PAY AND BENEFITS HAYS 2013 SALARY SURVEY


What will keep people on board is the thrill of the job. This means that the growing importance and expanding breadth of the building services profession, due to the critical role it plays in sustainability, could hardly be better timed


Rob Harris, Elementa


salaries start to rise. Indeed, more than half of the employers surveyed said they were planning pay increases.


The big freeze However in 2012, 75% of the employees questioned said that they had not received a wage rise in the last 12 months. Mike McNally, director at Hays, says: ‘The static nature of salaries reflects the UK economy in general and it’s been well documented that construction and property has suffered disproportionately in the recession.’ Indeed, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, published in October, showed that over the three months from June to August this year construction output was 11.9 per cent lower than the same period in 2011. New work decreased by 15.6 per cent and the volume of new infrastructure work decreased in particular - by a dismal 23.9 per cent.


McNally says: ‘Demand for services has


been flat, therefore demand for skills has been flat, with little movement between jobs, and that has a knock-on effect on salaries.’ Hence, Hays found that many national average salaries for roles have not moved – or hardly moved – in the past twelve months. For example, the average wage for a chartered associate-level consulting engineer, is now £44,300 compared to £44,000 last year. The average UK mechanical engineer salary, meanwhile is now £33,700, up minimally from £33,000 a year ago. Although pay was generally static, some


roles are in demand and have seen pay rises as a result. McNally says cost roles are sought-after above all others: ‘The emphasis right now is on trying to win work, so those involved in bidding and particularly the economic viability of bids are more crucial than ever.’ However, the sector’s depressed condition means that although there have


Principal design engineer (£)


Central London South East South West Wales


West Midlands East Midlands East Anglia North West


North East & Yorkshire Scotland


Northern Ireland National average


Typical Min Max 50,000 43,000 55,000 42,000 38,000 50,000 35,000 31,000 39,000 33,000 30,000 40,000 42,000 38,000 45,000 40,000 38,000 43,000 43,000 37,000 44,000 39,000 36,000 42,000 38,000 36,000 42,000 36,000 36,000 43,000 32,000 28,000 33,000 39,000 36,000 43,000


Intermediate design engineer (£)


Central London South East South West Wales


West Midlands East Midlands East Anglia North West


North East & Yorkshire Scotland


Northern Ireland National average


Typical Min MaX 34,000 30,000 38,000 28,000 24,000 32,000 25,000 22,000 30,000 24,000 22,000 27,000 28,000 25,000 35,000 27,000 24,000 29,000 26,000 23,500 30,800 27,500 23,500 29,500 26,000 22,000 28,000 27,000 26,000 31,000 24,000 22,000 26,000 27,000 24,000 31,000


been sporadic rises for cost roles, the national averages for senior estimators and estimators have remained broadly the same, at £39,800 and £32,500 respectively. Equally there were some falls in salaries


in geographical regions for particular roles where vacancies remain rare and numbers of candidates high. An intermediate-level design engineer in the South East, for example, could command a typical salary of £30,000 in 2011 but this dropped to £28,000 in 2012. In this climate, redundancies have continued. Hays found that more than two thirds of employers (69%) had implemented redundancies, whether voluntary or involuntary, as a part of cost cutting measures over the past 12 months. Further pay cuts have been implemented


too. Of the employees questioned, 31% said that in the past year they had taken a reduction in salary.


Brain drain The survey shows starkly how these conditions are hitting morale. Some 72% of employees said they believed salaries in the sector were low and, perhaps partially as a consequence – and alarmingly for employers – a significant 43% said that they planned to leave their job within the next twelve months. Simon Stoker, senior HR officer at Arup,


says this may also be because the sector, depressed as it is, is seeing a little more activity than in 2010. ‘Whereas, two years ago, fewer people wanted to switch job because they were concerned about job security, as some markets have started to improve people may well start to look around.’ The research did not reveal whether employees planned simply to switch jobs within the sector, or to leave the industry altogether. For some, it could be the latter. Becci Taylor, associate and building services engineer at Arup, says: ‘People do leave the


Junior engineer (£)


Central London South East South West Wales


West Midlands East Midlands East Anglia North West


North East & Yorkshire Scotland


Northern Ireland National average


Typical Min Max 25,000 22,000 30,000 20,000 18,000 24,000 18,000 17,000 23,000 18,000 16,000 20,000 20,000 18,000 23,000 21,000 19,000 22,000 21,000 18,000 22,000 18,000 17,000 22,000 18,000 17,000 22,000 19,000 18,000 22,000 18,000 16,000 20,000 20,000 18,000 23,000


12


CIBSE Journal January 2013


www.cibsejournal.com


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