As a contractor, I always find it strange to set my rates. Am I charging too much? Too little?
STC has, for many years, produced a salary survey. The results are available here: http://www.stc.org/stcmembers/salary-database.asp?SSOToken=XXLA6uFnXAYCabUtnFAB3ghB3cY=. You need to log into your STC.org account in order to access it - one of the many perks of being an STC member!
Alas, the “survey” is U.S.-only. This is because the data are pulled from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), which classifies technical writers as a separate profession from other types of writers. A similar distinction is not made in Canada, so it makes an equivalent survey difficult to do. Regardless, the salary surveys are still worth looking at.
The Canadian chapters are working on a Canadian salary survey. We’re fine-tuning the questions and hope to unleash it in a few months. Yes, the survey will be self-reported, but I sincerely hope that it will give us a glimpse into salaries across the country.
