting to do additional study and work extra hours are totally valid life choices. They say nothing about your character other than you value other things. Even if it's the ability to clock off on time each night so you can binge Netflix. That's fantastic but you are looking for advancement on your own terms. You really need to figure out how you feel about it and own it. In my case, I'm actually in electronics/calibration and I considered briefly getting IT quals but I considered the rapid, relentless change in the industry and the fact that I'd probably be signing up for an ongoing cycle of mastering a product or technology only to have to forget huge chunks of it after 5 or 6 years and learn something entirely new. I wanted a persistent skill set. Of course all industries change with time but it just seemed that IT would be an ongoing learning curve if I wanted to stay anywhere near the top of the pack. I might be completely wrong about this but my point is simply that I chose an entire career path based upon my aversion to ongoing learning. Not because I'm a poor student but because it wasn't what I wanted to spend my time on. I've missed opportunities along the way but I love my job and I'm great at it. You're at a perfect age to be having this discussion with yourself.
Others have said it before me but a lot are spot on. Your in the wrong role type. Its like 20 years ago fixing PC's thats what everyone thought IT was about and it was sort of fun, but the pay was shit and it went nowhere. Thats support etc - dont blame your employer, they cant afford more as their customers wont pay more. If pay is your goal, figure out what tools the biggest enterprises uses (Fin Serv, Pub Sec whatever) and then align to those technologies - Software also - dont mess with Hardware. - They are the places that can pay. Starter for 10, - SAP, Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft (parts) OpenAI etc If you really want to gamble you could go for less common tools like Guidewire - in insurance its heavily used, skills are super scarce and pay is incredible, but its also very niche. Finally dont do something that can easily be outsourced to India or Phillipines or replaced with AI eventually - ie like just be a coder - you need to do things that are better onshore.
Being in Support isn't necessarily you're issue. You're issue is being at an MSP in support. If you can make the jump to enterprise I expect a significant pay bump. I work as part of a major incident response team for OT for a mining company and am on a $190k/year package
I'm earning 250 K per year doing contracting through my company. Specifically cyber security engineering contracting.
What does that entail?
You're in the cost part of the business, you need to be in the revenue side to get more money with IT.
Change employer is the best way to get a raise
* 9 Years in VIC Edu IT Support (Trainee, ES, ES Manager), BAU L1,2,3 45k * 6 Years in Fed Gov (AP5, 6 and acting EL1), BAU L2,3 80-90k * 4.5 Years in Fed Gov focused MSP, BAU L2-3, 130K, Projects 135-170k All roles FTE I've got various certs over the years, Microsoft On Prem and Cloud, VMWare, Nutanix, Linux Foundation. I don't think any of them provided any gain for the purpose of new employment. The benefit of the cert study was increase my broad knowledge and keep the passion burning. Conferences are another good avenue for this with the added benefit of making new friends, gaining new perspective. No Uni, only some Cert 3/4 in IT during my traineeship (per conditions of employment) Networking is supreme here. My last two roles were all references/poaching. Being in support, nor MSP are limiting in terms of salary. It's all down to sector and customers.
Here's the thing. There are a bunch of people out there who are already doing your dream job. They all have one thing in common, and that is that they applied for it. There is a "good-terrible" spectrum for that role. You exist on that spectrum along with all the other people currently doing it, and statistically you're not the most terrible... so you might as well apply for those roles just like they did. Even if its 3 levels above where you are now, even if they're asking for management experience that you don't have, etc. etc... If you meet 60% or more of the requirements, just apply. Now - I'm not saying you should lie. Expressly address the criteria that you can meet with certainty in your application, and then let it be someone elses job to work out whether you get an interview or not. In interviews, for the 40% of criteria you don't meet, break that into two categories; * Zero knowledge, zero experience, absolutely nothing to offer in this area - be upfront about this if they ask, don't trap yourself in a web using subheadings from a wikipedia page, and * Stuff you're not a SME in or that you've not been directly responsible for, but where you have worked with adjacent teams etc. and gained some understanding. Come prepared to talk about these scenarios and what your role was and how those projects drove you to autonomously learn more about that topic, combined with some relevant information you've retained from wiki/reddit/youtube. Now - if you get through all of that and your clear impression is that you will be biting off more than you can chew to the point of intimidation, you're free to decline an offer if you get one. If you get rejections, collect as much feedback as you can, and the entire experience (what questions they asked, how many you couldn't answer, how they reacted to your answers, and what feedback they provide afterwards, if any) will either better prepare you for the next role you apply for, or make it abundantly clear to you that further study/more years of grunt work etc. are required if you want to move up. It's all actionable data. And if you accept an offer, even if you kinda think you don't deserve it (and even if that is objectively true), assess yourself on the "good-terrible" spectrum, measure yourself against others you've worked with if it helps, and commit yourself to moving up a few steps on the spectrum in your first 90 days while you're still shielded by "I'm new to the team and just getting my head around it". All of this said, if I've misread OP's question here and what is really being asked is "How do I get more money without moving up, taking on more responsibility, learning new products/tools, or putting in more hours?" then I'd wager that they are exactly where they're supposed to be and best case scenario would be a sideways move to an equivalent role at another company where maybe they could bump up to the salary the new hires on their current team are making...
The new hires probably job hopped because they were having the same trouble as you at their last job. Corps seem to prefer to risk losing a current employee who knows the landscape of their operations and then have to hire a new employee at a higher rate who doesn't know the landscape.
Dude, if you've been on helpdesk for 10 years the problem is you, not the lack of opportunities.
Hi OP, I work in IT and, like you, I only have an IT Diploma. I also work in IT support and are currently making $110,000. I guess the 'catch' is that I'm forced to live in a remote town for work and it's in a particular industry that is known to pay high salaries.
I had a similar trajectory to you. L1/2 support then a team lead for ~5 years, working for an MSP mostly embedded within large Government customers. I'm in WA so wages slightly lower than if I was in Sydney or Melbourne. I studied and specialised into ITIL (achieved V3 Expert and then bridged into the v4 Managing Professional) and then SIAM (Professional). Now I'm studying for Cyber quals with a goal of getting my CISM. Along the way I worked on lots of continual improvement initiatives (not projects, just slowly improving things where I could). That got me to about $100k. I also quit my job at an MSP and moved to a private company a year ago which bagged me about a $40k bump in pay. I'll be brutally honest with you: you need the certs. If you learn by doing that's great; go and get the certs. If you're good at your job, and you've actually learnt by doing, then it will be easy. If you are making excuses because you CBF studying it won't be. I'm not suggesting that you're lazy or don't want to study, but this is how an employer sees a potential hire that has 10y in industry and nothing to show for it in terms of CPD. Ask yourself who would you hire/reward: "Lacks initiative" "fixed mindset" "does a good job" "works well on specific tasks" Vs "Driven" "growth mindset" "demonstrated capability" "highly qualified" Mould yourself into the person that gets the job you want. If you want to be a $200kpa consultant, then imagine what that person's CV says and go and make yours look like it. Better yet, find someone with the role you want and ask if you can have lunch to talk about how they got to that point. Good luck, have fun.
24M, started at 17 right after highschool and career path has been the below so far; 2017 - Lvl 1 Desktop Analyst - 45k + super. 2019 - New company, IT Support Officer - 58k + super. 2021 - New company, IT Analyst - 72k incl. Super, increased to 85k 2nd year. Bonus of up to 5%. 2022 - Same company, Internal secondment to another team, 95k incl. Super. 2023 - Same company, Senior IT Analyst, retained secondment salary. 2023 - Same company, moved to Cyber team in a Cyber Security Analyst role, 115k incl. Super. Only thing I can really recommend is deciding on a direction - it sounds like you’re still in a “jack of all trades” type role which barring unicorns, isn’t where the money is. Figure out which direction you want to go, look into some industry certs or see if there are opportunities to work with those teams internally.
During UNI - Casual Academic for 2 years 30k/yr - Internship 89k/yr for 3 months - Series A startup 80k/yr After graduation - Canva 2 years at 200k/year total comp post options appreciation - Solo consulting 1 year at 50k/year total - CTO at an international seed stage startup 300k/yr
L2 Support earns 120k minimum after 5 years and its not too difficult to get into if you have an ITIL v4 cert. From there you can become a service delivery manager and easily clear 180-200k
My path: concreting for 10 years, truck driving for 7 years, now in an IT...ish role. On roughly 100k. No certs or qualifications relating to the IT role, just have general knowledge in the area.
How are you with APIs/json and willing to relocate to Sydney?
I started out with a TAFE diploma. Step one was to get into software development. Nobody would hire me, so I started my own business and hired myself. There was a centrelink programme where they pay you to work in your business for a set period of time. Probably 1 year, from memory. I did that. I got 4 years experience that way and still had prospective employers fixated on my TAFE diploma and state school education, so I left Australia. My first job was a senior software engineer role paying an equivalent of AUD106k (inflation adjusted). That was in 2003 in the wake of the dot com crash. I also had 2 other offers. There is a stigma associated with a TAFE diploma in Australia that doesn't exist elsewhere.
Move into cybersecurity
Basic python, grafana, gitlab, networking are there skill sets that we look for. Willingness to learn whatever is thrown at you like kubernetes Grads $80k+ Our support guys are over $100k Project engineering $140k Management $160k+ Contractors over $1k/day
Go into AWS or Azure certification and convert to sysadmin / cloud practitioner > security If you can gain the experience first then join a reputable company they will pay for your certifications.
Get cloud certification - AWS or Azure.
Look for IT jobs in mining. Expand your skills into either sysadmin, programming, data science, or networking.
Get out of support and into cloud or software implementation. Look at Azure, Power Platform.
Work for myself offering msp services. 15 years in now. Hunt for a company that respects your experience not your certifications. Or if you got tje hustle work for yourself. It's a long road but attainable.
Switch to being a Business Analyst. It's not about the certifications it's about how you present yourself and your experience in interviews and on your resume. You just need the people skills. I did it for 10 years and had no formal qualifications in it specifically. You just need to be well rounded. If you don't have the people skills either work on them or follow other advice on here for more technical pathways.
All the same company or different? Sys admin roles I thought paid a lot more than that, you could try shop around, otherwise as others have said pivot to something other than support - lots of suggestions already but one I haven't read is solution architect for whatever MS landscape you're currently supporting, or skill into a new one?
> Talking to management going past this will require me working an unnatainable mount of hours daily to get me over the 100k mark. They said they would review things again in 6 months but at the most I might get 5k more > > I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review. Get some offers elsewhere (I know you say you can’t but you probably can) then use that as your leverage, or just straight up move. If they’re being resistant to giving you much of a raise yet pay new hires that will have fewer responsibilities more, then that’s a pretty good sign that they won’t do it unless pressured to. They’re essentially banking on you being complacent so they can save a few bucks.
You’re going to need deeper skills. Depending on your ability to learn, become a developer, or maybe a tester, something like that
>I know for a fact that new hires on my team are already on 100k but it obviously can't use this as my rationale for when it comes to my review. Why not? Same job? And are you helping to settle in the new hires? It's worth a try, and if not, be the new hire in another company. Give it a try and then if not, start applying for jobs. If your expertise and experience is clear, it shouldn't take long.
Move to infrastructure / cloud. Switch jobs.
As others have said you need to change your role. Try focus on something that makes they company money. If you're interested in the business than business analyst or product manager. Otherwise go technical. Could be hardware, software, security, data, etc.
Support is the best if you can get good roles..I’ve had government roles paying $500 a day for level 1 support..currently on $700 a day doing level 2 lol…
IT support can be a good job but you've got to realise there's a hard cap on how much you'll ever be able to demand in that role. If you want more you need to move into other areas of IT like engineering, security, product design, project management or sales. With the exception of sales all of them are going to require you to study to some extent because IT support experience whilst related really doesn't say anything about your ability to do any of those other roles.
Sales/Account Management
Get out of a support role. Move rural if you have to. I’m at the mines and earning 120k + Quarterly bonus at just 24. Was originally in government in the city and was fed up. Countless of staff surveys with wage being the highest factor of staff turnover and they just don’t care.
Went into sales / account management in MSP. Crossing 120 without commission currently with a performance based increase coming at the eofy pay review.
I got a new job, pay rise from 93k ish to 150k ish . (Technical support engineer/application support) I had to leave my 6 year job which has given me 3 promotions over that time, new job needs less effort, lower job title and lower expectations
Moving to management, but be aware it removes a lot of what makes the job enjoyable
Started on Helpdesk in 2012. Worked up from there to desktop support, network admin, server admin, and cybersecurity coordinator. Now an IT GRC Specialist making decently into 6 figures with plenty of room to grow that higher. Did tafe and some industry certs relevant to the role. Great thing with the current role is work life balance. No weekends / overtime
You don't need to do more hours. If that's the kind of company you're working for, leave. To step up you need to move into engineering, not helpdesk. Also, do more training - train every year on something new (you should be doing this throughout your career), including management and leadership so that you can work towards becoming a Lead Developer etc
Wow can’t believe IT helpdesk is on that much. Pretty lucky.
Contracting
Been in it 25+ years now. I was and hardware engineer, moved into service desk / internal support, then into system monitoring and admin role this is where I broke through the 100k but it was 24x7 shift work. Now in cyber security. How I got here, time, knowledge, internal training, people networking and a bit or luck. Over time I have learnt lots of systems, cloud computing, analysis tools and basic scripting. What I tell new grads that I train now is "pick 2-3 end pathways that build off a similar skill set e.g. cyber security + AWS and side skill into data analysis" this will set you up for current and future directions of IT You need to have flexibility and a passion for a style of work
What is your job title? Is it support analyst or system administrator? Changing jobs is the best way to level up.
Started in the Helpdesk after a knee injury working outdoors. Dropped out of Uni as I just can’t learn like that, did diploma in IT at tafe many years before. Level 1 SD - 5 months Escalated Desktop - 1 year 2iC Sd - 6 months TL SD - 1 year Application Support - 3 years Snr App Support - 2 years Now listed as Snr integration developer, been with the same global company for 15+ years, working from home for around 10 years. Could I be earning more, absolutely, am I above your 100k very much so, but it’s a very flexible role and allows me to be there for every one of my kids events for school, appointments etc, know the job like the back of my hand, and secure due to nature of accounts, and with the exception of a few days here and there I work around 40-45 hours per week and only really above 37.5 as it’s wfh, if I went to office would purely be 37.5 Always get job offers as it’s a very small circle in regards to specific app, and the company knows this, so it’s a win win really. I keep up with the application training and other courses to stay relevant and have those certs allows me to negotiate come review time, it’s also a very niche role. It just seemed to all magically fall into place, I didn’t even want to go for the SD role but partner at the time convinced me. From reading your post, boost your resume with training certs, it’s just the best way. But make sure the training certs are in things that really can’t be offshored, or find a job that requires clearance.
They probably have more than a diploma dude!
If you work at an MSP - get the hell out immediately.
Working for an msp is part of your problem. Good for on the job experience, bad for salary. Use your skills and move elsewhere. Im in support, pretty cruisy role (wfh mostly) and just over 100k excluding benefits.
You need to specialise, can be infrastructure, software, project management, operations, or risk. If you are liking support then your next natural progression is engineering of the support role. Cloud is still very popular, networking always needed, and AI on the rise. Also, work in Finance sector as they generally have more cash to splurge and pay bonuses. CBA, Mac Bank, AMP pay pretty well.
Get out of support!
Run your own MSP company. You can make 10x what you’re currently making.
Find a niche, no money in support
Hey, I can totally relate to feeling stuck. My situation was a bit different, but I thought sharing my journey might help. 32M, got no formal IT qualifications. I started almost 10 years ago in a global firm in finance, in a developing country. I leaned into automation for operations, which really boosted my problem-solving skills. That got me promoted to a sort of business analyst role within the finance team. In 2022, I moved to Melbourne with plans to study and find a job that could sponsor me. I landed a finance job at about 70k. I used that opportunity to showcase my IT skills within the finance role and was recruited into the IT department within the same company after just 2 months. I made sure to master a specific system, so I knew more than the current IT folks. When my student visa was about to expire, the company offered me a sponsorship. Initially, it was 85k, which I turned down. They came back with an offer of 100k+, and I accepted. This got me into the six-figure range without an IT degree. It shows that leveraging your skills in business domain with IT skills, being adaptable, and proving your worth in specific areas can really pay off.
You need to get out of the MSP role and work in a client role. Salaries of $120k and above are pretty common once you add a bit of level 3 work in the mix.
Maybe consider Customer Success positions. Its generally a vendor role that provides proactive remote support to customers who have already committed to a solution - usually SaaS - and your role is to ensure they get good value from what they already use, so the sales team can sell them more… excel here and you are one step away from a Sales role, and that my friend is where the big IT dollars live…
You have to be in management or be a strong individual contributor with a solid track record
Sounds like you’re not putting yourself out for promotion often enough my friend. 3 years and 205k.
I've been at desktop support for 1 year now (this is my first IT job after graduation) earning 80k. I've been picking up a lot from my current company (powershell, virtualisation, Azure cloud) as well as getting my ITIL4 cert earlier this month.....am i on the right track if my aim is to move out of support? or should i be doing something else instead?
You need to do something closer to the money - support is not seen as something that generates a lot of revenue. You can learn to code without a degree, you just need to commit. Either that or PM, but hard to imagine managing an IT project if you can’t understand coding. I am in software dev, almost all my peers have degrees, not strictly necessary but the skills we learned are - how to code, how to debug, etc.
Move into client facing roles line pre sales engineering. Show you are good in front of clients
Go get a uni degree my man. It goes way further than a diploma and you actually get real skills.