IAPP/TRU Staffing Partners’ Privacy Salary Survey Shows Gender Pay Equality

The privacy industry has a lot to celebrate these days, per the evidence given in the recent IAPP/TRU Staffing Partners webinar, The State of Salary and Jobs in Privacy. TRU’s Founder and CEO Jared Coseglia co-hosted the presentation with IAPP Principal Researcher in Privacy Management Saz Kanthasamy and IAPP Research & Insights Director Joe Jones. The trio delved into the most critical takeaways and results from the 2023 IAPP Privacy Professionals Salary Survey, that is now available free online. Created in partnership with TRU, this year’s IAPP report is bursting at the seams with all the leading insights from more than 1,400 privacy pro respondents across the globe. 

Who Are These Privacy Pros?

In this year’s survey, 48% of respondents identified as female, 48% as male, 0.3% as nonbinary and 4% preferred not to share gender data. And nearly eight out of 10 (76%) of respondents received a raise in the last year. More than 69% of respondents work from home more than they do in the office, a much greater proportion than the 36% of respondents who predicted working this way in 2021. 40% of respondents work fully remote, an increase of 31% over those who predicted solely working from home or remotely in the 2021 survey. Only 5% of respondents are fully office based, making this comparable with those who predicted working this way in 2021.

No Gender Pay Gap in Privacy to See Here, Folks

The big news delivered in the webinar was that the privacy industry is a leader in gender pay equality. Gender pay equality is a hot topic as women continue to struggle to earn as much as their male counterparts in every industry around the world. While global organizations like un.org and unwomen.org put the average global gender pay gap at 16 to 20% (where women earn 77 to 84 cents per every dollar men earn in roles of equal stature), the privacy industry leads the way in pay equality.

As Coseglia explained, the IAPP Salary Survey touts that across all roles, female respondents earned 1% more on average in their base salaries than male respondents. Variation exists among specific roles, with female global CPOs reporting 12% higher base salaries and male privacy analysts earning 13% more. When charting overall compensation packages, among survey respondents, women earned more than men by almost $4,800. And the trend continues through base salary and annual hourly rates as well.

The survey showed that salary differentials depend on level of roles and the total number of years respondents have spent in the privacy industry – that shows seniority matters in the privacy industry! But survey respondents were overwhelming happy in their roles, which increases their longevity potential.

Privacy Tech Roles & Senior Leadership: Room for Improvement

Coseglia noted that although women led overall earnings, there was still a large disparity between men and women at the most-senior levels of privacy organizations. While there is much to celebrate with the privacy gender pay gap closing, important differences remain and help explain recent trends. Female global CPOs ($215,300) and external privacy lawyers ($213,900) are the highest paid across all roles, surpassing the average base salary of their male peers in any privacy role. That has an important impact on the average figures compiled across all roles.

There are more men in key leadership positions in the C-suite but more women at positions below the C-suite. And in technology-based roles, women are not just underrepresented but are also paid significantly less than their male peers, such as in privacy engineering and cybersecurity.

Download the Full Salary Survey Report!

While the gender equality section alone makes for fascinating reading, there is so much more info that privacy pros can learn and take away from the 2023 IAPP Privacy Professionals Salary Survey. Don’t miss out – get your copy today.