In our second annual survey, in partnership again with ESG, we asked 383 Splunk practitioners to share the impact working with Splunk technologies has had on their career -- specifically, areas such as their compensation, promotability, career growth, job satisfaction, job security, their marketability, and the impact they’re having for their organizations. Overall, the research indicates that knowledge of and expertise with Splunk leads to increased compensation, more portable skills, and career advancement regardless of the domain to which they’re applied.
We’ve included all of the findings here for you, our wonderful community. Below is both a complete report, which details the findings, and a handy infographic, which highlights some of our most important takeaways.
Just some of the key findings we would like to call attention to include:
Practitioners Continue to Earn More Than Their Peers
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Splunk practitioners continue to enjoy higher salaries than their generalist peers, and in many ways, this year’s data shows that the gap may be widening, specifically in terms of salary and promotion trends.
- Splunk practitioners in an IT administration role earn 16% more than the average IT administrator with more than a decade of experience.
- Cybersecurity-focused professionals earn 22% more than the average cybersecurity professional with more than a decade of experience.
The difference year-over-year is also of significance, as Splunk practitioners reported earning 30% more than they did last year, outpacing the rate of inflation by 8.6x, and establishing a positive trend for our growing community of practitioners.
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“Splunk has opened many doors for me and enabled me to triple my yearly income since the time that I first started using the product.”
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High Degree of Job Security
“I was able to change companies over the past year thanks in large part to my knowledge of Splunk.
This resulted in a 20% increase in my salary from what I was making at my previous employer.” |
This year’s research also showed slight upticks in practitioners’ perceptions of being valued by their employer (more than 4 out of 5) and in practitioners’ confidence in their ability to quickly find a new job with comparable responsibilities and compensation (81%).
More respondents this year also reported feeling satisfied with their jobs (76%).
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Splunk Is Educating Practitioners and Preparing Both Them and Their Companies for a Cloud-First Future
| Few would argue that the last year or two has placed even greater importance on every organization’s digital transformation and journey-to-cloud, and this year’s research shows Splunk is preparing our practitioners well to keep pace. 61% of respondents reported participating in Splunk training courses and 49% reported having earned at least one certification. This year, respondents also reported a 64% increase in Splunk Cloud use year-over-year. This was the largest increase in product usage reported this year and is likely to continue to accelerate over time. As new Splunk products come to market, and as organizations continue their digital transformation journeys, it is clear that practitioners will continue to lean on Splunk to upskill and validate their abilities. |
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Splunk Is a Win for Both Practitioners AND Their Companies
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This year, 62% of practitioners say Splunk has helped them be more effective at their jobs, which was also their most frequently cited benefit this year. Most practitioners also report having identified multiple use cases for Splunk, and most of those identifying a secondary use case within weeks of their initial deployment. From the report:
- In IT operations use cases, Splunk has helped reduce downtime, and 66% cite a reduced number of events, which are faster to resolve.
- In cybersecurity use cases, 77% say Splunk is helping improve threat detection through data correlation, and 69% say it has shortened investigation cycles.
- In application development use cases, Splunk has helped the majority of organizations improve application performance and SLA adherence and gain new insights into the development lifecycle.
This leaves nearly 9 out of 10 practitioners believing their company to be in a stronger competitive position today than it would be without Splunk. And while practitioner salary and promotion trends continue to uptick, employers should take note that it’s not a zero-sum game, and that organizations that invest in best-in-class tools and talent tend to outperform their peers.
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“Splunk has helped me learn how to automate infrastructure deployment and setup with Ansible. I would not have a need for such tools otherwise.
Learning Splunk also kickstarted my willingness to learn new things, since the community is very active, and the documentation is thorough but readable.”
“Splunk gave me the opportunity to identify areas of waste in the organization. Leveraging Splunk and my skillset, I was able to create a new role for myself in the organization.”
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Have we piqued your interest at all? Then read the report and check out the infographic today. And if you’ve got some thoughts or comments, let us know below!
— Michelle Schlachta, Community + Content at Splunk
