Our annual Halihax member survey takes a look at compensation and skills of the Halifax tech community. If you missed last year's survey, you can read the report in this earlier post.

If you aren't familiar with our community, and have stumbled across this data organically, please check out our About Page to learn more about our group and how we came to be.

Survey results



This year's survey feedback saw requests to dive deeper into the details of remote work, overtime and well-being of our community. We also augmented the survey to present a number of optional detailed segments that focused on on-call or support, and compensation raises.

Who are we as a community?

120 total respondents (↑ 47)

total (↑ 47) 654 members (↑ 234)

(↑ 234) 93.3% of respondents are university or college educated (↓ 1%)

of respondents are (↓ 1%) ‍ 32.5% of respondents work remotely (↑ 7.8%) ‍

of respondents (↑ 7.8%) 83.6% of respondents touch code daily (↓ 6.4%) ‍

of respondents touch (↓ 6.4%) Industry experience, median, of 8.0 years (↓ 1.0 years) ‍

experience, median, of (↓ 1.0 years) Role experience, median, of 1.5 years (↓ 0.5 years)

experience, median, of (↓ 0.5 years) 10% of respondents are actively seeking a new job

of respondents are 12.5% of respondents will seek a new job within 12 months

of respondents will 2.5% of respondents live outside of Nova Scotia

of respondents live Happiness score, median, of 4 out of 5 *

* Nightly sleep hours, median, of 7.13*

How is the community compensated?

Base salary , median, of $91,150 CAD (↑ 7.2%)

, median, of (↑ 7.2%) 35.83% of respondents were given stock options (↓ 3.9%)

of respondents were given (↓ 3.9%) 20.83% of respondents were given equity in their company

of respondents were given in their company 96.67% of respondents are paid in Canadian dollars (otherwise, USD)

of respondents are paid in (otherwise, USD) 83.33% of respondents are given health related benefits ( ↓ 0.3%)

of respondents are given ( 0.3%) 75.34% of respondents state they are happy with their compensation (↑ 8%)

of respondents state they are (↑ 8%) ‍ 37.8% of remote workers have access to a relocation package*

of remote workers have access to a 64.17% of respondents received a raise in the last year*

of respondents in the last year* 7.5%, median, reported salary raise percentage*

* New statistic this year

Pretty charts and distributions

Primary Programming Language

If you code, what is your primary language?

JavaScript leads with Python and Java following

Secondary programming languages

Which languages have you used in the last month?

JavaScript, Python, Java, Go Lang, PHP, Typescript, R, C#, Scala, Swift round out the top ten languages

Time Horizon of Seeking New Opportunity

In what timeframe might you be seeking a new opportunity?

49 respondents are open to but not actively seeking a new opportunity

Salary vs Programming Language

Median salary by programming language



Highest salaries are centred around

Salary vs Company size

Median salary by company size

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Salary vs Industry Experience

Annual base salary compared to years of industry experience



Salary vs Remote Work

Median salary of remote vs colocated workers

Remote workers make $15,000 more in median salary

Salary vs Hours worked

Annual base salary compared to reported work hours per week

Salary vs Sleep

Annual base salary compared to reported sleep hours per night

Salary vs Happiness

Annual base salary compared to reported overall happiness (out of 5)

Reasoning for salary increase

For those who reported receiving a raise in the last year

28 respondents indicate their raise was performance oriented

Perceived In-Demand Skills

What skills do you see as in-demand currently?

DevOps, Javascript and React are the most reported in-demand skill

Compensation for overtime work

For those who reported participating in overtime

44.5% of respondents report not being given additional compensation for overtime work

Additional compensation for on-call or support

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

43 respondents report participating in on-call activities, where 51% indicate they are not provided additional compensation

Opt-in or assigned on-call duties

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

A majority of on-call participants are assigned this duty

Frequency of on-call rotation

For those who reported on-call or support being part of their role

34.4% of on-call participates are permanently assigned

What are you looking to get out of Halihax?

Write in answers include: React or JS meetups, Information on salaries for negotiation purposes, and to support and be supported by peers.

Most of our community members are looking to stay connected with locals

Where are employers based?

For those respondents who work remote, where is their company based?

Halifax, NS

Boston, MA

Charlottetown, PE

Fredericton, NB

Mountain View, CA

Nanaimo, BC

New York City, NY

Ottawa, ON

Salt Lake City, UT

San Francisco, CA

Toronto, ON

Vancouver, BC

Join our community

We’ll let you draw your own conclusions on the data as the survey isn’t entirely scientific. Hopefully it gives you some insight into what the tech salary landscape is like in Halifax.

Anyone is welcome to join in on the action by applying through our website. We simply ask that members follow our community guidelines.

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