According to PCMA Convene’s 2015 Annual Salary Survey, nearly 80 per cent of meeting professionals have earned a significant pay raise — an average increase of seven per cent — within the last year.
This month, PCMA Convene magazine published the results of its annual Salary Survey, which has served as an industry benchmark for several decades. The results of this year’s survey — completed by 340 association, corporate, and independent meeting professionals in March — reveal that their average salary is nearly $81,000, compared to under $76,000 in last year’s survey.
“Meeting professionals told us that they earned higher increases in this year’s survey than in last year’s survey,” said Convene Editor in Chief Michelle Russell. “Only three per cent said that their salaries decreased within the last year.”
This year’s results proved once again that it pays to earn a CMP. Those with the designation earned on average US$85,793 — more than $10,500 a year more than their counterparts without a CMP.
“In addition to our standard survey questions,” Russell said, “this year, we asked planners what factors go into determining their compensation, such as number of meetings they plan, size or scale of their largest meeting, the number of staff who report to them, and post-meeting metrics. Not surprisingly, nearly 40 per cent of them said their salary was based in part on the number of meetings they plan each year.”
And while meeting professionals may be bringing home a bigger paycheque, it doesn’t come easy. The majority of them said that they have had additional responsibilities added to their job description this year. They also work long hours: The average workweek for all respondents is 46 hours, with nearly a quarter logging in more than 50 hours per week.
For more information, view PCMA’s salary survey results.
