Hello am a new user of this forum. Am about to start a local IT company here in Nigeria and I wanted to get the going rate for the service of a professional IT experts. The individual most have knowledge of the following softwares: HTML, Ajax, Javascript, PHP, Mysql, CSS, Adobe Dreameweaver and other Adobe suite software; and Flash. If anyone has any information about how much is reasonable for an IT expert here or will like to get some more details about job opportunity please get back at me. Because of the nature of the job it is preferable that the person be based in Lagos and be fluent in English.

are u thinking of employing the IT professionals on a full-time or part-time basis?

I want to employ the person on a full time basis. But before I start the hiring process I wanted to know what a reasonable monthly salary is for a person with the competencies I listed above. What do you think is a reasonable salary for an IT professional here in Lagos?

#1connect:

preferable that the person be based in Lagos and be fluent in English.

I just want ton advice you not place much emphasis on Degrees, but an what they have done and what they can do. depending on the location at least 30k to 50k for a start. since you are thinking of full time

Okay thanks, I understand what you are saying about not putting a lot of emphasis on degrees, but the kind of work I am going to be doing is going to need someone with knowledge of most of the softwares I listed. But most importantly, PHP, Ajax, and Mysql. Am looking for someone who is familiar with Web 2.0 designs, and has done some work related to that. Would you know of any IT professionals around lagos with experience in web design? If you do will they be willing to share some of their work with me.

i also seriously suggest that you don't consider degrees, Nigerian universities don't offer courses that has all the details you asked for. And for those private universities that offer programming related courses, most programmers, their students are not that serious about programming. most programmers in Nigeria are pple that developed themselves. so just ask for their profiles and/or portfolios only

as per pay, i think that amount is kinda small

As a matter of fact anyone that has a good knowledge of the skills you require will not be available for employment and even if the person is considering working for someone 30k to 50k is certainly out of the question as he can make that in 3 or 4 days on his own.

So how much is a decent monthly salary for someone with the skills listed above?

Between N100k and N150k would do. This may seem high but when you consider the fact that the person may make this amount in 1 week or 2 weeks then it makes sense to retain him.

Also such salary will make it difficult for other people to snatch him/her away from you.

That sounds much more reasonable than one option that I got in another forum. The person suggested paying the employee up to 300,000+ naira a month. Although I do think that is a fair price, I think that is a little too much for an entry level staff. May be after a couple years in the company it can be bumped up to that much. Like I said I do plan on hiring a couple staffs here in lagos. another topic that will be interesting to find out is how much programmers charge people here in Nigeria for professional website compared to other places in the world. For example if I wanted a simple dating website roughly how much will you charge someone in Nigeria. I know the price range can differ by a lot depending on the specifics of the website, but roughly how much will you charge an individual. I know a couple legitimate website in India that claim they can do these for anywhere between 2000- 5000 dollars( roughly-210,000-510,000 naira). How much will you charge someone here in Nigeria?

It will be difficult for you to get a handle on what programmers charge for programming jobs because experiences differ, skills differ, even projects that are given out differ.

By programmers I mean people that write programs because in Nigeria today you see a lot of people that claim to be programmers yet they cannot write 3 lines of codes without running into problems.

Your best bet is to look at projects as they come and evaluate them, then bill the client in such a way that you will make a profit simple.

Do not even bother to compete with anyone as regards pricing because you will always see pricing schedules that are way too low or too high so its your job to do what I call appropriate pricing.

Also remember that most clients do not even ask for projects that require real programming for now as a lot of them are just ok with beautiful websites whether feature rich or not.

hey, the web(design and development) is probably the fastest growing sector of IT in nigeria. As a result, you easily find more and more people flying into this field. But really, no school can teach you everything. You need to workout the rest on your own.I'm a student of Aptech. I don't know Ajax yet, but i use php and other web-development apps very efficiently. I think i can be of help if you need one. mail is powerblaze@gmail.com