As a company, knowing how to structure your salaries can feel like a challenge. You want to offer competitive pay, but also need to work within your budget. Many companies use salary surveys as a way to discover what compensation their competitors are offering.

1. Whatisasalary
survey?

2. As a company, knowing how to structure your salaries can feel like a challenge. You want to
offer competitive pay, but also need to work within your budget. Many companies use salary
surveys as a way to discover what compensation their competitors are offering.
We want to help you find out more about salary surveys plus why and when you might need
to use one.
A salary survey or pay survey is used to collect and analyse data on compensation. They can
give insight into the minimum, maximum, and average salary paid for specific roles. They can
also show how wages differ across location, gender, industry, job title, and more.
Pay surveys may include details about wages, or they can include total compensation in terms
of other benefits like healthcare, paid time off, flexible working, pension plans, and bonuses
too.

3. Salary surveys are usually carried out by:
Professional associations
Government departments
Private employers
Companies often have to pay to access surveys from professional associations, and
while those from government departments are often free, they may not be updated
regularly. The results of these surveys can also go out of date quickly, especially in the
current economic climate where many companies are adjusting salaries more often
than they may have in the past.
That’s why to set the most accurate salaries, it’s best to use data sources that are both
regularly updated and industry-specific. Location is important too as if you’re based in
France, the data from a salary UK won’t be as relevant or useful. As a result, the best
option for private companies is to use salary benchmark uk data that’s updated in
real-time.

5. Why do you need a salary survey?
The data from salary surveys can bring plenty of benefits. Here are five reasons why you
need a salary report.
#1 To make accurate decisions
Knowing where to set your employees’ salaries is a lot easier when your decisions are
informed by accurate and up-to-date data. Once you know the market rate you can adjust
your salaries so they’re as competitive as possible.
#2 To drive transparency
Pay transparency helps promote trust, but even if you don’t openly share salary information,
employees are more likely to discuss their salaries than ever before. For employees in the
UK who did discuss their salaries, 35% found they were being paid less than their
colleagues. This may tempt some employees to leave their job in search of better
transparency and higher pay.

6. #3 To close the gender pay gap
The gender pay gap means that often, women get paid less than men for completing the same
job. For European startups, we discovered that the unadjusted gender pay gap is 19%. Women
are also less likely to hold leadership positions. By using accurate and up-to-date data from
surveys, you can set fair salaries that help drive gender pay equality.
#4 To stay competitive
Competitive salaries help to attract the top talent—but during an economic downturn budgets
also need to be allocated with care. Knowing the salary ranges for roles in your specific
industry and location can help you find the right balance.
#5 To boost performance
When employees feel they’re being paid fairly, they’re often more productive. It can also help
increase loyalty, which is vital in a job market where retaining top talent is just as important as
attracting people to work for you in the first place. When employees discover they’re being paid
less than their co-workers, or people in similar roles elsewhere, they can feel less motivated to
perform their best.

7. When do you need a salary survey?
If you’re launching a new startup, being able to offer a competitive salary helps attract the top
talent. Once your company is up and running, the data from salary surveys is vital when
completing performance reviews, calculating salary adjustments in line with inflation, or
deciding how to combine wages and other benefits within total compensation packages.
What questions do salary surveys typically include?
If you’re running your own salary survey, choosing the right questions is key. Some examples
include:

8. ● Current job title
● Job type (managerial, technical, operational, etc)
● Seniority level
● Industry
● Sector (private or public)
● Location
● Type of contract
● Years of experience
● Qualifications
● Professional memberships or certifications
● Gross annual income
● List of benefits

9. Completing a private salary survey is a lot of work, not least because you’ll need to source as
many respondents as possible, before analysing the data. Any compensation data should also
be for appropriate roles at similar companies, rather than general job titles from other
industries. If you’re a startup, you’ll want to source data from companies within the same
geographical location that are at a similar stage of growth.
For accurate results, the methodology used to analyse your results is important. Ideally, you’ll
need to set a minimum number of responses, and for accuracy, this should ideally be at least
500 respondents. Results should first be sorted by job title so you can calculate the average,
mean, and median for each of these.
The value of your results will be increased if you can also calculate results for other
demographics including sector, industry, location, size of the company, and more. Once all the
work collecting and analysing data is done, in a few months, your results will be out of date as
respondents receive pay increases as part of their regular review cycle.

10. Looking for more resources, tools and content?
That's why we created Figures, you don't need to be a compensation expert, we are. With
our an all-in-one compensation platform updated in real-time, expert HR and People
insights, we want to make your job more efficient and power more fair decisions.
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● Learn more about compensation philosophy, the gender pay gap, and best practices
on our blog
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team today!

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