Whether or not you believe the Salesforce job market and ecosystem are in a state of recovery or not, there is one aspect of the conversation that appears to be uniting the community: salaries.
With nearly half of respondents from our latest salary survey saying their salaries have either decreased or have stayed the same after changing jobs, all signs point to salary stagnation. Add that to an already uncertain job market, and the potential impacts on morale, hiring, and the market’s health stack up fast.
Stagnation at Large
If the Salesforce ecosystem is vocal about one thing, it’s whether or not they are valued or heard. Our results indicate that, unfortunately, it seems to lean towards a no.
41.6% of respondents reported that they believed their salary had decreased in the last year after changing jobs, while 35.8% of respondents stated that they believed their salaries had remained the same. Only 22% of respondents said their salaries had increased in the last year after making a switch.
Compared to last year, these results paint a picture of a slowing market. In 2024, the split among respondents was more evenly distributed, with 31.2% reporting increases, 34.7% reporting decreases, and 34% reporting that their salaries remained the same.
This year’s figures also align with our opportunity figures, with 55.2% of respondents reporting that they believed they had had fewer opportunities in their roles than before. Interestingly, 100% of respondents from East Asia reported that they believed they had fewer opportunities.
The current Salesforce ecosystem is evidently a very different beast from what it was even two years ago, quickly becoming an employer’s market that allows businesses to be choosy with their workforce.
A disparity between supply and demand, even if the demand is on a slow rebound, like it is now, has created an apparent crab in the bucket scenario – salaries are lower, but people need jobs.
10K’s latest Salesforce Ecosystem Report illustrated that demand within the Salesforce ecosystem is up 8% YoY, which is far better than 2024’s 37% decline in demand, but it still pales in comparison to the supply growth rate of 27%. According to the data, the saturation rate is over 330%, meaning that there are just over three people for every one job – at this scale, this is considered heavily oversaturated.
But what do salaries actually look like for Salesforce professionals at the moment, and how tight of a squeeze is this on the market?
Salary Changes by Role
If we take a look at some of the most notable roles within the Salesforce ecosystem, we can begin to understand how salary stagnation has affected each one differently.
For example, let’s take administrators. According to our salary survey data, 21.4% of admins said their salaries had increased after they changed jobs, while 27.7% said they stayed the same. Interestingly, 50.7% of admins said their salaries had decreased, accounting for half of the respondents.
If you’re a Salesforce Admin – let alone one that is changing jobs – finding yourself up against a lower salary is unfortunately much more normal than it used to be. Largely considered as an entry-level role in the ecosystem, it is one that is currently facing fewer job openings, a growing risk of AI replacing jobs, and a decline in salaries.
Securing a well-paying job as an admin and having the ability to jump between roles to chase a higher salary or even just new opportunities, unfortunately, looks to be a thing of the past.
This is also reflective of the environment Salesforce Admins currently find themselves in – one that is oversaturated, more demanding, and with fewer opportunities. Admins now have to wear many hats, take on more responsibilities, and face a market that could be moving away from them in favor of AI.
The story isn’t too dissimilar for developers. Our survey data showed that 38.8% of developers believed their salary had decreased, while 34.4% believed it had stayed the same, and 27.2% said it increased.
Developers have been facing the same “will they, won’t they” situation when it comes to the viability of their roles and the changing market, with AI, once again, often positioned as a barrier.
However, data from our latest developer survey actually showed that almost 90% of respondents were using AI in their current role, indicating that developers are already eager to get stuck in with AI projects. The problem is, just short of one-third of respondents said they were working on AI-focused projects, highlighting a gap between idea and actuality.
Perhaps most interestingly, it was AI specialists/engineers who reported the most unanimous salary outcome, with 85.1% of respondents reporting that their salaries had decreased.
Although it must be noted that the ecosystem is not currently flooded with AI engineers, which must be taken into account when observing this trend. Have these roles simply molded into something else, or is this simply a result of having less demand, so that professionals can no longer bargain for higher salaries?
“The Easy Gold Has Been Mined”
For many of these roles experiencing salary fluctuation, the shifting market is the biggest perpetrator. It’s something that Lee Durrant, a Salesforce recruiter who has been in the market since 2007, has led to an apparent decline in compensation.
“I’d say salaries have stagnated a little over the last one or two years,” he told SF Ben. “There has been an increase in specialised clouds (not just Core Clouds), and also industry-experienced people over the last couple of years (for example, Financial Service Cloud and experience working with FinServ customers, or Automotive Cloud and Car Manufacturers experience).”
Opinions across Reddit observe the same trends, with one thread on r/Salesforce detailing how obvious the stagnation and decline have become.
“Having just gone through a period of unemployment and job search, I can say for certain that the salary range for Salesforce professionals has stagnated and dropped,” one poster wrote. “It’s still a great industry and provides an above-average standard of living, but I would say things are not nearly as good as they were two or three years ago, and while the high-paying jobs are out there, the competition for those roles is also much higher.”
“Speaking from a UK perspective, I see that salaries have increased recently and companies are hiring again – but it’s not pre/covid levels of demand, more so the market has improved slightly from otherwise being stagnant for the last two to three years,” another wrote.
Others reiterated that it was an “employer’s market” and, unfortunately, the “easy gold [had] been mined.”
“You have to dig deeper, which will personally cost you more to mine,” one person wrote. “You will work harder for less.”
Final Thoughts: Aiming High
So, it is evident that a high percentage of Salesforce salaries have stagnated within the last year. Where does that leave both current and prospective Salesforce professionals alike?
The difficult part about writing job market content is that a lot of the time, offering solutions can seem either generic or too specific, and the solutions do not often change. However, if we look at the facts that we have – primarily that the market continues to experience oversaturation and employers are choosier – we can begin to understand that specialization is the clear way forward.
What that means today is largely similar to what it meant the last time we wrote about it – tapping into what employers are looking for cloud-wise, skills-wise, and expertise-wise. It’s about being an admin with developer skills, a developer with architect skills, and an AI specialist with the skills of an admin, developer, and architect.
Recruiters are still saying that the market is viable, but they are no longer sugarcoating how difficult it is to get in. If you take any advice from this post, let it be that it is important to approach the market like an employer and try to see yourself from their perspective. Are you who they’re looking for, or can you become what they’re looking for?
