26 March 2025
Knowing your worth and earning accordingly is common sense. The global economy hasn’t been very strong in the past decade, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The future is not looking good either, as the United States has started a trade war with most of the world by imposing hefty tariffs. The rest of the world has imposed counter-tariffs, and the ones who suffer are the consumers.
In light of such developments and rising inflation, it is a no-brainer to earn more and maximize your earning potential.
The IT sector is one of the most popular yet underpaid sectors in the world. People in senior positions make all the big bucks, while the junior and entry-level positions are paid mere scraps.
So, today, we will teach you how to become more valuable and earn more in the IT industry.
5 Ways To Become More Valuable and Get Higher Pay
Before we begin, know that there are no shortcuts; you have to be able to work hard diligently to become more valuable and earn more. With that said, let’s check out the various ways you can get higher pay in the IT sector.
1. Up Skill To Relevant Tech Stacks
Upskilling is necessary in all industries if you want to increase your value and improve your salary. However, it has a particular significance in the IT sector due to several reasons.
In the IT sector, self-learning and being proactive are of great importance. Why? Because, unlike most jobs and trades, you have to stay updated on the latest tech stacks yourself.
Nobody will come and tell you to do it and if you don’t do it, your products and services will start to feel outdated and old. That is not a good look for yourself or your company. So, staying updated on the latest relevant tech stacks is kind of mandatory.
Additionally, if you do upskill yourself, you can use it to make a better position for yourself. Here’s how you can do it.
- Be proactive with solutions and ensure your bosses know it's from you.
- Use your new (or better) skills to show that you care about your career and are invested in your professional growth.
- Display that you are in touch with the market demands by showing certifications and skills necessary for meeting those demands.
These are qualities that can produce results which you can leverage to secure a promotion or a raise thus increasing your pay.
2. Learn Negotiating Skills to Get Higher Initial Pay
How much you get paid is dependent on how much negotiate during your hiring. Now, this may sound like a weird tip because you are looking to get a better pay in your current job not a new job.
The answer is that regardless of whether it's a new job or an old job, having negotiating skills is a boon in and of itself. Now, let’s discuss why securing a higher initial pay is good.
- You receive a bigger raise if they are percentage-based.
- You receive a bigger raise when you get promoted.
- Payouts for unavailed PTO (paid time off) become higher.
- You can negotiate higher pay in newer jobs when you move.
These are the reasons why securing a bigger pay at the start of a new job is necessary. Take the first point. If your salary is 6000 USD per month and your job provides an automatic 10% raise every six months, you will be earning 7260 USD after one year. However, if you were able to negotiate that initial salary up to 6500, then you would receive 7865 USD after a year, which is nearly 600 dollars higher.
Here are some ways in which you can negotiate a better base pay in a new job.
- Wait for the employer to make an offer first.
- Present a salary range instead of a fixed number.
- Always have multiple offers on hand to negotiate from a place of strength.
- Know your market value to avoid lowball offers. Use something like Paylab to get an accurate idea of your expected salary.
- Know the company’s budget to see what they can offer you. You can do this by checking public financial reports.
So, always look to get as high an initial pay as you can without overdoing it.
3. Look Into Acquiring Benefits
Sometimes, a company does not have more salary to offer due to budget constraints. In such scenarios, it is often wise to acquire other benefits that can help you out monetarily.
For example, if a company can’t meet your offer, then you can settle for a slightly lower one in exchange for things like:
- Medical coverage for you and your family
- Paid sabbatical once or twice a year
- More PTO
- Flexible working hours
- Hybrid work arrangements
And anything else that can improve your quality of life while working a job. The best thing about securing benefits like these is that you do actually save a lot of money. The reasons are that fewer medical expenses and paid vacations free up a lot of money for savings. Similarly, flexible working hours allow you to indulge in monetizable hobbies or pick up some side hustles that bring in some extra income.
4. Utilize Tools In Your Work To Improve Productivity
You can negotiate a raise and increase your pay by showing that you are more productive and efficient. Naturally, if you can prove that you are more productive and efficient, your intrinsic value will rise and that is a powerful negotiating tool to secure a higher pay.
In the IT sector, there are tons of tools you can use to improve your daily office work. Scripting and automation are your friends and will lead you to new heights of efficiency.
For example, a simple tool for text extraction from images like imagetotextconverter.net and imagetotext.io can reduce the time required to digitize documents and extract data from screenshots and images of files.
Simple task management tools like Trello and Asana allow you to prioritize specific projects and tackle them in an efficient way. These things may look small on the surface but they look really nice in the month-end performance reports.
In this way, you can enhance your value and hopefully negotiate a good raise.
5. Look for Paying Opportunities
One of the unfortunate truths of the IT sector in 2025 is that you have better chances of getting a higher pay if you look for a better opportunity. For reasons unknown, there has been a trend of companies that refuse to grant big raises to their existing employees but are willing to pay more to hire someone for the same positions.
Some research suggests that this is due to a phenomenon called reciprocity–i.e., employees will do well if they are paid well. But once again, this applies mostly to new hires rather than existing ones.
So, if you feel that your current employer is not paying you according to your worth, then start looking for other opportunities that do. This is one of the fastest ways to gain a pay raise in the IT sector so don’t discount it on account of complacency and comfort in your current job.
As a rule of thumb, you should look for a new, higher-paying job every one to two years and either use it as a negotiating tool or take it.
Conclusion
So, there you have it, the various ways in which you can improve your pay in the IT sector. The methods and options we discussed also included using alternative payment methods such as paid vacations and more PTO. One of the more important points was to know your worth and have excellent negotiating skills to avoid low ball offers.
Upskilling and looking for better opportunities were other options, and they are perhaps some of the best ways to increase your value and pay in 2025.
