The Seafarer Employers’ Association and Seafarer Wage Benchmarking
Since 2017 Spinnaker have been providing reliable wage cost and salary benchmarking data for employers of seafarers through membership of the Seafarer Employers’ Association.
The Association provides vital wage and salary data for all major vessel types to help employers of crew not only attract and retain talent, but remain competitive in the market.
Deck & Engine Wage Cost Benchmarking
These reports provide daily wage cost data for crew working in deck and engine positions, and are broken down by nationality, rank, and vessel type.
Who participates?
Companies who are employers of crew are welcome to join the Association and current participants in the survey include manning agents, shipowners, oil majors and shipmanagers. The data in the survey represents wages for over 250,000 seafarers globally.
What data is provided in the reports?
Spinnaker collate, analyse, and report daily crew-cost data for 50 seafaring ranks covering officers (both senior and junior) and ratings. Data collected covers over 110 different nationalities. The reports capture all guaranteed pay, whilst taking rotation patterns into consideration enabling members to identify the cost of crewing a vessel.
Reports are personalised for each member showing market highs and lows, and percentiles ranging from P10 –P90. This allows the client to make a direct comparison between their data and that of the market.
The following sectors are reported: Bulk carrier, Car carrier, Chemical tanker, Container, Crude tanker, Cruise, Ferry/RoRo/Ropax, General cargo, LNG, LPG and Product tanker.
Cruise Plus Salary Benchmarking
In 2024, Spinnaker launched salary benchmarking for hotel staff on board cruise ships which provides monthly salary data covering hotel roles.
Who participates?
Companies who are employers of crew are welcome to join the Association and current participants in the survey include manning agents, cruise companies and shipmanagers.
What data is provided in the reports?
40 hotel-specific ranks are covered including accounting, activity & entertainment, admin, food & beverage, hotel administration, housekeeping, marketing/PR, medical, purser and reservations/sales.
The report will cover guaranteed pay, bonuses and gratuities.
All data is reported in an anonymous aggregated format in order to preserve member confidentiality.
How can my company access this information?
To access our seafarer wage cost benchmarking, for either deck & engine and/or hotel, companies are required to join the Seafarer Employers’ Association, of which Spinnaker are secretariat.
Membership benefits.
- Participation and receipt of the annual seafaring wage cost survey/hotel salary survey
- Participation and receipt of the annual trend report
- Participation and receipt of the annual benefits information exchange
- Discounted ticket to the annual conference in May
- Ad hoc crew wage advice when required
- Receipt of a monthly member newsletter
- Access to a crewing network working within the maritime industry
