TRANSFORMING

FROM THE TOP

For a CIO or CTO at a FTSE 100 in London, you could be looking at a typical salary of between £160,000-£230,000 or £125,000-£165,000 respectively.

 

At a FTSE 250, these roles could earn up to £150,000 and £125,000 respectively. At an SME, CIOs, CTOs and IT Directors can earn up to £125,000, £120,000, and £110,00 in London and the South East, although these roles typically earn less in other regions of the UK. A Head of IT, Service Delivery, Development, IT Security, or Business Intelligence will typically earn between £65,000 to £95,000.

 

Contracting day rates will vary. As a CIO or CTO at a FTSE 100 in London, your day rate would typically be around £1,350 or £1,200, or around £1,200 and £1,000 respectively at a FTSE 250. Day rates for CIOs, CTOs and IT Directors at SMEs in London and the South East are generally in the range of £900 to £1000. A Head of IT, Service Delivery or Development can expect between £700 to £850 in London.

Seeing the big picture is key to senior leadership success. Having a holistic understanding of the impact of IT decisions on teams and dependencies is crucial to successful technology and resource allocation, making soft skills vital.

 

You’ll need to be highly technical, but also able to translate complex technology strategies to those operational functions, communicating with finesse to secure buy-in from key stakeholders.

 

The strategic deployment of resources is also essential, with skills needing to be matched effectively to business needs. This goes for the information being captured as well. Is it being effectively used? Is it driving growth? The right decisions need making at the right time.

The tech market – both tech-focused organisations and technology functions – is strong, as is the demand for skills. During Covid-19, businesses in eCommerce and EdTech, as well as gaming and streaming services experienced a considerable boost and their investment is continuing.

 

There’s also been a massive surge in companies pushing their digital agenda in cloud infrastructure, cloud database (AWS Azure, Google Cloud), specialist cloud software development (Dynamics 365, SharePoint, Salesforce), cyber security, data analysis and visualisation – all of which require an inspiring and innovative technology leadership team to realise extensive digital transformation.

Thanks to AI and augmented decision making, legacy infrastructure and data models could soon be impeding the success of new machine learning technologies. In response, many organisations are taking steps to deploy new approaches.

 

These include next-generation cloud-based data stores to support more complex modelling and analytics to identify random data connections.

 

We could be entering an era where machines will not only augment human decision-making but make real-time decisions that humans aren’t able to. As a tech leader today, you’ll need to navigate these changes – securing investment and buy-in where necessary.

If you’re thinking about taking the next step into leadership, qualifications in your technical area are valuable, such as Prince, PMI, PMP and Agile certifications for project and change expertise, TOGAF for architects, Lean/Six-Sigma for processes and Scrum for engineering. That said, proven professional results and key personal attributes are far more important than any qualifications.

 

The best tech leaders around all have key traits in common. Excellent team leadership and mentoring skills, strong internal and external stakeholder management, brilliant communication skills, a demonstrable commitment to lifelong learning and development, and, crucially, the ability to craft a clear strategic vision coupled with the persuasive leadership skills to realise it.

If you’re passionate about digital transformation and want to contribute towards a company’s future, we have a selection of jobs within the tech industry sure to suit your skillset and salary requirements. Browse our latest opportunities to find everything from IT sales executive jobs to IT and development manager positions, to technology programme delivery leads and software engineer roles. Wherever you’re based in the UK, you’ll find an executive leadership role near you.