Following the release of Spinnaker’s annual salary survey for shore-based shipping jobs, Spinnaker’s HR Consulting team have been collating and analysing information regarding salary reviews and pay projections for the year ahead.
The Maritime HR Association’s annual salary survey report for shore-based shipping jobs is made up of real salary and bonus data from 107 shipping companies and for shipping jobs such as Technical Superintendent, Operator and Charterer. Data is provided to Spinnaker from the HR departments of these shipping companies and this year’s report covered 35,000 shipping professionals in 103 countries.
When analysing the data, we can see how the actual salary budgets in 2024 compared to the salary forecasts in 2023. The overall picture was fairly accurate with the variance ranging from just -0.95% to 1.34% when comparing actual budgets against the forecasted budgets.
Looking ahead to 2025, in 95% of cases the salary budget projections for 2025 are less than the actual increase in 2024. What’s more, the projected salary budget increases are lower than all-industry projections (source https://worldatwork.org/) in all but four locations. These being Italy, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland.
That said, member projected budget increases are higher than corresponding 2024 inflation rates in roughly 92% of locations.
When it came to how the salary budget was spent, in 2024 a higher proportion was spent on ‘rises for top performers or key staff only’ and ‘rises for specific individuals or departments to ensure alignment with market rates’ than in 2023.
11% of respondents paid the same % increase to all employees regardless of performance with this figure remaining unchanged from 2023.
In terms of bonuses, 81% of responding companies paid bonuses to all eligible staff in 2024 with over half saying there was no maximum bonus limit!
For roles in the ‘Technical & Marine’ job family, 87% of companies are forecasting bonuses of up to 50% of salary for their most senior members of staff such as Heads of Department in 2025, whilst 61% of respondents expect to pay between 1-10% bonuses to the junior members in this job family.
23% of respondents expect higher bonuses payments in 2025 whilst the remaining companies expect bonuses to be the same as in 2024 or lower.
The data in the survey is derived from members of Spinnaker’s Maritime HR Association. The brainchild of Spinnaker CEO Phil Parry, who back in 2005 was approached by a group of large shipowners and operators in the maritime industry who were looking for a way to benchmarking the salaries of their shore-based employees.
The need was for real and current data from individual employees and not just recruitment data.
The Maritime HR Association was launched shortly after with the aim of helping organisations ensure that the salaries they offer are fair and competitive, which can in turn help attract and retain top talent.
To find out more about the salary and bonus reports that Spinnaker provide, please contact Helen McCaughran or Monique Turner in the business development team.
