Salaries and bonuses are increasing rapidly as the boom makes for an employees’ market
Amanda Seidl
For the fourth year running, pay reviews are set to top 7% as the major firms struggle to recruit and retain personnel.
The annual Estates Gazette/PSD Salary & Benefits Survey, published this week, predicts an average 7.4% pay rise in the next 12 months, with some jobs achieving well over 10% (see Analysis, p59). This comes on top of the 7% rises reported in this survey, and the previous two.
“We’re not quite back to the horse-trading of the 1980s, but it’s close, and firms will have to react much faster if they don’t want to risk losing people,” said Bill Wood, head of human resources at GVA Grimley.
Many of the quoted surveying firms have already agreed their pay awards for this year, and most have kept average increases to around 7%. But while base salaries are limited, bonus and benefit packages are rising faster. The EG/PSD survey found that bonuses in 1999 were up 12% while benefits rose by 14%.
Dominic Rushby of recruitment consultancy PSD said: “The big firms are now paying relatively low base salaries but piling on the bonuses in the good times.”
In the past five years, bonus and benefits packages have doubled in value across the industry, and now feature in most surveyors’ remuneration, even in the less glamorous jobs.
According to the EG/PSD research, the highest paid surveyors are still those working in investment. They received the most generous pay rises in 1999 (11%), boosting average salaries to £51,000, topped with benefits and bonuses worth £26,000.
Commercial agents enjoyed a 9.5% rise in 1999, taking their average pay to £40,500.
Building surveyors’ salaries increased by 9% on average to take them to £37,300; and land agents’ average salaries jumped from £26,100 to £31,900 – a 22% average pay rise.
