ScrumMasters now garner higher paychecks than project managers, according to a report on AgileZone. After using the salary comparison engine on Indeed.com, author David Bland found that project managers salaries have not kept pace with ScrumMasters.

On 15 June 2010, the Scrum Alliance performed a similar comparison to verify Bland's results. We, too, found that the average job posting salaries for ScrumMasters were an average of 2% higher over the past year than those of project managers ($93,000 vs $91,000). According to the chart below, advertised salaries for ScrumMasters surpassed Project Mangers for the first time beginning in 2010.

Bland writes, "I cannot say that I’m completely surprised by this trend as I’ve witnessed first hand the influx of Certified ScrumMasters over these past 6 months. While I don’t have official numbers, I can tell you that I’m bombarded every day by requests for the LinkedIn Certified ScrumMaster Group. This is a group moderated by myself and a few others that requires an active CSM before approval. We even recently made a request to LinkedIn to increase the maximum group size as we’d hit their member limit."

The Scrum Alliance is encouraged by this indicator that companies are continuing to adopt Scrum and have a demand for ScrumMasters, even in these tough economic times. We are committed to increasing awareness and understanding of Scrum, providing resources to individuals and organizations using Scrum, and promoting the iterative improvement necessary to succeed with Scrum. 

Membership in the Scrum Alliance is open to graduates of CSM and CSPO courses, those who have completed the CSD track, and our Certified Scrum Professionals, Certified Scrum Trainers, and Certified Scrum Coaches.

_{posted by Rebecca T. Traeger (15 Jun 10)}