UK MR Job Market Wobbles Back Towards Good Health

UK market research salaries have remained fairly flat in the past 12 months, according to the first statistics from MrWeb vacancies for Jan to June '03. Meanwhile the number of jobs posted (and specifying salaries) was almost identical in the first and second halves of 2002 but has risen by 27% in the last 6 months.

The rise is mainly due to a larger number of Director, Project Manager and RE positions. In the same period the number of client side RM positions has actually fallen very slightly, although this masks a very slow first quarter and a recent surge with the arrival of two new recruitment consultancy advertisers with a high proportion of client side jobs.

The job market has been inconsistent this year, with a good month often followed by a bad - but at least it has moved on from the general gloom of early 2002.

The mean salary for a UK exec role advertised on MrWeb in Jan to June 2003 was £33,700 (base 936 jobs with salary specified), up from £32,500 (base 734) in July to Dec 2002 and £32,400 (base 735) in Jan to July last year. The main reason for this is a 50% rise in the number of Director level opportunities posted. A secondary factor is the rise in Research Manager and Project Manager salaries.

The number of Research Executive positions advertised has risen by 40%, from 163 in 1st half 2002 to 229 in 1st half 2003, whilst the number of SREs has stayed constant. 'It's very difficult to predict the MR job market' says MD Nick Thomas, 'but if I had to take a punt on the headlines in 6 months' time I might look for a rise in SRE salaries. There has been a bulge working its way down over the last 2 years with rises in Director, AD and RM / Project Manager salaries in consecutive periods to date, and good SREs continue to be much in demand and relatively thin on the ground'.

MrWeb now has 13 regular advertisers in the UK, against 10 in January / most of last year, which accounts for most but not all of the increase in vacancies posted - existing advertisers have also been sending more job ads.

The site continues to outstrip all other on- and offline media in terms of placements resulting from ads, based on feedback from advertisers, and now features virtually all the advertised vacancies in UK market research. Nick Thomas says 'It's been a buoyant 6 months for MrWeb with new advertisers coming onto the scene and some established major players committing to us for the first time. We've posted our 10,000th vacancy ad and passed 1,000 current ads on the site several times. To date we have seen very little impact from our new competitors, but we're not about to be complacent in a medium where market shares rise and fall so rapidly. We have a mass of promotional activity planned for late 2003 for this and other sections of the site including news, directories and the under-advertised but much respected desk research grid'.

The main search page for UK vacancies on MrWeb is at www.mrweb.com/vacs . Detailed results for the 6 months will appear in the next MRWho, due out in 2 weeks time [ see www.mrweb.com/who ]. Means for US and Australian vacancies feature for the first time in this issue.


Mean salary for UK Exec positions on MrWeb, in £ sterling
Base (shown in brackets for each): all jobs advertised with salaries or salary ranges

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.