Something for the weekend: If you were hoping that pay for Father Christmas had increased over the past year, you’d unfortunately be mistaken, although this has remained unchanged since last year. Look snow further to find out more.
According to Incomes Data Research’s (IDR) monitoring of the festive job market, employees who dress up as Santa, once again, stand to earn a median of £15 an hour. A small Claus for celebration?
It found that the hourly pay rates range from £12.21 per hour, the equivalent to the national living wage rate for those aged 21 years and over, to £27.59 at a farm park. The highest rates were at tourist attractions, leisure venues and some garden centres.
In contrast, while elves’ median pay rate is 17% lower than Santas, at £12.48 an hour, this is a 7.6% increase on £11.60 last year.
Just 17% of the sample had youth rates for elves, with under-21s paid £10 in line with the minimum wage age rate for workers aged 18-20 years and £7.55 for 16- and 17-year-olds. Pay data for head elves revealed a median hourly pay rate of £12.80, equivalent to a 2.8% premium over the rate for regular elves.
These festive roles often have perks such as free or subsidised meals, or entry tickets to tourist attractions or leisure venues.
The skills and attributes that the surveyed employers look for are common to both Santas and elves, such as customer-facing experience, time management, improvisation and public-speaking. Other practical aspects include being comfortable working outdoors and staying in costume for their whole shift.
Katherine Heffernan, principal researcher at IDR, said: “This was perhaps inevitable given the fact that last year’s median rate is less than the current statutory minimum. This year’s median rate is just over 2% above the national living wage and over two-thirds pay more than this. But the proportion of organisations setting their elf pay rates at exactly the level of the national living wage is higher this year at just under a third, compared with 26% of last year’s sample.”
Hope you have a great Christmas and festive break from all of us at Employee Benefits!
