The average median salary for HR professionals working in the UK is £47,919 a year, according to research by Croner Reward.
Its HR salary survey, which surveyed 316 organisations with 1,427 job roles, also found that HR professionals’ salaries across the UK are up to 24% less than median HR salaries for those working in London, with HR professionals based in central London taking home a median salary of £77,149 a year, and HR professionals working across London overall having a median annual salary of £52,231.
HR professionals based in East Anglia have a median salary of £46,002 a year, the same as HR professionals working in the East Midlands. HR employees situated in the North East earn a median annual salary of £45,043, compared to HR staff in the North West who take home a median £51,273 a year. HR professionals working in Northern Ireland have a median average salary of £44,564 a year, while HR employees in Scotland are paid a median salary of £49,835 a year. The average median salary for HR professionals in the South East is £49,356, compared to £45,042 in the South West and £45,523 in the West Midlands.
Health and safety managers are the best paid HR professionals, on average earning 11% more than middle managers. In contrast, recruitment professionals are the lowest paid employees in the HR sector, earning 2.5% less than the UK average. Directors in the voluntary sector earn more than £20,000 less than their counterparts working in the private and public sectors.
Laura Sharratt (pictured), pay and benefits expert at Croner Reward, said: “[An] important factor on HR salaries, which is very topical at the moment, is the gender pay gap. It’s unclear what the national trend for the gender pay gap in the HR sector is. However, businesses with over 250 employees only have 12 weeks to report their pay gap, which may have an impact on salaries.
“We have already seen the BBC attempting to address their gender pay gap by offering some senior female executives a financial uplift to bring them up to the level of their male counterparts. So, it’s likely that many other businesses will follow suit. But this is likely to be on a case by case basis where there is clear evidence that there is a disparity in pay between a male and female employee who are carrying out the same job, with the same level of experience and skills. As a result it’s unclear if salary uplifts for some female staff will have an impact on median average salaries overall.
“We would urge all businesses with more than 250 employees to start taking action now as they will legally be obliged to report their gender pay gaps by April 2018. Gathering the data can be stressful enough for HR professionals, as well as calculating the median and mean ranges and compiling the report itself.”