Finding accurate salary data can be a somewhat daunting task, especially when dealing with anything Agile related. Recruiters sprinkle Agile terminology throughout online job postings with reckless abandon, however you can still sort through the noise to find useful Agile salary data. You only need to know where to begin.

Luckily for us, Indeed.com has opened up it’s salary data to the public.

Indeed Salary Search is based on an index of salary information extracted from over 50 million job postings from thousands of unique sources over the last 12 months. Many job descriptions don’t contain salary information, but there are enough that do to produce statistically significant median salaries for millions of keyword, job title and location combinations – in fact, most job searches you are likely to think of. As new jobs are added each day, the Indeed Salary Search index is automatically updated with fresh salary data, so the salary results are as up-to-date as they could possibly be.

Agile Project Manager & Scrum Master Salaries

At a glance there is an $11,000.00 gap between an Agile Project Manager and a Scrum Master, however I believe there is a good deal of overlap between these roles. Many employers have been pairing up the Scrum Master duties with Project Manager responsibilities even though they tend to be at odds with one another. From my experience playing Scrum Master & Project Manager in the past, these salary numbers are fairly close. I also find it interesting that Scrum Master data has remained quite steady in a fluctuating economy since Feb 09.

Agile Developer & Agile Tester Salaries

The 11% gap between Agile Project Manager & Scrum Master seems meager compared to this 47% gap between Agile Developers & Agile Testers. It seems that employers still undervalue testing regardless of the SDLC framework. For some reason the Agile Tester data cuts off around June 09, but you’ll notice correlations between the two roles. Agile Developer & Tester salaries seem to have taken more of an immediate hit than Agile Project Managers & Scrum Masters when the economy tanked in Fall of 08.

So what can we take away from all of this data?

I recommend using it to supplement other Agile Salary Surveys from companies like VersionOne & ASPE. Don’t let the job market get you down, and just because Agile is a relatively new framework, it doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily make less money pursuing it.