The salary surveys for 2015 look good for data professionals. The Robert Half results that appear in this piece show lots of salaries creeping well into the triple digits for annual salary in the US. Not only are the upper bounds over $100k for many data professional areas, but so are many starting salaries.

The values show a good increase from 2014, so if you aren't thrilled with your job and are thinking of changing positions, you might land yourself a nice raise. I wouldn't encourage anyone to change jobs for just money, and certainly the problems at your employer might be worse at others, but if you have other reasons for leaving, certainly look for a raise if you can.

I'm also pleased to see a wider variety of positions appearing in the survey results. To me that points to a maturing of our industry and the recognition that we do a variety of jobs, all of which are different. And based on the salary responses, all of these are also important to companies. I'm have confidence that as the data we manage becomes more important, and many of us continue to work on improving your skills, we'll continue to see greater rises in salaries in the future.

The one thing in the piece that caught my eye was the "add 7% to salaries for Oracle database skills." I get that Oracle costs more, but do we think Oracle data professionals are worth more for that reason? Or because Oracle is a bigger pain in the rear to deal with?