Overall Salaries, Bonuses & Earnings

Earnings

Every employment category shows an increase in earnings over the previous year, with advisers/planners showing the highest increase at 14.9%. Overall, employed earnings have increased by 12.6%.

How does location relate to earnings?

As you’d expect London is the highest earning area but the overall message here is that with the exception of the North East and Northern Ireland, the rest of the UK is fairly consistent.

*small sample size

How does gender affect earnings?

The Census shows as substantial overall gender gap of 53%. This is clearly very high but reflects in part the tendency for males to occupy the higher paid roles of adviser and BDM. The sections on earnings for each occupation give a fuller picture.

How does age affect income?

The highest age band for earnings is 40-50 though it’s very clear that at all ages the earnings are high by national standards (£38,131 for 2021 – ONS).

The impact of qualifications on earnings

As you’d expect the benefit of Chartered status is now very clear. These results are weighted by advisers in particular but the importance of qualifications is felt in all occupational groups.

Do working arrangements have an impact on earnings?

Below is a table that shows the earnings experience by working style, but we advise caution in making definitive conclusions. The most likely explanation for the perceived advantage of 100% remote work is that more experienced employees in all roles are better equipped to work outside the office each day. In contrast, new or trainee staff are more likely to require a workplace setting.

Earnings expectations

We asked respondents how they expected their earnings to move over the next year. These results are very positive with over 60% of respondents anticipating a rise of over 10%. Advisers and BDMs are often very confident about future prospects but in this case all occupational groups are optimistic.

Do you expect your earnings in 2023 to...

Increase by more than 10%
Increase by up to 10%
Remain the same
Fall by up to 10%
Fall by more than 10%

Bonuses

We asked all respondents how their bonus was arrived at.

Responses by occupation are shown later in the Census, but for respondents overall, it's clear that bonuses are a matter of discretion.

We then asked employed respondents if they expected their bonus to change basis in 2023. Overall, 79% said no.

Respondents were asked to comment on changes to their bonus arrangements for 2023.

Change to Bonus Comments

Moved from a discretionary company to a formulaic one
Changing to 50% of salary
Collaboration
70% sales 30% behaviours
More on behaviour
£ per £x over a threshold
Change of formula
Change to shape, focus on new growth firms
60% sales based on % to target, 25% KPI, 15% Corp bonus
Rolling quarters instead of discrete quarters. Bigger KPI element
Gross sales and outflows target
Focus on personal objectives met in a balanced scorecard approach. Bonus pot heavily influenced by overall corporate objective performance
Not sure but impact of downturn will be factored out to an extent and personal performance targets will ensure some bonus is paid if these are hit

We asked respondents how these factors impacted on earnings

The stock market was easily the strongest cause for earnings optimism – and with the FTSE 100 recently breaching 8000 this makes sense. The housing market vies with political changes and the Economy as causes for negative sentiment.

Benefits

Pension Contribution

The minimum under the Auto Enrolment rules for 22/23 are 8% in total of which at least 3% must be from the employer. The Census results below show significant higher levels of contribution with advisers/ planners enjoying the highest level at 16.5%.

Life Assurance

81% of respondents overall have life assurance provided by their employer with BDMs recording the highest level at 91%.

How much life assurance?

Here we have an average provision of 4.9 x salary and with BDMs top with 5.5 x salary

Other benefits overall and by occupation

PMI is the most common benefit and BDMs have the widest range of benefits.