Salary increases for workers in Ireland will be 3% in 2018, but could rise by  10%-15% for niche skills in demand such as technology and life sciences, according to a salary guide from Morgan McKinley.

The salary guide predicts that Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics and Data Analytics will continue to be key drivers of business transformation in 2018.

Furthermore, the areas tipped to expand further in Ireland over the next year include advanced process engineering and automation, autonomous drive technology development/analytics, cybersecurity, data analytics, data governance and digital transformation in insurance and financial services, R&D scientists and engineers accompanied by growth in business management and administration functions across most professional sectors.

“2017 was a strong year for job growth in the professional recruitment market with our two main enterprise development agencies IDA (Industrial Development Authority) Ireland and Enterprise Ireland announcing record end of year numbers with close to 40,000 new jobs created declared. The forecast for 2018 remains positive with the number of permanent jobs predicted to increase," Karen O’Flaherty, Chief Operations Officer with Morgan McKinley, said.

Morgan McKinley stated that in 2017, there was a wealth of new opportunities for the tech community from a range of high investment new entrants to the marketing across e-commerce, AI, IOT, block-chain and advanced analytics.

Over the last year, the report recorded a weighted overall average movement from the mid to the higher point of the same salary bands across a number of sectors including Technology, Life Sciences and Engineering.