Blog

How to ask for a payrise (and get one)

13th January 2014 by Paul Wood

After looking at the considerable research into whether there was a disparity of salaries between men and women within the media sector, there does appear to be a gap.

Average salaries for men across the media industry range from between £47,652 – £49,574 and for women £37,564 – £38,329, with the average pay rise for women being from 3.6 – 4.2 per cent while for men it was over 4.6 – 5.0 per cent.

Obviously, there are many factors to consider with the various surveys that are done, from the numbers of people completing the forms, to the seniority of level who filled them in, through to the dearth of women in senior roles across the industry, which also has a big impact.

From a recruitment perspective we do not hear or certainly notice a difference in gender on the salary front when we are being briefed on roles, which is good to hear. We recruit and retain for both agencies and clients in different roles across most sectors and I think a lot of the surveys have missed out the obvious fact that men don’t give birth.

The overall surveys normally miss out on things such as a difference in pay during maternity leave and then the flexible working hours that women have the option to come back to work on having an impact on overall salaries too.

People don’t necessarily get paid on worth and some people can go through their whole career without asking for a pay rise.

Give me a payrise/promotion

1. Line up the meeting by asking for a quick chat with your line manager/boss. In this meeting you should set your stall out for what you would like to discuss in a further meeting.

2. Prior to the meeting, send an email outlining what you would like to discuss, then at least they should have time to prepare and if you are worthy of that promotion you should have a clearer steer by the end of the meeting.

3. You should present a couple of projects that you have recently worked on, talking about what specifically you have done on each. For account handlers it’s key to talk up any involvement that you have had in winning clients, growing accounts and generally adding value, whereas for creatives it should be all about what you have contributed to produce that end product, so if your idea was used, say so.

4. Round the meeting up with a timeline and KPIs (key performance indicators) for the promotion or the pay rise. It sounds simple but if you don’t know what you want to get out of it you won’t get anywhere.