Employment: Work-from-home jobs with high pay becoming sparse

It's not so easy to get a high-paid job you can do from home anymore. Photo / 123rf

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ

If you want a high-paying work-from-home role, you’re most likely to find it in IT – but there’s a warning: opportunities may be dwindling.

Trade Me data released to RNZ shows the top 10 highest-paying roles that offer candidates the ability to work from home.

Top of the list is IT project management, with an average salary of $130,833.

It is followed by projects and contracts management in construction and roading, at $122,917. Third place was taken by civil and structural engineering roles, with a work-from-home average salary of $117,326.

Rounding out the top five were business and systems analysts and IT programmers and developers, both paid more than $100,000 on average when work-from-home was offered.

Trade Me Jobs sales director Matt Tolich said there did not seem to be any negative salary impact from working from home.

But he said there had been a decline in the number of work-from-home jobs offered.

About 45 per cent of businesses were offering flexible working, down from 60 per cent last year, he said.

But he said only 14 per cent of employees cited it as one of their top five priorities when considering a role.

Seek said on its site, the number of job ads indicating the role could be done from home had settled at 8.9 per cent by December, down from 10.3 per cent last September.

Working from home was only a feasible option in some industries.

About a third of insurance and superannuation jobs could be done from home and a quarter of IT and banking and financial services roles.

More than 40 per cent of insurance underwriting roles were listed with the ability to work from home.

Frog Recruitment managing director Shannon Barlow said the market had shifted.

“The desire for it is definitely still there, it’s something that’s rated really highly by employees and jobseekers.”

But she said jobseekers no longer had the power to set their own terms.

“They probably still ask the question but it’s not so much of a deal-breaker now. Job security is more important.”

She said sometimes employers not able to give a salary increase might look at other benefits, such as flexibility, to make the package on offer more appealing.

The top-paying jobs by subcategory, category and average salary:

• Project management – IT – $130,833
• Project & contracts management – Construction & roading – $122,917
• Civil & structural – Engineering – $117,326
• Business & systems analysts – IT – $112,857
• Programming & development – IT – $109,615
• Business development manager – Sales – $98,864
• HR – HR & recruitment – $96,429
• Water & waste – Engineering – $95,217
• Local & regional council – Government & council – $93,500
• Accountants – Accounting – $91,341