A new report from TIGA has revealed that during 2014/2015 the average programmer’s salary rose more than other game development roles.

The statistics were gathered from 2,671 creative and specialist staff and 562 support roles from ten organisations based in the UK. 

TIGA reckons this is roughly a quarter of the UK games sector. 

Cutting through all the data, the report found that those working in technical programming roles have seen their largest median base salary increase by 3.7 percent.

This was down from the 4.2 percent rise in 2013, however.

Pay rise

In comparison, salary increases across other job descriptions ranged from 2.7 percent to a maximum of three percent.

Now in its sixth year, the yearly salary study meanwhile found that graduate pay had risen by 4.3 percent thus indicating “fierce competition amongst studios for the most talented graduates.”

TIGA also examined the number of game industry professionals being brought in from abroad.

It found that 80.7 percent were UK nationals, 15 percent came from other European countries, and 2.6 per cent came from the Asia-Pacific regions.

Those hired from abroad for programming roles were seen to earn an average of 25 percent more than British staff recruited from within the UK.

According to TIGA, this is likely because UK studios are looking to fill roles requiring specialist skills with overseas talent.