Construction鈥檚 recovery was always going to bring higher wages and the upward pressure on salaries is almost countrywide

Contractors' salary survey 2014

It will be a cause for cheer on the construction sites of Britain, but perhaps less welcome at the Bank of England. The degree to which wage inflation is lagging behind the wider recovery in employment has been the big economic puzzle of the last few months, helping to justify Threadneedle Street鈥檚 continued refusal to hike the politically sensitive base interest rate.

However, the latest edition of the annual Hays鈥 contractors鈥 salary survey, shown exclusively to 好色先生TV, reveals that after a half decade of stagnation, construction industry wages are back on the rise. The headline figure shows that average contractors鈥 salaries over the past 12 months rose by 7.4%, which equates to nearly five times the current headline inflation rate of 1.5%. They follow recently published Office of National Statistics figures showing that across the whole industry, earnings were up 4% year-on-year.

And these increases are not being enjoyed in London and the South-east alone - the fillip to the housing market, brought on by the Help to Buy initiative, has rippled out across most of the regions. Only north-east England and Northern Ireland salaries have yet to see an improvement, according to Duncan Bullimore, building division director at Hays Construction.

Hays says the housing market boost has had a knock-on effect on specialist contractors such as cladding, building envelope functions and joinery trades people. With contractors increasingly able to identify a pipeline of work, pressure is on to find staff at every stage of the construction process from planning to on site.

Bullimore says: 鈥淭here is sustained broad-based recovery of the industry reflected across many roles in many regions. Things are always amplified in London and the South but there is upward pressure on salaries in all areas.鈥

Brian Green, analyst at consultancy Brickonomics, warns that Hays鈥 figures are based on salaries placed by the recruitment agency, and are likely to be involve bigger pay uplifts than those of colleagues who stay put. Yet, the strength of the rebound still paints a rosy picture.

Senior vacancies

The survey contains particularly good news for those in more senior posts. Senior site managers, planners and assistant site managers all enjoyed salary increases of around 10%. Project managers and senior quantity surveyors saw average salary increases of 10.4% and 10.1% respectively, compared to the recruitment consultancy鈥檚 figures for the previous 12 months.

According to Hays, a shortage of experienced candidates means that they are increasingly able to call the shots when negotiating pay and benefits. The premium enjoyed by relatively senior staff is particularly marked within quantity surveying. While senior quantity surveyors have enjoyed a 10.4% salary uplift over the last year, assistant QSs saw average pay rises of just 2%. The premium on experienced candidates reflects the industry鈥檚 hollowing out over the past five years.

Bullimore says: 鈥淭hey were the people who were lost during the last recession. If you were over 50 at the start of the last recession, the chances are that you got out if you could.鈥

But it would not make sense for contractors to lure them back, he argues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to require training and familiarising with new systems when you are only going to get a few years out of them, which is probably not attractive.鈥

The pressure to get staff who are able to contribute to profitability from day one, cuts at the opposite end of the age spectrum too. Bullimore says: 鈥淚n lean times people disinvest and in times of feast people feel they need to be productive straightaway.鈥 It could be three to four years before an apprentice is productive, at which point it is possible that they will be poached by a competitor, he adds.

Things are always amplified in London and the south but there is upward pressure on salaries in all areas

Duncan Bullimore, Hays

With graduate schemes and apprenticeships having stalled during the recession, Bullimore says employers are often taking on assistant QSs with only one or two years鈥 experience. 鈥淎ssistant QSs are often quite junior. They come out of university with a degree and very quickly find themselves in a role as assistants, so salaries reflect the fact that there are quite junior people in that job title.鈥

Tony Williams, chief executive of consultancy 好色先生TV Value, believes that contractors will increasingly look abroad to plug skills gaps. He says: 鈥淟anguage is not really a barrier: a Polish surveyor can work on a building site with a few words of English.鈥

But Green argues that this route won鈥檛 work for the more experienced roles that are in the highest demand. 鈥淚t鈥檚 difficult to ship in a project manager from another country who is not culturally aware or even qualified to work here.鈥

In order to attract and retain in-demand staff, the Hays survey shows that contractors are widening the scope of their remuneration packages beyond standard features such as the company car allowance. Increasingly common additional fringe benefits include extra days of annual leave, above statutory minimum pension contributions, and the opportunity to work on CV-enhancing high-profile projects. 

Andrea Singh, head of HR operations at Bam Construct, says her company tries to offer this kind of wider benefits package, with features such as BUPA health cover, across its staff. She advises employees to look beyond the headline salary figures when weighing up potentially juicy job offers. 鈥淥ne of the issues we emphasise to employees who are offered apparently attractive packages is to think through the long-term factors. If the project gets cancelled or delayed, the employee needs to consider what the long-term prospects with a new employer are and whether the new employer has a commitment to the individual and their development and future career path.鈥

However, after so many years of deferred gratification during the recession, many employees will take the 鈥渏am today鈥 option.  And an increasingly tight labour market could have ramifications for the entire structure of the industry. More than half (56%) of employers said their salary bill had grown over the last year, with just 1% reporting the opposite. The power shift between contractors and staff is reflected in Hays鈥 finding that 41% of employers worry about unrealistic salary demands among prospective staff, while 44% say competition from other employers could prove an issue.

Just under two-thirds (65%) of employers say they are concerned the skill shortages will have an impact on their business, 68% expect a shortage of experienced applicants when recruiting, and 41% say a shortage of qualified professionals is a future problem.

Strained margins

Increasing competition for staff will inevitably put additional pressure on margins, which will be painful for those companies still struggling to deliver contracts negotiated during the downturn. 鈥淭here will be lot of legacy contracts that will be being run at a loss,鈥 says Green.

Contractors finding themselves in this boat will find it hard to reward their staff. 鈥淢argins are still quite tight across a lot of the industry so it鈥檚 not like these organisations can be too generous about the level of salaries being offered,鈥 says Bullimore.

And as companies become more fragile, they will have to pay more to lure staff to stay or join, fuelling further market turbulence, warns Green. With more than half of employees telling Hays that their current firms are unable to offer sufficient job opportunities, labour issues will give a further spur to mergers and acquisitions.

Williams argues, meanwhile, that the industry will have to tell clients, who expect a good level of finish, they will have to pay more for it. But with the construction industry expected to grow at a 5% per annum rate until 2016, he believes 鈥渢he golden years are back鈥, meaning it will be easier to adopt this robust position on pricing.

In the meantime, Bullimore thinks that salary levels will start to taper off during the next 12 months as firms get used to more buoyant conditions. He also believes that, once short-term bottlenecks have eased, companies will focus on productivity 鈥渞ather than making a dash for every candidate on the move鈥.

One route, he argues, to greater productivity is to make more use of off-site methods. This could enable companies to tap a wider pool of potential recruits by drawing on people who have worked in less in-demand disciplines, such as assembly and manufacturing. In this scenario, many construction professionals would have to temper their expectations.

However, the policy makers at the Bank of England will no doubt smile on the industry鈥檚 revival offering fresh opportunities for the UK鈥檚 rust belt industrial regions.

Planners鈥 pay 2014

 Senior plannerPlannerAssistant planner
North-west 48,000 38,000 23,750
North-east 46,750 37,500 22,000
Yorkshire & Humber 47,500 37,500 24,250
West Midlands 46,000 37,000 25,000
East Midlands 49,000 39,500 24,750
East of England 46,000 39,000 25,000
Greater London 57,250 47,250 29,500
South-west England 46,000 42,750 25,000
South-east England 50,000 37,000 25,000
Scotland 50,000 37,000 23,000
Northern Ireland 42,250 33,500 22,250
Wales 49,000 39,500 24,500
National Avg. 拢48,146 拢38,792 拢24,500
Average change 2013 - 2014 9.2% 10.0% 4.6%

 

Quantity surveyors鈥 pay 2014

 Senior QSContract QSAssistant QS
North-west 47,500 37,250 23,500
North-east 46,000 38,750 23,750
Yorkshire & Humber 47,250 38,750 23,750
West Midlands 42,000 33,500 27,000
East Midlands 46,250 37,000 25,000
East of England 48,750 37,875 24,750
Greater London 53,250 41,000 33,000
South-west England 46,250 39,250 27,750
South-east England 50,000 40,500 22,250
Scotland 44,500 37,250 22,000
Northern Ireland 43,500 33,500 22,250
Wales 47,250 36,125 22,750
National Avg. 拢46,875 拢37,563 拢24,813
Average change 2013 - 2014 10.1% 9.4% 2.3%

 

Contract/project managers鈥 pay 2014

 Contract managerProject manager
North-west 拢49,500 拢44,750
North-east 拢46,500 拢41,750
Yorkshire & Humber 拢48,000 拢45,500
West Midlands 拢46,000 拢39,000
East Midlands 拢50,500 拢43,500
East of England 拢45,000 拢43,500
Greater London 拢51,250 拢50,250
South-west England 拢46,750 拢48,000
South-east England 拢53,000 拢48,500
Scotland 拢50,000 拢50,000
Northern Ireland 拢43,500 拢39,500
Wales 拢46,500 拢44,500
National Avg. 拢48,042 拢44,896
Average change 2013-2014 9.0% 10.4%

 

Engineers鈥 pay 2014

 Senior engineerEngineer
North-west 39,500 32,000
North-east 40,500 34,000
Yorkshire & Humber 39,000 34,000
West Midlands 36,000 30,000
East Midlands 38,750 31,250
East of England 35,000 29,000
Greater London 41,250 37,250
South-west England 38,000 34,250
South-east England 39,500 35,000
Scotland 37,000 32,750
Northern Ireland 32,500 27,750
Wales 41,250 34,250
National Avg. 拢38,188 拢32,625
Average change 2013-2014 7.4% 7.5%

 

Health and safety professionals鈥 pay 2014

 H&S directorSenior H&S managerH&S managerH&S adviser
North-west 58,000 47,000 39,125 29,750
North-east 55,000 45,000 35,000 25,000
Yorkshire & Humber 60,000 49,750 36,000 32,000
West Midlands 61,875 52,250 39,000 33,000
East Midlands 63,750 48,750 41,875 31,625
East of England 65,000 48,000 37,000 29,000
Greater London 85,000 59,000 48,000 35,000
South-west England 70,000 51,000 40,000 32,000
South-east England 75,000 55,000 46,000 35,000
Scotland 51,000 42,000 35,000 28,000
Northern Ireland 50,000 42,000 35,750 26,750
Wales 55,000 45,000 35,000 27,000
National Avg. 拢62,469 拢48,729 拢38,979 拢30,344
Average change 2013-2014 1.3% 3.3% 3.3% 4.0%

 

Site managers鈥 and foremen鈥檚 pay 2014

 Senior site managerSite managerAssistant site managerGeneral foreman
North-west 39,500 37,250 27,000 25,500
North-east 41,000 36,500 25,250 26,000
Yorkshire & Humber 40,750 36,500 27,000 25,250
West Midlands 37,000 34,000 29,000 27,000
East Midlands 41,250 37,500 29,500 28,750
East of England 42,000 36,000 28,000 29,500
Greater London 44,000 41,250 36,500 29,750
South-west England 40,000 35,750 27,750 25,500
South-east England 53,750 40,250 34,250 29,500
Scotland 42,000 38,000 28,000 28,000
Northern Ireland 38,000 33,500 24,500 29,500
Wales 38,500 36,000 24,750 26,000
National Avg. 拢41,479 拢36,875 拢28,458 拢27,521
Average change
2013 - 2014
10.1% 9.0% 9.8% 4.5%

 

Estimators鈥 pay 2014

 Senior EstimatorEstimatorAssistant EstimatorBid Manager
North-west 49,250 41,500 27,750 49,500
North-east 46,000 38,000 25,750 53,250
Yorkshire & Humber 47,500 41,000 25,000 49,500
West Midlands 49,000 38,000 27,000 50,000
East Midlands 49,500 39,500 26,000 49,500
East of England 53,500 40,000 29,750 45,000
Greater London 54,000 45,750 32,750 51,500
South-west England 49,250 43,500 27,000 46,500
South-east England 53,750 44,000 30,000 50,000
Scotland 47,000 39,750 28,000 49,000
Northern Ireland 43,500 34,250 26,250 43,750
Wales 50,250 39,000 27,000 46,125
National Avg. 拢49,375 拢40,354 拢27,688 拢48,635
Average change
2013 - 2014
5.1% 6.3% 4.3% 4.6%