Answer:
The average annual salary for computer applications software engineers was $85,660 per year in 2007. That same year, systems software engineers made an average of $90,780 per year.
Looking ahead, there are expected to be 324,000 new computer software engineers through 2016. Of those, 226,000 will work as applications software engineers and the rest will work as systems software engineers. There should be a total of 1.1 million computer software engineers by 2016.