The rate of increases in average salaries for sales and marketing staff has dipped in the past 12 months, according to research.
The Salary Survey of Sales and Marketing Staff, by XpertHR Job Pricing, powered by Personnel Today’s sister company salary survey specialist Celre, shows that basic salary plus bonuses and commission (the average salary) for sales and marketing rose at a slower rate in the past 12 months, falling from 5.9% in 2007, to 5.5% in 2008.
This corresponds with the slight dip in the growth in average earnings from 4.7% in 2007 to 4.6% in 2008, while the Retail Price Index has increased from 3.8% in 2007, to 5.0% in 2008.
The October survey of 124 companies, covering 11,536 employees, showed that the average salary increase for marketing staff was 5.5% in 2008 (compared with 6.1% in 2007). For sales staff, the movement in average earnings was 5.3% in 2008, a year-on-year fall of 0.5%.
The median average earnings (including any bonuses) for a sales and marketing director was £168,800, while a department manager’s median average salary was found to be £71,690.
Senior sales or marketing executive staff looked forward to a median average (including bonus) of £33,044 in 2008, while the median average for clerical staff – who generally see little in the way of bonuses – stood at £15,526.
In terms of the median basic salary, a sales and marketing director earned £128,500, while a department manager earned £60,000. And senior sales and marketing executives made a median basic salary of £31,840, while clerical staff earned £15,227.
By way of comparison, in 2007 a separate survey by Remuneration Economics showed that the average salary for a sales and marketing director was £120,558 (boosted to £151,940 by bonuses and commission), while senior function heads were attracting an average wage of £91,024 (rising to £111,853 with bonuses), function heads were paid a basic of £71,933 (plus £13,320 with bonuses) and department managers received an average of £57,134 (rising to £68,669 with bonuses and commission).
At the lower end of the pay scale, a senior marketing executive could see their average pay of £30,756 boosted to £36,568 with bonuses and commission, and a junior member of the team could earn £18,527 (£20,534 with bonuses). The average salary for clerical staff in 2007 was £15,656.
