Employees prosper while contractors suffer in UK project manager survey

Arras People, the Project & Programme Management recruiters conducted a Benchpoint™ internet survey of 1650 UK based project professionals,examining their careers, qualifications, earnings and prospects, comparing the results with two previous annual surveys.

[UKPRwire, Mon Mar 03 2008] Arras People, the project management recruitment specialists, used independent research company Benchpoint’s™ unique real time polling technology to question 1650 permanent and contract Programme and Project Professionals during January 2008.

The survey provided a detailed picture of project professionals’ careers, earnings and prospects building upon the data gathered in previous surveys.

Survey highlights:
• Employment remuneration, broadly static, with contractors the worse off
• Majority of contractors expect their incomes to be static or decrease in 2008, but employees anticipate increased earnings
• Gender and age still account for major market differences and there is still discrimination at work –YET females performed better than men when it came to increasing their income
• Nearly a quarter of all respondents claim to have an “Unacceptable” work/life balance.
• The six factors which denote a happy project management professional’s working life
• 55% of self employed contractors started the year with less than 3 months, or no current projects.
• Only 15 % of contractors had more that 6 months work at the start of the year.

Commented John Thorpe, managing director of Arras People, “This is our third annual survey of the project management profession in the UK, and we are gaining a valuable insight into what is driving this market, which now employs between 1.5 and 2 million people.

We have noticed some big changes, particularly in the climate and remuneration of contractors, and also the persistence of gender and age issues in the workplace.
“Although nearly three quarters of our respondents say they have an acceptable work/life balance, a worrying 23% claim that their lifestyle is “unacceptable”, which is worrying, and we try to analyse why.”

The full version of the report can be downloaded from the Arras people Website.
http://www.arraspeople.co.uk/projectmanagementsalarysurvey/2008/Report/Arras_Survey08_Press_Summary.pdf

Bookmark this release: Del.icio.us - Digg - Furl - Blinklist - Reddit