When Is Making a Lateral Career Move Best for Your IT Career?

When you think about switching jobs in IT, you might picture a step up the ladder: a bigger title, a bigger team, a bigger paycheck. But career growth doesn’t always move in a straight line upward. A lateral career move can be just as valuable to your long-term career as a promotion, especially in a field that changes as fast as IT does.

Lateral moves happen in nearly every field, and many professionals consider a career change for reasons that have nothing to do with a bigger title. In IT specifically, moving sideways into a new role or a new company can open doors that you won’t always see if you wait around for a promotion.

It may feel uncomfortable to leave one job for another that looks like a step to the side instead of a step up. But a seemingly lateral move can end up being an essential part of advancing your overall career, particularly in IT, where the tools, platforms, and in-demand skills are constantly evolving. Here’s what to know about when a lateral move makes sense, how it differs from a promotion, and how to make the most of such a move.

What Is a Lateral Career Move?

A lateral career move typically means a move into a different role, team, department, or company at a similar level of responsibility, rather than a move into a position with a bigger title or more oversight. It’s not necessarily a step backward. In fact, it’s often a step in a new direction that helps you develop skills, gain exposure to new systems, or move closer to long-term goals that your current role can’t get you to.

In IT, making a lateral move might mean shifting into an adjacent technical specialty, learning to work with new systems or platforms, or moving to an organization that offers stronger training and advancement opportunities than your current one. The title on your business card might look about the same as it did before. The experience behind the title can look very different.

Lateral Moves vs. Vertical Moves

It helps to know the difference between the two. A vertical move is a promotion that includes a higher title, more responsibility, and often a bigger team to manage. A lateral move usually keeps you at a similar level or title, but it can offer something a promotion doesn’t always provide, like new technical skills, a new team, exposure to new systems, or better long-term growth potential. 

Neither type of move is inherently better than the other. Sometimes the smartest path forward in IT is a sideways step that sets you up to advance later, with a stronger and more well-rounded set of skills to confront new challenges.

Internal vs. External Lateral Moves in IT

Not every lateral move means changing companies. Moving laterally within your current organization—say, from a help desk role into a systems administration team—lets you keep the institutional knowledge and relationships you’ve already built while still gaining new experience.

An external lateral move—shifting into a similar-level role at a different company—can offer something an internal move often can’t: exposure to new systems, tools, benefits, workplace cultures, and advancement paths. Neither option is automatically the better choice. It comes down to whether your current employer can offer the career growth you’re looking for or whether you need a new environment to find it. 

When to Make a Lateral Career Move in IT

If you’re starting to feel like you’ve plateaued in your current role or at your current company, it might be time for a change. If you haven’t yet gained the experience or the IT education needed to move into a bigger role, a promotion may not be realistic just yet, and that’s exactly where a lateral move can help. A lateral move in IT makes sense when it offers something your current role can’t: new skills, mentorship, exposure to new technologies, or a clearer path to advancement. 

A lateral move might be right for you if any of the following situations sound familiar:

You Need New Technical Skills

A new role—even a lateral one—can open opportunities to learn that your current job simply doesn’t offer. The new role might provide certification support or professional development in areas like cybersecurity, cloud computing, data analytics, software development, systems administration, or networking. Building in-demand IT skills in a specialty can make you a stronger, more versatile technology professional over time, and it can make you more competitive for the promotion you’re ultimately after.

You Need Better Opportunities to Advance

Start-ups and smaller IT teams don’t always have the infrastructure to promote people quickly, simply because there aren’t as many rungs on the ladder. Making a lateral move to a larger organization can mean gaining access to bigger technical teams, more specialized roles, stronger mentorship programs, and more established training budgets.

Research backs this up: One study from Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business found that employees who make lateral moves are more likely to later be promoted and tend to see larger wage growth than employees who stay in place. That’s in part because the move helps them build a broader, more diverse set of skills. 

As you weigh your options, it also helps to understand how IT job titles and career paths fit together so you have a clearer sense of what a future role and its responsibilities would actually look like before you commit.

You Need New Networking and Mentorship Opportunities 

If you have a dream role, it’s helpful to connect with those already there, and that might mean moving closer to where they work. Without the right mentors in your corner, your ability to grow and advance can stall out. A lateral move can put you in closer contact with a cybersecurity team, a cloud team, a data team, or IT leaders who can help you understand what your next step should look like, and having a mentor in your corner can make a real difference in how quickly you grow. The key to getting the most out of a lateral move is to treat every new job as a chance to learn, not just a paycheck.

Personal and Professional Growth

Apply what you’ve learned in previous roles to your next one, but don’t stop there. Be proactive about seeking out learning opportunities in your new role. Some IT organizations are willing to invest in training employees on new coding languages, system and network configuration, or security practices. Making a lateral move to one of these employers can help you grow technically while also giving you broader context across systems and teams, instead of you just going deeper into one narrow specialty.

Growth isn’t just technical, either. With each lateral move, you’ll work alongside different people, which gives you a chance to build your teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. Make yourself invaluable by adapting to your new workplace’s culture, staying open to new information, and remaining flexible. IT teams are in busy, collaborative environments, so you’llhave plenty of chances to sharpen these transferable skills by working on diverse teams, partnering with nontechnical stakeholders, troubleshooting under pressure, and stepping up to lead projects when the opportunities arise.

Benefits of a Lateral Career Move in IT

Beyond the personal and professional growth that a lateral move can offer, there are some concrete benefits worth weighing, too:

• Compensation and total benefits: A lateral move doesn’t always come with a raise, but it’s worth looking at total compensation, not just salary. A new role might offer a stronger benefits package, better healthcare coverage, more paid time off, a stronger retirement match, or remote and hybrid flexibility that your current role doesn’t.
• Long-term advancement potential: A bigger company may offer more structured career paths and internal mobility than a smaller one, while a smaller, fast-growing company might let you take on more responsibility faster than a larger organization would.
• Room to stand out: Joining a smaller or newer IT team can give you more opportunities to make a visible impact and be recognized for it, compared with being one of many specialists on a large, established team.
• Stronger long-term wage growth: As noted above, research on career trajectories has found that employees who make lateral moves tend to see larger wage growth over time than those who don’t, likely because the broader skill set that they build along the way makes them more valuable down the road.

Examples of Lateral Career Moves in IT

Lateral moves in IT can take a lot of different shapes depending on your background and goals. A few common examples include: 

• Help desk to systems administration: Moving from frontline technical support into managing servers, networks, and systems infrastructure.
• IT support to cybersecurity: Shifting from general troubleshooting into a security-focused role, like security operations or vulnerability management.
• Systems administration to cloud computing: Applying existing infrastructure knowledge to a cloud platform team, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud environments.
• Network administration to IT project management: Taking hands-on technical experience and applying it to planning, coordinating, and overseeing technology projects and teams. 

How to Make a Smart Lateral Career Move in IT

A lateral move works best when it’s intentional rather than impulsive. Before you make the jump, it helps to:

1. Assess your current role honestly. Are you plateaued, underchallenged, or missing opportunities to grow where you are?
2. Identify your skill gaps. Figure out which technical or transferable skills you’re missing for the role or industry you want to move toward.
3. Research the role and the company. Look into the team, the manager, the tools they use, and the growth opportunities they actually offer, not just the job title.
4. Talk to mentors and people already in the role. Ask what they wish they’d known before making a similar move.
5. Weigh training and development opportunities. A role with strong professional development support and opportunities for continuous learning can be worth more long term than a slightly higher starting salary.
6. Evaluate total compensation, not just base pay. Factor in healthcare, benefits, flexibility, bonuses, and advancement potential before you decide.

Move Sideways, but Keep Looking Up

A lateral career move isn’t a step backward. In a field like IT, where technology and in-demand skills shift constantly, it can be one of the smartest ways to build a broader, more resilient skill set, expand your network, and better position yourself for the promotion you actually want down the road.

If you’re ready to build the technical foundation to support your next move, whether that’s lateral or vertical, WGU’s online IT degree programs can help you gain the in-demand skills that employers are looking for—all on a flexible schedule that fits around your current job. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a lateral career move?

A lateral career move is a shift into a different role, team, department, or company at a similar level of responsibility, rather than a move into a higher-level position.

Is a lateral move worth it in IT?

It can be, especially if it helps you build new technical skills, gain access to better mentorship or training, or move toward a company with stronger long-term advancement opportunities than your current one.

How is a lateral move different from a promotion? 

A promotion, or vertical move, typically comes with a higher title and more responsibility. With a lateral move, you usually stay at a similar level, but the new role can offer skills, teams, or opportunities for career success that a promotion might not.

Does a lateral move hurt long-term salary?

Not usually. Research on career trajectories has found that employees who make lateral moves tend to see larger wage growth and more promotions over time than those who don’t move at all. 

How often should you consider a lateral move in IT? 

There’s no set timeline. It’s less about how much time has passed and more about whether your current role still offers room to grow. If you’ve plateaued technically or professionally, it may be worth exploring a lateral move.