By Chelsea Babin

The IT industry isn’t the only industry in the market for qualified, talented, and hard-to-find technical professionals. And, according to a recent Dice Salary Survey, 63 percent of tech pros anticipate changing employers in 2017. The desire for higher compensation was a leading factor in their decisions, followed by better working conditions, more responsibility, and a shorter commute.

Employers everywhere are deploying cash to keep their best technology employees engaged and reduce IT turnover, but some industries are offering more than others. The latest edition of the Dice Salary Survey found that the banking/financial/insurance industries offer technical professionals the highest average salary this year, coming in at $103,860. This average is 1.3 percent above last year’s. And, the industry that came in a close second was the utilities/energy industry, which pays an average of $103,492 to their technical professionals, which is an increase of 2.1 percent from last year.

Those industries were the only ones to break the six-figure mark for average salaries, though several others came close. Aerospace & defense came in third with an average salary of $99,992. It was followed by the professional services industry, which offered an average salary of $98,506. Then the computer software industry came in fourth place offering an average salary of $98,455. Rounding out the top 5 was the computer hardware industry, which offers an average salary of $97,569 to technical professionals.

The industries offering the highest average salaries may not be surprising to many. But, when you consider the Salary Survey’s finding that the average tech salary in general in the U.S. stands at $92,081, it’s interesting to see that all of these industries fall well above the national average.

So what does this mean? In order to sway talented technical professionals from leaving their companies and to hire more technical professionals, many organizations are offering high salaries. And, according to the survey’s findings on technical professional’s reasons for leaving, these companies are investing in the right area. As 63 percent of technical professionals look for a new job this year, many are listing money as their primary motivating factor. In fact, 36 percent of technical professionals told Dice that they received a salary increase over the past year due to merit but 24 percent said their boosted salary came from switching employers. If employers aren’t offering more money to their current technical team as well as their new hires, they may lose some of their key IT players.

While salary isn’t the only factor at play when a technical professional decides to search for a new job, it is important for companies to keep in mind what the average salary is rising to in their industry so they can at least stay competitive, if not rise above the salaries offered by competing organizations.