New report out on PR salaries
No big surprise here, but Phoenix is not among the top listed cities for the quantity of PR professionals. A new report from Spring Associates, Inc., an executive search firm in NYC, is now available. Some thought-provoking stats:
- Average corporate communications base salaries decreased 11.3% in the last year
- PR agency base salaries decreased 10.6%
- The top metro cities with the most number of PR professionals are New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Houston, Washington DC and San Francisco
- Bonuses decreased (Hey – I never received a “bonus” in my life as a PR specialist – what have I been missing?)
An unnerving trend to me — according to the report, it’s becoming more common for corporate public relations candidates to report into human resources, marketing and sometimes legal departments, rather than directly to the CEO. Bad, bad news.
Spring Associates says the survey queried their database of 22K pre-qualified PR professionals.
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Comments
March 18th, 2010 at 9:51 am
According to Salary.com, the midrange for a Phoenix PR director is $160,000, while the top 20% make $183,000. Really? Where?
March 18th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Those numbers do sound WAY off. Where are they getting their data?
March 18th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
We do not send out a survey to an unvetted group of people who claim to be PR pros and expect to get back accurate numbers.
Our salary and bonus figures come directly from 22K+ PR people whose credentials have been vetted.
That’s why our numbers are accurate and reliable.
March 22nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Public Relations reporting to Marketing or Legal is a bad idea and could set a company up for some real problems. Have you ever seen a press release written by committee or run through the legal department fifteen hundred times? It’s important for those departments to work alongside PR to present the best image for the brand and PR needs direct access to the CEO, especially in times of crisis.
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Linda – I am always intrigued by the results of salary surveys. So often, Arizona is categorized as part of the West and therefore, I find the results to be very skewed. We know our salaries here in Phoenix do not compare to those in San Francisco or Los Angeles. It was that mindset that prompted the Phoenix PRSA chapter to conduct its own salary survey in 2008. The salary survey was web-based and was promoted by our chapter, IABC Phoenix through its newsletter, and the Valley PR Blog. We received 146 responses. Our findings were:
• Salary levels very spread out over all income levels, with the median salary between $60,000-65,000
• Younger females and older males dominated the survey: 74% of the men that responded were more than 36-years-old, only 39% of the females were older than 36.
• More than half (53%) say media relations is their primary work function
• A majority of the respondents (77%) were female (interesting considering your blog post on Feb. 22)
We saw a fairly equal representation across all work settings: 27 percent corporate communications; 26 percent government/public education; and 25 percent working at a public relations agency.
We also asked about benefits. You might be interested to know that in addition to vacation and health insurance, many of our respondents had their professional association membership paid by their employer; personal days, flex time and casual days figured prominently; and domestic partner benefits, profit sharing, company car and even pet insurance were mentioned.
The survey results are available on CD. If anyone is interested in a copy, shoot me an email at afink@hmapr.com.
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Tony,I agree with you completely. Those depts need to work alongside PR, not have PR report into them. Press releases by committee always stink.
Abbie – thank you for reminding me about the local PRSA survey. This data is much more reliable in terms of salaries. I was not aware that AZ gets lumped into “the west” so often.
The perks/benefits are interesting – apart from a parking space, a cellphone, and health care, I don’t recollect having any other special benefits. Maybe all I needed to do was ask?