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Re: Accessibilty consultant salary

for

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: May 10, 2016 7:42AM

WebAIM folks:

I'll be fascinated to see where this discussion goes.


I've been on email lists that explicitly forbid the discussion of
salaries, lest the list be put in the position of setting up some kind
of industry price-fixing or collusion, or even the appearance thereof.


It's not my intention to sound scary; I'm simply sharing my experience.
These were very mainstream lists consisting of folks who worked on the web.


For my part, what I'll say, as an independent consultant is that it very
much depends on your market/what kind of rates others outside of
accessibility are charging, plus cost of living, plus all of the things
that are required to sustain a business and a life. And sometimes, if
business is good, I might charge a little less to help a nonprofit.


Basically, specializing in accessibility, in my view, is going to
require you to market harder, rather than if you were an independent
developer who offered accessibility as an additional service (or if you
just did it as a matter of course, which is even better).


I sat on the procurement side of the desk, for a while, and what I
learned from that has certainly informed my thinking as I've returned to
consulting.


So, were I in your shoes, Mike, I'd solicit bids for projects from your
current job; that's how you really can get a sense of what companies
would charge. And of course, the longer a company has been around/has a
reputation, the more they can charge.


I'd also mention that the more the legal situation heats up in the U.S.
(or perhaps it would now be better to say becomes hard to predict), the
more anyone who's in this business needs to keep that in mind. What
"keeping that in mind" means for each consultant is up to him/her to
judge. But not thinking about that area early and often, when
establishing a new business, seems to me unwise.


I trust you're studying the market enough to know, Mike, that Deque,
TPG, and SSB BART Group are all hiring like crazy. That's something that
would inform my thinking, if I were in your situation. Other companies
may be, too; I mention these three because they're the ones I see.


And no, I'm not going to reveal my rates here on the list, or by private
email, unless someone contacts me about real work, just in case you were
waiting for "the punch line." See my LinkedIn profile link below my
name. And I'm not responding here as a disguised marketing pitch.


Finally, here's a link to a WebAIM survey that may be helpful.

http://webaim.org/blog/practitioner-survey-results/



Good luck.

Jennifer

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jsuttonmedia