PR Professionals – what are we earning?

20 November, 2018

PRINZ has released the latest Research First PRINZ Insights Survey focussing on remuneration. There are two reports – one for in-house professionals and one for those who work in a PR agency. The reports examine salary and non-monetary benefits as well as charge out rates and required billable hours for PR professionals at various experience and competency levels.

The 2018 PRINZ In-house Salary Insights Reports revealed:

• Over half of the respondents perceive extra paid leave as the most desirable non-financial benefit, but only 1 in 5 actually receive this
• Women are underrepresented at higher salary brackets. Reputation management is the most commonly cited task for men, whereas women are most likely to identify content creation
• Communications Advisor is the most common job title with the distribution of salary ranging between $45K and 139K dependent on experience
• One in five departments had a budget increase in the last fiscal year, with one third reporting no change

From the 2018 Agency Salary Insights Report:

• Non-financial benefits offered mostly depend on the agency rather than an individual's competency level or years of experience

PRINZ CEO Elaine Koller says it's disheartening to see that in an industry that has a gender skew approximately 75% female that women are still underrepresented in the top salary bracket for in-house roles.

"If you look at how respondents described their roles, content creation was the most common task for women while the most common task for men was reputation management. Our role as PR professionals is to build and sustain the relationships organisations need to keep their licence to operate, and reputation management is a key part of this strategic work. If PR is just equated to content creation we are limiting the value that we bring to our organisations and clients and this more task-oriented work will be reflected in lower salaries."

"Looking at the survey results from an employer's perspective, attracting and retaining talent is a key challenge for the industry, especially as budgets remain extremely tight. However, it's important to note that salary is not everything and non-monetary benefits such as paid leave, professional development or flexible working hours can make a role more attractive to candidates," says Elaine.

Read the reports here. 

**As the reports are member-only resources, please log into your dashboard first to see the reports.