SALARY SURVEY REPORT NOW AVAILABLE!

2007 Business Continuity Salary Survey

This years Salary Survey has been the biggest ever with nearly 1400 respondents and covers a key period of industry development as increased focus on Standards, Regulation and Legislation issues gathers speed.

The recent availability of the first part of the new British Standard, BS25999 appears to be adding value and profile to BC skills more generally in the market and the impact on the Civil Contingencies Act on Public Sector organisations and Category Two responders building the profile and importance of Business Continuity Management. With these developments interest in BCM is firmly on the management agenda and we believe that we are starting to see the skills required in Business Continuity Management recognised as key to the organisation, and consequently there has been a marked uplift in the value associated with them from employers.

While this is welcome and long overdue, the study also strongly points to a number of factors that affect a range of organisations, primarily in the Public Sector, which are likely to have a considerable impact over the coming years. Over the past few years our sector has entered a period of maturation within some sectors leading to considerable opportunities to some, primarily in the Finance sector, but those working in less evolved areas, particularly the Public Sector are unfortunately in most instances lagging far behind.

Overall, salaries have continued to rise over the year as shown below:

Overall Private Sector rise = 6.4%

Overall Public Sector rise = 1.2%

Banking, Finance and Insurance Sector rise = 8.7%

The overall average salary is now £45,552 across all sectors and grades, once again those in the Banking and Finance field leading the way with an average of £52,520. Self Employed Consultants or contractors fared substainally better though with annual remuneration approaching £84,000.

At the higher levels of management (and experience) conditions appear bouyant with salaries over £80,000 relatively common. However, the public sector fared considerably worse in the Salary stakes with the average salary being just £34,500 which is creating a massive pay differential which appears to be understandably generating a migration of skills away from the Public Sector.

Information submitted indicates that much of this issue is due the dificulties of the Pay Structures and Grading in place in much of Local Government in reflecting the skills and the wider employment market for Business Continuity. Of the 35% of respondents that received salary increase of 2.5% or less, over 90% of these were employed by Public Agencies. Contrast this with the 7% that benefited from increases of 20% or more where, with only one exception, they all worked within the Private Sector and the issues are clear.

This year's survey has continued to illustrate and reinforce the growing differentials between Public and Private Sector pay; in fact the gap between these groups appears to be growing at an accelerated rate. Part of the reason is the substantially increased number of people with lower levels of experience working within the field who have responded to the study, but it should be fully appreciated that these individuals are often in place to effect the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act and depending on the body may have significant duties in the area of Emergency Planning as well as responsibility for BCM.

On average and in a single year the experience of those working within the Public Sector has fallen by 2.7 years. The migration of personnel from the public sector to the private is completely understandable from financial and professional points of view. Access to training and skills support were cited as an issue to some degree by those in the public sectorby a huge 83%. The responsibilities were also easily comparable with the private sector group and the complexities and lack of support resources often posing difficulties that were clearly seen as major obstacles to effective planning. When combined with the generally lower levels of experience shown earlier we feel that this adds significant problems for the personnel and the likley effectiveness of Public Sector Business Continuity Planning.

Whilst there are still undoubtedly issues within our sector, we feel that the outlook and prospects for those involved with BCM (and who are willing to invest in their skills and experience) remains generally very good. From an individuals perspective the various roles available generally provide increasingly good opportunities for growth and career development, although this would likely necessitate a number of job changes to fully realise. And finally, virtually every career has issues and problems that have to be overcome, the nature of most people involved with BCM seems to naturally drive them rise to these challenges and from the comments we have recieved, they value hugely the diversity of the role and from which score the profession very highly for job satisfaction. To get your copy of this years Salary Survey please mail us

HERE!

For more information on either the Salary Survey or our work please do contact us directly on the links below. If you or your organisation would like to be involved in our events series please do get in touch with Sara McKenna of the Continuity Forum HERE! or call on + 44 (0) 208 993 1599 for further information.

END