A survey finds starting salaries in Iowa will rise a little over 3% next year, slightly under the national average. Mike Gremmer is a regional vice president for Robert Half International, the recruiting firm that produced the study. Gremmer, who’s based in Des Moines, says starting salaries nationwide will rise about three-point-four percent next year, but the numbers for Iowa are a little lower.

“Accounting and financial positions are looking to increase about 3.3%, salaries across the board between IT, creative marketing, legal, administrative support, all combined would be about 3.2%,” Gremmer says. “Our technology, a little higher, at about 4.3%.”

Some professions will see better boosts, according to the agency’s 2012 Salary Survey, including business systems analysts, financial analysts and staff accountants. With increasing demand on websites, email and other information technologies, he says I-T positions will see the biggest gains in Iowa and nationwide.

Gremmer says, “In the technology arena, your systems and network engineers, developers, those with .net and java skills, data warehousing, business intelligence professionals, these would range upwards of 5.5 to 6.7% increases on their starting salaries.” He says there are two key areas where most workers are virtually guaranteed a good salary.

“Certainly the IT is a very good arena to start in and continue to grow with,” Gremmer says. “Accounting and finance has continued on and it’s going to be a very important piece of a company’s ability to grow and to maintain their growth.” Parts of the Midwest have been well insulated from some of the impact of the recession the past few years.

While Iowa’s salary numbers may be slightly below the national average, he says that may be because they weren’t as negatively impacted by the economy as those in other regions.

See the survey here: www.rhi.com/SalaryGuides