The Write The Docs Salary Survey gathers salary data for documentarians across the world, to help our community members determine what appropriate salary ranges are, and to provide a benchmark for future negotiations.
Here we present the results of the third annual survey, which gathered submissions between October 11 and December 20, 2021. Although employees and independent contractors filled out different survey forms this time around, all questions other than for Section 3 (Salary Information) were identical and the data from both forms was combined to produce this report.
In total, 959 documentarians (887 employees and 72 independent contractors) filled out the 2021 survey – a 19% increase from 2020 and a 48% increase from 2019.
In this section, we asked about the parameters of the respondent’s employment:
What we asked
Of the 959 respondents who completed the survey in 2021, 887 were employees (92.5% of the total) and 72 were independent contractors (7.5% of the total).
Although employees have historically made up the majority of all respondents, there has been a slight increase in the proportion of independent contractors each year - from 5.7% in 2019, to 6.8% in 2020, to 7.5% in 2021.
In 2020 we introduced an option for people who were unemployed (or in the case of independent contractors, who were not currently working any contracts). We asked these respondents to answer the questions as though they were still in their previous employment or contract situation.
This option was included in 2021, and 7 employees and 3 independent contractors selected unemployed as their status – only 1% of all respondents. By contrast, in 2020, more than twice as many respondents indicated they were currently unemployed - 18 employees and 2 independent contractors, or 2.5% of all respondents.
What we asked
As in previous years, most respondents worked traditional “full-time” hours:
One respondent entered more than 60 hours - that person reported working 70 hours each week.
Of the 4% of respondents who worked fewer than 31 hours per week, around half worked up to 20 and the other half worked between 21 and 30 hours. Notably, 56% of those working 30 hours or less were classified as independent contractors (29% of all contractors).
What we asked
With abbreviations expanded, typos corrected, and capitalization standardized, 270 distinct job titles emerged (versus 255 in 2020, and 207 in 2019).
“Technical Writer”, entered by 31% of respondents, was by far the most widely-used title, followed by “Senior Technical Writer” which accounted for another 20%.
The next most widely-used titles were a long way behind the frontrunners: “Lead Technical Writer” represented 3% of all respondents, followed by “Staff Technical Writer” with 2.2%.
What we asked
The majority of respondents (85%) placed themselves in the writer, content creator, producer or editor category, slightly down from 87.7% in 2020.
Of the remaining 15%, nearly half selected management - 7.4% of the total, an increase from 2020’s 4.8%. Developer/engineer made up ust under 20% of the non-writer categories - 2.9% of the total, up from 2.4% in 2020.
Support made up 7.7% of the non-writers - just over 1% overall. The remaining three categories each held less than 1% of the total each (advocate/community outreach, marketing, educator).
2% of the total respondents selected the Other category, and while some of these responses fit into the writer/content creator/producer/editor category, some indicated an evenly split role (e.g. developer and writer; writer and evangelist). Additional entered responses included product manager, quality manager, research, and strategy-based roles.
Respondents were asked to indicate if they worked primarily solo, as part of a team (either a team made up of people doing the same kind of job, or a multi-disciplinary team), as part of multiple teams, or as a manager or team leader.
0.5% selected “Other” and entered additional comments - these respondents were either split between solo and team, or consultants to multiple teams, or both managers and team members.
What we asked
Perhaps reflecting the job market upheaval caused by the pandemic, 31.7% of respondents reported having been in their current position for less than 1 year, up from 26% in 2020.
Of those respondents reporting more than 10 years in their current position:
Single respondents reported 24, 29, 32 and 35 years tenure – an increase from 2020, when the “high scores” in this category were single respondents each reporting 27 and 28 years.
What we asked
Not surprisingly for a community of documentarians, the largest proportion of respondents - 69% - reported that documentation makes up the whole of their official job description.
These ratios remain essentially unchanged from 2020 and 2019.
What we asked
The proportions for this question remained mostly the same as in 2020 and 2019.
In 2019, we included one question about work location: whether the respondent worked on site, remotely (at home, at a co-working space, or at another non-employer provided location), or a combination of the two; the possible responses were arranged to also show if the work location was stipulated by the employer, or the respondent’s own choice.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused upheavals in the way we work – not just in terms of work location, although moving from on-site office locations to remote work was a change that affected nearly 80% of the respondents. In 2021, although the pandemic is still ongoing, we’re adapting our lives to co-exist with it and while some of the changes to our work environment have been reverted, some others have become permanent, and others still are in a state of flux.
Note for this section: respondents were advised that if they have changed jobs during 2021 and the change was not due to COVID-19 directly, they should answer the questions from the perspective of their new employer.
What we asked
9. Has your work location (i.e. onsite, remote) been affected by COVID-19 (temporarily or permanently)?
Those who answered “Yes” were then asked:
9a. Before COVID-19, what was your work location?
9b. What is your current work location?
9c. What changes occurred to your work location as a result of COVID-19?
9e. How do you feel about the changes to your work location?
Those who answered “No” to question 9 were instead asked:
9f. What is your work location?
9g. How do you feel about your work location?
In 2021, 73.9% of respondents reported that their work location had been affected by COVID-19 - down from 80% in 2020.
As in 2020, of those who had their work location changed due to the pandemic, by far the largest group were those who changed from working onsite (i.e. in their employer’s premises) to working remotely (i.e. working from home or another location not provided by their employer) - this accounted for 45.6% of respondents.
Additionally:
In 2020, we asked respondents if they thought the changes to their work location would be permanent or temporary:
In 2021, given that the situation was still ongoing, we instead asked respondents about the current status of the changes.
The largest group (albeit only by a small margin) - 37.5% - reported that their work location change was temporary, but had not yet changed back. Another 34.8% reported that their work location change had become permanent.
Of the remaining responses:
The final 2.3% of respondents who indicated that they had experienced a work location due to COVID-19 selected “other” and entered more detail - most of these indicated that they were as yet unsure if the changes were going to be permanent or not.
As in 2020, we asked how respondents felt about the changes to their work location. In 2021:
For those 26.1% of respondents who indicated that their work location had not been affected by COVID-19, we asked where they work from, and how they felt about it:
The overwhelming majority of respondents in this category were happy with their work location:
What we asked
Note: If your employment has not been affected, please check “none of the above”. If you have changed jobs since the pandemic started, please only choose “I changed roles” if COVID-19 was a factor in this change.
Although work location was the big upheaval caused by the pandemic, changes occurred in other areas too for 61.8% of respondents.
In this section, we asked the all-important salary questions: how much respondents were paid, what additional benefits they received, and how happy they were with their salary and with their job overall. Independent contractors were able to specify whether they typically used an hourly rate, a day rate or a different payment structure.
2019 and 2020’s surveys asked respondents to indicate reasons that they were not completely satisfied with their salary, benefits and overall job. In 2021, in addition to asking these negatively-oriented questions, we turned the focus around and asked what aspects of their employment situation they felt positive about.
Both employees and independent contractors were asked to specify the currency they were paid in. Respondents reported being paid in 32 different currencies (10 different currencies for independent contractors). To make comparisons, all numbers were converted to USD using mid-market exchange rates averaged for the whole of 2021.
What we asked
11a. What currency are you paid in?
11c. What is your salary (including tax)?
Note: Please do not include the currency symbol or any decimal places.
11d. Is this a monthly or yearly salary?
As 96% of respondents reporting working traditional “full-time” hours (between 30 and 50 hours per week) or more, those working fewer than 30 hours have been omitted from the figures in this section, which represents the reduced result set of 871 full-time employees.
In previous years, we asked respondents to enter their annual salary, which resulted in some confusion for respondents from countries where salary is typically discussed on a monthly basis. This year, we allowed respondents to select whether they were entering a monthly or yearly salary (76.1% entered an annual figure, and 23.9% chose monthly). All monthly salaries were then multiplied by 12 to allow for comparison.
The median salary across all regions was USD $80,870 (meaning half of respondents earned more, and half earned less). This figure is slightly higher than the overall median in 2020 (USD $80,000), and an increase from the overall median in 2019 (USD $74,500).
Given the range of socio-economic differences in the countries in the survey results, median salary figures broken down by country of residence of employee is more useful than overall median salary.
In order to protect the privacy of respondents, median salaries are not shown for any country or region with less than 10 respondents. Countries excluded by this condition are:
In the salary results, clear correlations can be seen between median salary and years of experience, organization size, and gender identity.
Please note that due to the low number of respondents, non-binary and other gender identities could not be included in this section, and breakdowns by gender identity for Oceania, South America and Africa also had to be excluded.
The so-called gender pay gap, much-discussed recently, is apparent in the 2021 survey results. The global median salary for women, who make up 60.5% of employee respondents working full-time hours, is USD $77,390 - 9% lower than the median salary for their male counterparts (USD $85,000).
When broken down by region, the trend continues everywhere except for the Middle East (which in our results is actually only represented by Israel), where woman are paid 3.5% more than men. In Europe the difference is only 3.7%, but in Asia it is 26.3% - albeit with much smaller sample sizes than in North America or Europe.
Despite this obvious trend in most regions, only 1.6% of respondents indicated in the job satisfaction section that they felt discriminated against on the basis of gender.
When looking at all regions, the median salary for the most experienced respondents - those with more than 10 years of experience - is more than double the median salary for those with less than 1 year of experience. Similarly, the median for those in the industry for more than 20 years is just under double the median for those with between 1 and 5 years of experience.
The contrast is less marked when looking only at respondents living in North America. In this region, salaries are higher across all experience levels, but the median for the most experienced is only 60% more than the median for the least experienced.
Globally, median salaries follow a general pattern: the larger the organization, the higher the median salary.
Like with years of experience, the contrast is less marked when looking at only respondents residing in North America - where the median salary for organizations of 1-100 employees is the same as the median salary for organizations with 100-1000 employees.
In almost all countries apart from the US, employees are entitled to paid vacation time and paid sick leave by law, and many also mandate pension contributions and/or paid parental leave. Similarly, many countries have universal health care, negating the need for employer-provided health cover. To make this clearer, we asked respondents to only check the boxes for vacation time, health insurance, pension plans and parental leave if their employee benefit was in excess of what is required by law in the country where they live.
What we asked
A small percentage of employee respondents (3%) indicated that they did not receive any of the benefits listed.
What we asked
13b. If you are not completely satisfied with your current salary and benefits, what are your reasons? Check all that apply, or check “none of the above”:
On the whole, most respondents - 72.8% - were “satisfied” (45.2%) or “very satisfied” (27.6%) with their salary and benefits package.
Respondents were able to select reasons for dissatisfaction, even if they indicated that they were “very satisfied”. In total, 45.8% of employee respondents did not select any reasons for dissatisfaction with their salary and benefits.
Of those who selected “Other” and entered a reason for dissatisfaction with their salary, cost of living increases and “worthless” stock options were the most common complaints that didn’t fit into one of the existing categories.
What we asked
14b. If you are not completely satisfied with your job overall, what are your reasons? Check all that apply, or check “none of the above”:
The majority of respondents – 75.9% - rated their overall employment situation in a positive light. Nearly half (49.5%) indicated that they were “satisfied”, with 26.4% extending that to “very satisfied”. A further 15.2% felt “neutral”. Only 8.9% rated their employment situation negatively – 7.2% indicated that they were “unsatisfied”, and only 1.7% had reason to be “very unsatisfied”.
In 2021, 32.7% of employees did not indicate any reasons for dissatisfaction.
As in 2020, the top reason for dissatisfaction overall was “Role is undervalued or underfunded”, with 28.3% of all respondents in this category selecting this reason.
In previous surveys, we asked respondents to specify reasons for dissatisfaction, but didn’t provide the opportunity to highlight aspects that are satisfying about their salary, benefits, and job. In 2021 we corrected this oversight.
What we asked
14g. What do you like about your current job? Check all that apply, or check “none of the above”:
While 67.3% of respondents selected something other than “none” for question 14b (reasons for dissatisfaction), over half of those respondents only chose one reason out of the 24 remaining choices, and only 9.4% selected more than five.
In contrast, when asked to specify what they felt positive about in their jobs, only 4 individuals chose “none of the above”, and of the 13 other potential reasons, the median number of reasons selected was 8 – with 14.8% of respondents checking off all 12 reasons. That’s a lot of positivity!
1.7% of respondents selected “Other” and wrote in more detail. The common themes in these notes were:
What we asked
11h. Which fee structures do you typically use? Check all that apply.
11k. What is your hourly rate (including tax)? OR 11l. What is your day rate (including tax)?
Note: Please enter your rate as a whole number, without decimal places. Currency symbols are not required. Commas are ok. If you charge different rates, enter your most common rate, or an average if you feel that is more accurate.
Respondents who selected “Other” were shown an additional instruction:
You’ve indicated that you use a fee structure other than an hourly or daily rate. To make it possible for us to compare rates for contractors and freelance operators, we would appreciate if you could estimate the equivalent hourly or daily rate for your alternative fee structure.
In 2021, we received submissions from 72 independent contractor, freelancer or self-employed respondents – 7.5% of the total number of survey respondents. Although this represents an increase over the number of contractor submissions in 2019 and 2020, the low number makes it difficult to extract meaningful region, country or role-related median rate information without compromising the privacy of individuals in our community.
73.6% of contractors bill their clients using an hourly rate fee structure, whereas 16.7% bill using a day rate fee structure, and only 3 individuals use both. 16.6% indicated that they used a different fee structure either instead of or in addition to the hourly rate or day rate – the majority of those specified a monthly fee structure.
To enable comparisons to be drawn, we asked contractors using alternative fee structures to estimate an equivalent hourly rate or a day rate (or both). In the final count, we had 55 individual hourly rates and 20 day rates in our 2021 data set.
The overall median hourly rate was USD $46 (from 55 respondents in 13 countries). The only regions with enough data to safely split out, taking the privacy of respondents into account, are shown in the table below.
The overall median day rate was USD $389 (from 20 respondents in 14 countries). Due to the low number of respondents entering a day rate, there is not enough data to allow us to publish regional medians without compromising the privacy of community members.
What we asked
13d. How satisfied are you with your freelance or contract rates?
13e. If you are not completely satisfied with your freelance or contract rates, is it because (check all that apply, or check “none of the above”):
70.9% of contractors reported being “satisfied” (54.2%) or “very satisfied” (16.7%) with their rates. 15.3% were “neutral”, and 13.9% were “unsatisfied”. None of the respondents said they were “very unsatisfied”.
36.1% of contractors did not list any reasons for dissatisfaction with their rates – the same percentage who cited “missing benefits”, the top reason. 23.6% stated that their rate was too low, while 11.1% felt that their responsibilities exceeded their pay grade.
15.3% selected “Other” and wrote in more detail. The common themes across these comments were:
What we asked
14d. How satisfied are you overall with your freelance or contract situation?
14e. If you are not completely satisfied with your overall freelance or contract situation, what are the reasons? Check all that apply, or check “none of the above”:
76.4% of contractors reported being “satisfied” (63.9%) or “very satisfied” (12.5%) with their contracting situation overall. 9.7% indicated they felt “neutral”, and 13.9% reported feeling “unsatisfied”. No contractors reported feeling “very unsatisfied”.
19.4% of contractors did not select any reasons for dissatisfaction with their contracting situation overall. As with employees, the top reason for dissatisfaction was “Role is undervalued or underfunded” (27.8% of contractors, and 28.3% of employees). Unlike employees, however, the next top reason was “Job instability (COVID-related or otherwise)” with 26.4% selecting this (compared to only 3.4% of employees). “No opportunities for advancement” was next, with 18.1% of contractors indicating this (a similar proportion to employees, at 18.9%, the second most common reason selected).
11.1% of contractors chose “Other” and added additional comments. The general sentiments included:
What we asked
14i. What do you like about your current freelance or contract situation? Check all that apply, or check “none of the above”:
As with the employee respondents, contractors on average chose many positive aspects about their contract/freelance situation. The top reason, indicated by 81.9% of contractors, was “I have flexibility in working hours or location” – this was also the second top reason selected by employees (79.5%). The next most selected reason was “I like and/or respect my co-workers” with 75%.
Only 1 contractor chose not to select any positive aspects.
This section of the survey contained questions relating to the organization that the respondent worked for: the organization size, industry and main geographical location.
Contractors were asked to profile either their main client organization or the typical client organization they work for, at their discretion.
What we asked
Very small operations (up to 10 employees) again made up the smallest proportion of responses at just over 1% (11 individual respondents). At the other end of the scale, the largest proportion of respondents – 35.6% – worked for organizations made up of between 100 and 1000 employees.
What we asked
Note for software development and IT companies:
Please choose the industry that your product or service primarily serves. For example, if your organization produces e-learning software, select “Education, Training”. If you work for a company that makes point of sale systems for restaurants, select “Food, Beverages”. Please only select “Software Development, Software Development Tools” if your organization’s customers are software developers.
After examining the 65 typed-in responses that were given when Other was selected, some clarifications were added to the list of industries and several additions were made, which are reflected in the table below and will be included in the survey questions in 2022.
The largest proportion of respondents chose Software Development (not industry-specific) as their organization’s primary industry: 33.2%. The second largest industry was Telecommunications with 14%, ahead of Finance and Banking, with 9.1%.
What we asked
Note: This is the primary location, headquarters or main location of the organization that you work for. If your organization operates in multiple countries independently, select “multi-national or global organization”. The location where you live will be covered in Section 6.
As in 2020, the United States accounted for 46.6% of all employer organizations – the largest group. Another 21.4% worked for a global or multinational organization.
The next best-represented country was Canada, with 5%, followed by Russia with 3.3%, Great Britain with 3%, Germany with 2.9%, Israel with 2.6% and Australia with 2%.
Nearly half of all employer organizations based in the United States were based in California, with New York, Texas and Massachusetts coming in with 7%, 6.7% and 4.9% respectively. No other state made up more than 4% of the total.
This section collected demographic information on the respondent themselves. All questions except for country (and in the case of the US, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, state, province or region) included an “I’d rather not say” option – while anonymity is important, country and state level information is critical to the usefulness of the data we collect.
What we asked
The two largest-represented age groups (26-35 year olds and 36-45 year olds) combined formed 64.6% of the total number of respondents. 46-55 year olds made up 17.3% and 56-65 year olds another 9%.
The youngest age bracket (18-25 year olds) made up 6.3%, and the oldest bracket – those 66 years old or more – came in at 1.6% or 15 individuals, which is 3 times the number of respondents in that bracket in 2020 (there were no respondents in this bracket in 2019). 13 respondents chose not to provide their age range.
What we asked
57.5% of respondents identified as women, 38% as men, and 2.3% as non-binary, genderqueer or other. 21 respondents chose not to answer this question.
These proportions are mostly unchanged from previous surveys.
What we asked
Due to the high number of survey respondents with more than 10 years of experience working in documentation, the potential responses to this question were broken up with greater granularity than in previous surveys.
26.8% of respondents had between 5 and 10 years of experience. Those with more than 10 years of experience accounted for 38.1%, while relative newcomers with up to 5 years of experience made up 34.5%. 7 individuals chose not to respond.
Of the 28 respondents reporting more than 30 years of experience, 24 fell between 31 and 38 years. Individual respondents reported 40 and 41 years, with 2 respondents each reporting 45 years.
What we asked
53.3% of respondents had a college or university under-graduate qualification, or equivalent. 39.5% had gone on to earn post-graduate qualifications. Only 3.6% of respondents selected high school as their highest completed level of education, with 2.6% completing a technical college or equivalent degree. 9 respondents chose not to answer.
What we asked
Respondents were asked to select a country, then a state, province territory or region, if relevant, and finally to enter a city or town.
While selection of a country was mandatory (in order to ensure the data collected was useful), respondents could enter “N/A” or similar for city/town if they did not wish to provide further information.
This year’s survey drew responses from 49 different countries – that number was 45 in 2020, and 43 in 2019.
Just under half (49.4%) of all respondents live in the United States – a slightly higher proportion than in 2020 (46%), but still lower than in 2019 (58%). Canada was the next best-represented country with 8.2%, followed by Israel with 4.7% and the United Kingdom with 4.6%.
This information was researched, developed, and conveyed by Write The Docs, a global community of people who care about documentation. All credit to their team for this incredibly deep dive into the roles and responsibilities of technical writers (among their many other titles).
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