Survey of pay for HR professionals

Key survey results

Annual pay awards

The majority of personnel professionals received a 3% pay rise last year. But there is a significant variation in overall earnings by sector, job role and organisation size.

Earnings by organisation size

• Personnel directors in larger organisations (4,001-10,000 employees) earn two-thirds more than their counterparts in organisations of fewer than 100 employees.
• Head of personnel in a large company earns almost £7,000 more than those working at a small organisation.

Earnings by job sector

• Personnel directors in the private sector are paid an average of £69,750. The top 20 earners are paid in excess of £150,000.
• Personnel directors in the public sector are paid an average of £60,019. The top 20 earners are paid in excess of £85,000.
• Personnel directors in the voluntary sector are paid an average of £53,636. The top 20 earners are paid in excess of £70,000.

Regional pay

• Personnel directors in London earn 11% above the national average.
• Those in the north east of England are 23% below the national average and the lowest paid in the UK.

Bonuses

• Overall bonuses received last year by personnel professionals averaged 7% with a range of 4% to 20%.
• Generally, the higher the job level, the higher the bonus, with personnel directors receiving, on average, 20% of their basic salary as a bonus.
• Bonuses were slightly higher in the private sector, but few and far between in the voluntary sector.

Terms and conditions

• While the majority of organisations (97%) offer a pension scheme, only 61% of these are defined benefit schemes.
• 82% of personnel professionals have contracted hours of between 35 and 37.5 hours, but 49% of professionals work more than these hours (38% work 40 to 45 hours and 11% work up to 60 hours a week).

Gender

• The survey reveals a pay gap of 14% between female and male personnel directors.
• The report suggests that the equal pay gap is largely down to the fact that there is a higher proportion of female personnel directors in the public and voluntary sectors and a lower proportion of female personnel directors among the larger, private sector, employers.