TL;DR: Anonymous Poll ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’

The purpose of this anonymous poll is to create a clear, data-backed benchmark that allows everyone in the agile community to get an understanding whether her or his compensation is adequate.

The report will cover Scrum Master as well as Agile Coaches, both employed and freelancing.

To generate an acceptable first report, we will need at least 500 answers. A larger sample would allow providing more detailed insights, though.

Update June 8th, 2017

When we started the survey, I thought that we would collect data until May 1st, and have the report available by the end of May. That turned out to be a bit too optimistic given that four people are involved in creating the survey.

Therefore, we like to share in advance some of the findings from the 2017 Scrum Master Salary Report:

Women have astounding chances and salary possibilities in the field. (We could not identify a gender pay gap.)

The United States is the highest paying country for Scrum Masters, while India is the lowest.

Without some form of certification, getting into the career path is almost impossible.

Additional education has no effect on salary.

Some form of previous experience is often a prerequisite.

If you are in for the money, become a freelancer.

We are working hard to make the report available by the end of June—and we kindly ask for your patience… 🙏

The Scrum Master Salary Report will become an application: As we keep getting new replies—we have already more than 650 as of today—we are planning to turn the report into a small application you can query yourself.

Update May 1st, 2017

Things went much better than anticipated:

We gathered 523 replies which will provide the data for a relevant survey. I expect that the Scrum Master Salary Report 2017 will be available by the end of May. The next goal is to extend this dataset and build an application on top of it that is available for free, the Scrum Master Salary Calculator.

The more, the merrier – so please join the effort, and contribute to the ‘Scrum Master Salary Calculator’: Participate in the ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’ survey now…

The Free ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’

Thank you so much for participating in the anonymous poll to gather the data that is needed to create the first free global salary report for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches.

The purpose of this survey is to create a clear, data-backed benchmark that allows everyone in the agile community to get an understanding whether her or his compensation is adequate.

Despite its title “Scrum Master Salary Report 2017”, the survey also applies to freelancers, given that freelancers represent such a high percentage of the workforce in our industry.

The poll for the ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’ is anonymous. I will neither be notified about new entries nor will I regularly check for the next few weeks. The goal is to have at least 500 replies by the end of April so that the Hands-on Agile team can create the report in May. The complete report will be available for free.

On the confirmation page – once you accomplished the questionnaire –, you will find an email address. If you decide to notify me that you participated in the poll, I will provide you with a free copy of my upcoming guide “How to Get Hired as Scrum Master or Agile Coach.” (Which may take a while, though. I hope to publish it at the end of Q2/2017.)

Lastly, if this experiment proves to be successful, we will create a new “Scrum Master Salary Report” each year.

The Questionnaire

The poll for the ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’ covers 32 questions in six sections:

Personal information: Please provide your personal information. We’re aware of existing discrimination at compensation level in the tech industry. Help to uncover it. Professional background: What educational and professional background do you have? (Given that there is no formal education for our profession this information can provide career patterns. Industry: What industry are you working for? (We expect the IT as well as the finance industry to pay the highest remunerations. Also, larger organizations might pay better than smaller companies for the same position. Please help to verify the hypotheses.) Your current position: Please help us understand what you consider your current position to be – Scrum Master or Agile Coach –, and how it compares to your peers‘ jobs. Our particular interests are the agile maturity state of your current organization, the size of the product delivery organization, and the length of your tenure. Prior and current work experience: You are almost finished! The second last section is covering your working experience with Agile practices. Current salary or remuneration: Finally, the last question: What is your income as Scrum Master or Agile Coach? To be able to compare entries, you will need to normalize your answer, for example, convert your salary to US-$ – based on the current exchange rate –, if you are not paid in US currencies.

Participate in the ‘Scrum Master Salary Report 2017’ survey now…

Conclusion

Please forward the poll to colleagues and peers that might be interested in participating as well. The more data we can collect and aggregate, the better the outcome. Thank you in advance!