Digital Services Salary Guide

Executive Summary

Slower Salary Growth

The pandemic-fueled breakneck pace of salary expansion has slowed. While we still saw low-double-digit gains for Operations and Developer roles, they were significantly less than in previous years. Raises in 2023 averaged 7.7% across the board, and the outlook for raises in 2024 is muted at 4.5%.

While the total amount of employee turnover remained relatively stable, the reasons behind it have shifted. We’ve seen a complete reversal from primarily voluntary turnover to predominantly involuntary turnover.

Remote work has fully taken hold and is now the standard for the industry. Over two-thirds of employees are working remotely and another 30% are working in a hybrid arrangement. Those remote employees tend to be more experienced and thus drive average salaries higher for remote companies.

After rising dramatically in our 2022 Digital Services Salary Guide, non-salary compensation (bonuses and profit sharing) has declined across all roles. This was used as a key retention tool in 2021/2022 but was cut as agency sales stagnated in 2023 and layoffs increased.

Expected employee hours (billable and non-billable) are up two hours/week from our 2022 Digital Services Salary Guide. We saw a slight rise in the percentage of employees receiving unlimited PTO, but time-off varied widely based on role. Benefit levels remained fairly steady, but in another sign of tighter agency belts, stipends (other than education) shrank.

Owner compensation has grown since our 2022 Digital Services Salary Guide. Firm size is still positively correlated with overall owner compensation (excluding Large agencies). While owner compensation grew, overall benefit levels shrank slightly. Owners are working more hours, and their billable-to-non-billable ratio has remained constant.