LATEST NEWS ON SALARIES : MAY 2020
Written by Mike Johnson at JOHNSONBIM:
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
You only need to read our latest BIM INSIGHTS article to see why there has been such a big drop in the number of jobs advertised. There is very little demand and this is unlikely to change for several months.
SALARIES
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Companies with a healthy pipeline of work and cashflow are cautiously optimistic. Where salaries have been cut, they anticipate returning to pre C-19 levels by June/July.
The less optimistic are hoping salaries will return to normal sometime later this year. Time will tell, and we will report, how quickly and how many salaries return to where they were in February.
CONCLUSIONS
NO INCREASE IN SALARIES
With supply exceeding demand it is highly unlikely salaries will increase against last year. For existing staff or new. None of our clients expect salary increases this year.
Even companies with decent pipelines don’t expect to be hitting group-wide targets in this financial year so pay rises and profit sharing are unlikely in 2020 or 2021.
SMARTER CAREER MOVES
Hopefully, recruitment will now zone in on opportunities for career progression, not money. With more focus on the potential to take on more responsibility and move up a level, companies need to make it clear that opportunity is real.
To find out what ‘next level’ means, please visit our career management room for career mapping advice.
Note. There will be much more competition for opportunities. Clients will be fussier, must-have skill lists longer. CVs need to be better and applications more relevant. (See our CV Tips in Useful Resources).
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ON-DEMAND EXPERTISE
As we have seen in previous ‘recoveries’, one way companies reduce overheads is by outsourcing some essential needs to external experts. With firm-wide digitalisation and BIM integration being important but an overhead, I can see this cost-saving vs expertise-maintaining optimisation strategy being a key component of survival and recovery plans. Wanting to avoid the higher costs of established BIM consultancies, I predict there will be a healthy demand for part-time / freelance consultants – digital experts, on-demand.
This creates an exciting opportunity for specialists who can deliver on a part-time basis – say 2 to 3 days a week for a fraction of the cost and, ideally, retaining the unique knowledge of staff being made redundant.
THE SOLUTION
Recognising the potential to help unemployed digital construction specialists set up their own consultancies dbe.careers recently launched a project to promote their expertise, on our website, free of charge, so that recruiters can easily find the best on-demand digital talent in the market.
If you’d like to find out more, please email mike@dbe.careers.
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