Skills Shortages Push Up Wages

January 27 2005 - Kelly Services, a leading recruitment and human resources firm, has produced its third annual salary survey. Pay increased generally in 2004 but the survey indicates a growing gap between bottom and top end rates.

With UK business confidence continuing to rise, skills shortages are occurring. As a result, employers are increasing rewards for staff with better than average skills and experience.

The trend is expected to continue into 2005, as the pool of available skilled staff will remain limited because of low unemployment and an ageing population.

As an example, a PA/Secretary in the City of London is able to command a salary between £20,000 at the low end to £32,500 at the high end - a significant 62% difference. This growing gap between those paid at the bottom and top end of the pay scale has developed because businesses have to compete on salaries to hire and retain the best employees.

Not surprisingly, major pay differences occur from region to region. The South, South East and London regions continue to offer the best pay rates in the UK, reflecting continued strong demand for staff and higher costs of living in those areas. But there are interesting pay differences across job types and even within regions.

According to Steve Girdler, Marketing Director of Kelly Services: "This research provides UK managers and recruiters with a number of key indicators regarding the current employment market enabling them to take an informed view of their overall staffing strategies. Employees and job seekers will be interested in the results as it gives them an idea of what others in the same area, working in similar roles, are being paid and they can adjust their expectations accordingly. They can see if the grass is really greener on the other side."

"As we predicted in last year's report, the UK job market continued to strengthen in 2004 as demand for both temporary and permanent staff increased. Inevitably, this heightened competition for good calibre staff and we expect demand for the best staff to continue rising throughout 2005. Employers, who wish to attract the best recruits, need to ensure that their financial rewards are competitive but they also need to look beyond pay to develop strategies that address the impact of upcoming employment legislation and the UK's changing demographic profile. As a leading global and national staffing company with customers ranging from multi-nationals to local businesses, we at Kelly are well placed to help all types of companies with their recruitment challenges."

The survey was compiled from information collected through Kelly's network of 120 offices. It contains permanent salary information on 13 job types across 11 regions in the UK as well as investigating salary levels in the Engineering, Automotive, Science, Accountancy and Finance industries. Kelly has also collected data on hourly rates for temporary staff fulfilling the same jobs. Each week Kelly fills between 17,000 and 20,000 vacancies.

A full PDF copy of the research can be viewed at: this site.

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