2024 Remuneration Survey reveals trends in salary and benefits
Each year at ACE we survey our member organisations to provide a credible, reliable and consistent source of information on the remuneration and benefits provided to employees. This comprehensive survey covers corporate services roles and specific technical roles, including engineers, architects, surveyors, planners, project managers, scientists and other consulting occupations and professions. ACE Chief Executive Helen Davidson takes a look at what the survey results mean.
This year 110 of our members were represented in the responses, along with 72 members of Consulting Surveyors New Zealand. This represents 14,788 consultants, engineers and surveyors in Aotearoa across 79 benchmark jobs, making our report the most credible and reliable source of remuneration information in professional services consulting in New Zealand’s built and natural environment.
Once again, this survey took place during a year in which we experienced a lot of change, including a shift from strong economic growth to recession warnings, a new coalition government, and a drop in inflation.
This complex time has affected pay trends for members of ACE New Zealand and Consulting Surveyors New Zealand. Although the engineering and construction sectors remain strong, overall pay increases in the private sector were lower when compared to our survey results.
As in previous years, pay increases were greater in lower job grades with graduates experiencing the largest pay increases. Other areas had similar growth, which aligns with market expectations.
We’re now experiencing an easing in the tight job market and inflation surge that followed COVID-19, with conditions starting to return to what they were before the pandemic. Inflation fell to 2.2% in the September 2024 quarter and further decreases are expected.
We were encouraged by the Government’s recent move to create greater stability of infrastructure priorities to help us plan for, fund and deliver important projects with its introduction of the 30-year National Infrastructure Plan, as well as establishing a National Infrastructure Agency in December to get projects set up for success.
However, we still need to address short-term barriers for infrastructure delivery despite these long-term plans. The current skill shortage will continue to challenge employers so, looking ahead, we must remain focused on ensuring pay strategies remain competitive to attract and retain talent. This means keeping pay policies fair, equitable, robust and flexible. A strong link between pay and performance, and a clear remuneration policy, will help meet market demands and retain key staff.
I encourage you to review the effectiveness of your firm’s workforce planning approach to check it’s still fit-for-purpose. This year’s survey findings revealed the most effective approaches to retaining staff were enhanced management training, enhanced benefits and flexible working arrangements.
The skill shortage also makes being a future-ready company even more essential – think about the trends shaping the future of work, such as remote and hybrid work and the acceleration of machine learning and AI, and how to prepare for these changes. This includes the skills we’ll need in our organisations to thrive in this environment and the changing generational landscape.
And it's essential to continue to critically analyse gender pay gaps within your firms and take action. Despite the outstanding achievement by Diversity Agenda Accord signatories this year to narrow the gender pay parity gap to 0.4%, down from 5.6% in 2023, worrying gender pay gaps remain with this year’s survey revealing some concerning movement on the back of some positive gains last year.
In 2023, women were being paid slightly more in graduate 4th year and manager (1%) and technician (3%) roles, but this has now reversed with men being paid more for these roles (3%, 5% and 8%). Particularly concerning pay gaps remain for senior GIS technicians, CAD / drawing operations supervisors / managers, and senior digital specialists, highlighting that there is still much improvement to be made. We urge you to investigate gender pay gaps within your firms and act accordingly.
There has also been a trend reversal from last year’s figures regarding the number of women occupying senior and junior roles. This year growth occurred in the number of women in more senior roles, but numbers declined for those in junior roles. This is in direct contrast with last year when we saw a significant increase in the number of women occupying junior roles, and a declining number of women in senior roles.
This highlights the importance of staying focused on the retention of women within organisations. The Diversity Agenda is continuing its focus on this issue in 2025, and we encourage you to look out for news, events and resources in this area.
By sharing this summary report, we encourage you to use it as a valuable tool to drive employee recognition, engagement and satisfaction in what is a competitive market.
Read the 2024 Remuneration Survey summary report
Read the summary here (you'll need an ACE member log-in).
Want to buy a copy of the full report?
If you're an ACE member that didn't participate in the survey and you'd like to buy a copy of this year’s full report, contact our Finance and Administration Manager Sharon Jansen at [email protected].