The old adage "money doesn't buy happiness" proves true in a new survey of IT leaders commissioned by executive search firm Harvey Nash USA and sponsored by KPMG. The survey, which drew 258 responses from CIOs, CTOs, senior- and mid-level IT managers, and other C-level executives, found that <A HREF="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/26/IT-leaders-pay-increases-but-job-satisfaction-plummets_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/26/IT-leaders-pay-increases-but-job-satisfaction-plummets_1.html">IT leaders' compensation is on an upward trajectory.</A>

According to the results, 75 percent of respondents earn a base salary of more than $125,000 per year; that's up from 70 percent last year and 36 percent two years ago. And 56 percent of respondents say that they earn an annual salary of more than $150,000, compared with 41 percent last year. At the top, 29 percent of respondents report earning more than $200,000 per year, compared to 19 percent last year. Harvey Nash's findings look similar to the compensation data from our 2008 State of the CIO research.