If you are that person who has to make a career decision as a Scrum Master then you need to have in-depth information about the educational background, working experience, industries, and the organizational details of the companies Scrum Masters and agile coaches work for. And that is why we are here with all the information you need about the Scrum Master jobs market trends. To be able to decide what you should do as a Scrum Master or whether or not to pursue this field, you need to have all the information so let us get to it.
- Scrum Master Job Market Trends
- The Scrum Master Trends Report 2019 by Srum.org.
- Popular Scrum Master Certifications
- Which Countries pay Best?
- Scrum Master Salaries
- Top 15 Scrum Master job location (UK)
- Top Companies to pay high Salaries to Scrum Masters
- Top Industries demanding Scrum Masters
- Skills that can boost up Scrum Master’s Salary
- Final Thoughts
Scrum Master Job Market Trends:
Below are the details that we were able to dig out for our readers.
The Scrum Master Trends Report 2019 by Srum.org.
According to the report released by Srum.org which was based on over 2100 participants, we were able to find out many facts. These participants represented 87 different countries and each of them coming from all levels of experience. Thus findings of this report can be considered the most comprehensive analysis of today’s working environment of Scrum Masters.
- 81% of these participants were using scrum along with other agile practices which include Kanban, DevOps, and XP.
- All those Scrum Masters who have got formal Scrum training and agile certifications tend to earn higher salaries than those without it.
- Similarly, the adoption trend has depicted that 7% are continuing to use Waterfall. And at the same time, 11% are mature in their agile adoption. Whereas the remaining participants are either early or growing their adoption.
- Lastly, the ratio of female salaries is higher than those of their male counterparts.
Similarly, according to LinkedIn’s most promising jobs of 2017:
- The job openings for different scrum masters grew to 104 percent year-over-year from the year 2016. With that, the career advancement score turned out to be 8 out of 10. These findings are based on the potential for salary, job growth, and career advancement for a scrum master.
- Furthermore, the demand for certified scrum masters grew by 24 percent in the year 2018 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Furthermore, project management offices (PMOs) or different product development departments within the many business sectors usually hire Scrum Masters for streamlining their software development processes.
Popular Scrum Master Certifications:
The Scrum Alliance which was established in the year 2001 is known to be one of the most influential organizations in the agile community. It is recognized as a non-profit association that has more than 500,000 certified practitioners worldwide. With that, Scrum.org and PMI also offer different scrum certifications. The most popular ones are mentioned below.
Certified Scrum Master (CSM): Certified Scrum Masters are known best as “servant leaders” who have the responsibility of helping the entire scrum team. It is a scrum master’s job to make his team work together and learn the Scrum framework. You can checkout ASM certification at takethiscourse platform.
Professional Scrum Master (PSM):
Professional Scrum Master is one of the highly recognized Scrum Master certifications that is offered by Scrum.org. Once you pass the exam and earn the PSM certification, you can further enhance your career by focusing into earning PSM II and PSM III certification.
Project Management Institute-Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP):
This certification is offered by the Project Management Institute and carries a high level of professional integrity. The certification is a combination of agile training that is working on agile projects and examining agile fundamentals and tools.
Are you interested to know how do Agile and DevOps interrelated? Further find out the difference between RUP vs Agile.
Which Countries pay Best?
Many people would think that whatever the country you’re in, a scrum master would earn high salary. But that is not the case as not every country pays the same or as high as the other one. And that is why, we have mentioned some of the top paying countries below. These figures are the courtesy of Glassdoor.com and know that there can be some variance depending of the country, organization size, and experience of the Scrum master. You might also be interested in Scrum Master Salary Statistics.
- United States: $106,791
- Singapore: S$140K (US$ 102,626)
- Australia: A$109K (US$ 73,978)
- United Kingdom: £50,298 (US$ 64,000)
- Canada: CA$84K (US$ 63,264)
- New Zealand: NZ$96K (US$ 61,696)
- South Africa: R453,796 (US$ 30,631)
- China: ¥211,956 (US$ 30,209)
- India: ₹1,427K (US$ 19,966)
Scrum Master Salaries:
Now comes the most eye-catching part for many readers as here we are going to talk about the salaries of different scrum masters. Based on the findings by the Project Management Institute’s “Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey, Tenth Edition the salary of project managers who are working in agile/project management/Scrum earn the following.
| Years of experience | Percent respondents | 25th Percentile | Median | 75th Percentile | Mean |
| None | 31% | $85,000 | $106,000 | $130,000 | $110,319 |
| 1 to 5 | 49% | $91,000 | $132,063 | $114,522 | $142,816 |
| 6 or more | 20% | $104,000 | $125,000 | $149,000 | $128,128 |
Scrum Master Salary Graph:
In the above graph, you can easily see how much a scrum master in the USA can earn based on his experience.
Similarly, below is a 3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing Scrum Master in the UK.
Scum Master Salary Histogram:
Now in this below graph, you will find out the salary distribution for jobs citing Scrum Master for over 6 months to 7 February 2021.
Top 15 Scrum Master job location (UK):
Lastly, we present to you a table that provides a complete guide to median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing scrum master inside the UK for over 6 months till 6 February 2021.
| Location | Rank Change on Same Period Last Year |
Matching Permanent IT Job Ads |
Median Salary Past 6 Months |
Median Salary % Change on Same Period Last Year |
Live Job Vacancies |
| England | +77 | 234 | £56,000 | -6.67% | 43 |
| UK excluding London | +64 | 159 | £50,000 | -4.76% | 26 |
| London | +103 | 104 | £60,000 | -7.69% | 22 |
| South East | +130 | 45 | £57,500 | – | 2 |
| North of England | +70 | 35 | £47,500 | -13.64% | 5 |
| Scotland | +30 | 29 | £46,000 | -16.36% | 6 |
| Work from Home | -57 | 28 | £60,000 | -7.69% | 6 |
| Midlands | +51 | 22 | £45,000 | -10.00% | 5 |
| Yorkshire | +33 | 21 | £47,500 | -17.39% | 3 |
| South West | +32 | 20 | £45,000 | -10.00% | 7 |
| North West | +79 | 14 | £50,000 | -4.76% | 2 |
| West Midlands | +47 | 14 | £42,500 | -15.00% | 5 |
| East Midlands | +58 | 8 | £45,000 | -10.00% | |
| East of England | +73 | 6 | £60,000 | +4.35% | 1 |
| Wales | +40 | 2 | £55,750 | +10.95% | |
In the above table, the “Rank column” is an indication of the change in demand within each location that is based on the same 6 month period for the last entire year. Through this table, you can easily understand that the overall salary of a scrum master is good enough. Check out how to prepare for a Scrum Master Interview?
Top 8 Scrum Master job locations and Salaries (USA):
Here you can find out the Scrum master salaries in the different cities of the USA.
| Cities in the USA | Salaries per year |
| New York | $103,986 |
| Atlanta, GA | $96,635 |
| Boston, MA | $109,902 |
| Charlotte, NC | $95,683 |
| Chicago, IL | $103,152 |
| Dallas, TX | $100,588 |
| Los Angeles, CA | $105,816 |
| Tampa, FL | $92,578 |
Top Companies to pay high Salaries to Scrum Masters:
Below are the company names and the average salary they pay to the Scrum Masters annually.
- TCS: 11,11,500/year
- IBM: 16,07,000/year
- Amdocs: 14,00,000/year
- JP Morgan: 16,52,000/year
Top Industries demanding Scrum Masters:
Here we have listed all the industries that demand Scrum Masters and where any Scrum Master is able to find a decent job.
- Software development.
- Manufacturing
- Disrupters.
- Financial institutions.
- Consulting agencies.
- Government offices.
Skills that can boost up Scrum Master’s Salary:
Though experience matters a lot in earning a high salary but along with that, there are a few skills that can also contribute towards a high salary. These along with the percentage of how much effective they might be are mentioned below.
| Skills | % (effectiveness) |
| Team leadership | 10% |
| Agile software development | 4% |
| Scrum | 4% |
| Project management | 4% |
| Scrum Master | 3% |
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Final Thoughts
So we can conclude our topic by saying that the demand of Scrum Masters always have and will be high no matter how much time passes. Therefore, if you want a bright future for yourself then becoming a Scrum Master can be the solution for you.
References
- https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/agile/scrum-masters-salary-range-worldwide
- https://pmtips.net/article/what-kinds-of-businesses-need-scrum-masters
- https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/scrummaster.do
- https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Certified_ScrumMaster_(CSM)/Salary
- https://www.randstadusa.com/salary/scrum-master-salaries/
