How the right skills can boost your salary by up to 21 per cent

A new report has revealed the premium employers are willing to pay for workers with the right skills. See how you can get ahead.

Tech-savvy workers are boosting their pay by as much as 21 per cent, with the average Australian gaining $7700 a year by having digital skills.

New research by RMIT Online and Deloitte Access Economics analysed the salaries on job ads that did and did not explicitly request digital skills, uncovering an average difference of 9 per cent – or $7700 a year.

The gap was lowest for professional roles (3 per cent) but especially high for technician and trades roles (21 per cent) and community and personal service roles (19 per cent).

RMIT Online chief executive Helen Souness says the smaller digital premium among professionals suggests digital literacy is now considered a core capability in those fields, whereas a tradesperson with digital skills has a very clear advantage.

Tech-savvy tradies earn on average 21 per cent more than their less skilled counterparts. Picture: iStock

Souness says the digital transformation accelerated by the Covid pandemic has made these skills more important to employers than ever before.

“Even small shops have become e-commerce stores,” she says.

“Everyone is needing those skills to become more efficient and accelerate growth coming out of lockdowns.

“We keep using the term ‘the future of work’ but it’s right now.”

MOST VALUABLE SKILLS

The Ready Set Upskill report reveals 9 per cent of employers believe general digital literacy (for example, the ability to use the internet and mobile applications) will be the most important skill for workers in the next five years – behind only leadership (13 per cent) and critical thinking and problem solving (10 per cent).

Another 7 per cent of employers say data science and analytics (for example, Google Data Studio, R, Excel) will be most important.

Souness says she has heard stories of university graduates struggling to differentiate themselves from other grads then doing a short course in data analytics and landing themselves a good job.

“Data is the fuel of the internet,” she says.

“Every single person could benefit from data analytics and data visualisation to explain decisions and bring them to life.

“It’s increasingly a core business skill and we hear that from employers all the time.”

RMITO’s Helen Souness says everyone can benefit from data skills. Picture: Supplied

But even just being confident with Microsoft Office or productivity tools is helpful.

Analysis of job advertisements in 2021 shows these were the third most frequently

requested skills by employers, behind customer service and project management, according to the report.

Souness says people do not necessarily need to do formal study to gain these skills.

“You can spend some time yourself becoming more competent and confident,” she says.

“You can get some wonderful content online.

“On YouTube, you can learn to put on eye shadow in ways that blow my mind or get tips on productivity tools.

“There is also LinkedIn Learning and so on.”

If you are looking to upskill but don’t know exactly which tools or software your future employer will need, simply choosing to study at all can give you an edge as it shows employers that you are a lifelong learner and curious.

“We know the shelf life of most skills is about five years so employers are very conscious that employees will need updating throughout their time,” Souness says.

“If you can prove you are a lifelong learner, we absolutely think that helps with a competitive advantage.”

According to the report, employers believe about a quarter (26 per cent) of their employees’ digital literacy skills are already out of date.

‘WE ARE HAPPY TO PAY A PREMIUM’

Bradford Products managing director Chris Kenny says he will “absolutely pay more” to hire a tech-savvy worker.

The manufacturing company, which creates stainless steel products from pools to commercial kitchens, has 25 employees across blue collar and white collar roles.

“In general, it’s easy to find people with base level skills across software or digital platforms (but) what is difficult is to find advanced users or above-average skills,” Kenny says.

“It’s the people that have those advanced skills that add value in a business.

“We test people (in the interview process) if they are going to be using specific software.

“If someone has invested in their own development, that is a bonus for us and we are happy to pay a premium for that.”

Bradford Product’s Chris Kenny pays more for workers with advanced tech skills. Picture: Supplied

‘THERE IS NO MORE PAPERWORK, IT’S IPADS’

Melbourne fertility nurse Marita Voller was recently promoted to associate nurse unit manager at the hospital she works for, and says her digital skills played a large part in landing her the role.

“Nursing is very much about the patient care but part of this job involves rostering and managing of staff and checking the procedures, so I had to show that I was able to do the rostering via spreadsheets and emailing out to people … and to be able to run reports (off the software) and be more proficient than I thought I would ever have to be,” she says.

“IT skills are not something you think about when you sign up to study nursing.

“I learnt the skills from the people I took over from and also by doing some extra work on the side to know I am confident.”

Voller says the Covid pandemic has increased the need for digital skills in her field.

“We have set up a lot of our team to work remotely (and) we can Zoom patients,” she says.

“Medications and everything is via programs, not written prescriptions.

“There is no more paperwork, it’s iPads, which is very different to the way nursing used to be.”