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How to use a salary survey

Salary surveys help employers benchmark pay, assess market competitiveness and make informed reward decisions. This guide explains what salary surveys are, how to choose reliable data sources and how to use survey data to review and set pay rates effectively.

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By Mark Crail, Brightmine Content Director

Every HR department needs to ensure that its reward budget is spent efficiently and effectively. If pay levels are set too low, the organisation will be able neither to recruit nor to retain the staff that it needs. If set too high, there will be a measurable and potentially damaging financial impact. But without reliable evidence, there is little basis on which to make recommendations and decisions that can have a significant impact on the organisation’s bottom line.

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  • What is a salary survey for?
  • What can a salary survey not do?
  • Using data to check and set pay rates
    • Context and strategy
    • Assessing the data sources
    • Job matching
  • Deciding on the appropriate data tools
    • Annual reports
    • Online tools
    • Spreadsheet tools and spreadsheet data
  • Using the data to inform recommendations and make decisions
  • Putting it into practice: a worked example

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Latest updates

Updated to include salary data from Brightmine Compensation Planning as at May 2024.

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About the author

Mark Crail

Mark Crail is a former content director for Brightmine in the UK. He had day-to-day responsibility for Brightmine Salary surveys and Benchmarking services, and led Brightmine’s wide-ranging research programmes.

He has written on a wide range of employment issues, with a particular interest in the organisation and structure of the HR function itself.

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