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Pay rise for 61% of senior professionals in 2015 finds Pulse survey

The latest Pulse survey results find that 61% of professionals have had a pay rise in 2015 and a further  59% are expecting one.

More than half of senior infrastructure professionals have had a pay rise this year according to respondents to the Infrastructure Intelligence Pulse survey in association with global software provider Deltek. For 61% respondents salaries hadf gone up and a further 59% said that they were expecting a rise. 

For 53% of respondents the pay increase was between 1% and 3%, but a further 33% reported a greater rise of between 4% and 7%. For 15% it was higher than 7% and pay rises through other mechanisms such as bonuses or shares were also reported by 4% of respondents.

See the full Pulse results in the September issue of Infrastructure Intelligence magazine

The survey of 164 business leaders in the infrastructure sector includes views from consultants, clients, contractors and suppliers. The latest findings follow on from the news that 69% of business leaders are feeling confident about the industry and the findings that 64% believe that low fees are stiffling innovation.

In the careers section of the survey, respondents showed a high level of loyalty to their employers with 64% serving more than 5 years with their present company. Among the most commonly cited reasons for employer loyalty were the opportunities provided with their current employer for career progression as well as a high level of job satisfaction. Working for supportive managers and good colleagues were also important to respondents along with variety of work and good training and development. Flexibility and achieving a good work life balance were important too, ranking above pay or benefits. "My current employer, with whom I have been with 27 years, has provided me with wonderful project experience, freedom to develop my career exactly as I wished, excellent support, exceedingly good working conditions and a first class remuneration package," said one consultancy director.

For staff that had left their employers the most commonly cited reasons were a lack of career progression, the need to seek out new opportunities and achievement of higher salaries. Personal changes such as relocation were also common. "Where I have seen people leave it has been due to lack of opportunity within the organisation," said a consultancy manager.

Employers were also found to have a high level of adoption of policies to encourage diversity and inclusion with 88% of companies reporting such measures were in place. “This is critically important if we are to tackle the skills gap in any meaningful way,” said a consultancy CEO. “EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] are no longer nice to haves. Clients are demanding that compliance is clearly evidenced in bids. With 87000 engineers needed to be produced by the UK (and only 15000 being produced) it’s a no brainer, and will change the face of the industry forever,” said another consulting CEO.

Others said that although policies were in place more had to be done. “Although most if not all companies will have a diversity or equal opportunities policy in place, I still find the workforce generally not reflective of the population that we serve. There is still a shocking discrepancy within companies and more particularly at the higher levels in companies.”

Discrimination had been experienced by 18% of respondents. “As a female engineer I have seen discrimination both conscious and unconscious, macho working practices, aggressive behaviours and ruthless self promotion by males,” said a director level respondent. “Being a woman I was put in situations which were not equitable, were unpleasant and where I was forced to make a choice between my job (when the hard times come) and my 3 yr old son.”

Of the 18% that had suffered discrimination 52% were female. “I was particularly discriminated against when returning to work full time from maternity leave. I was refused a bid for further education on the basis that I have a young family and I have also been overlooked for more important or exciting pieces of work in favour of older male colleagues.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to contact Bernadette Ballantyne about this, or any other story, please email bernadette.ballantyne@infrastructure-intelligence.com:2016-1.