The 2011 IEMA survey sample

Details of the environment professionals polled for IEMA's pay and benefits survey 2011

The survey was conducted using an online questionnaire between 23 December 2010 and 11 January 2011. Invitations to complete the survey were emailed to 11,933 current members. The invitation excluded students and those whose records indicate they are located outside of the UK.

There were 2,318 individual responses, a 19.4% response rate. For the salary analyses, those who were unemployed or retired were removed from the sample, along with those who had not provided data on their earnings and respondents who had not specified the region they work in. The remaining sample for salary analysis after this filtering was 2,100.

Table 1 provides a breakdown of the sample by sector and broad job role.

Table 1: Average annual earnings data by seniority in sector
Total earnings
Sector/base Senioriity Mean Median
Business and industry Overall £44,135 £39,303
38 Executive director £81,899 £77,000
200 Senior manager £57,452 £52,000
364 Middle manager £42,943 £40,000
321 Coordinator/specialist £36,402 £34,000
61 Assistant/junior position £24,740 £24,000
Consultancy Overall £37,524 £32,500
152 Director/partner/associate £53,297 £50,000
213 Senior/principle consultant £37,383 £36,000
282 Consultant/specialist £29,129 £25,600
Public sector Overall £34,540 £31,532
101 Senior/principle officer £45,550 £39,000
226 Middle-ranking officer £33,052 £31,000
66 Junior officer £24,563 £24,628
Education/academia/research Overall £34,540 £35,000
7 Professor/senior lecturer £47,714 £49,000
10 Lecturer £34,395 £35,075
9 Researcher £23,557 £30,000
29 Facilities/estates £35,100 £36,000
21 Other £34,152 £31,700

Measured against the whole of IEMA’s UK membership, the respondents are a reasonable representation. The sample has a higher proportion of Full members. They make up 11.2% of respondents used for salary analysis, but only 5.6% of UK members.

The largest group, Associate members, are also slightly over-represented – at 68.7% of the salary sample and 62.1% of UK members. Fellows too are over-represented, accounting for 0.3% of UK membership but 0.9% of the salary base. Both Affiliate and graduate members were slightly under-represented, with 15% of the salary sample and 22% of the UK membership and 4.2% of the survey and 6.7% of UK membership respectively.

Respondents were asked to indicate their primary area of work. The five most common areas are:

  • health, safety and environmental (HSE) management (19.9%);
  • environmental management (18.0%);
  • sustainability (9.2%);
  • impact assessment (EIA, SEA, SA) (9.1%);
  • environmental protection/regulation (6.7%).

No industrial sector dominated the sample. Environmental consultants were the biggest group, making up 16.8% of respondents. Practitioners employed in manufacturing organisations were the next biggest group with 14.2% of the sample, followed by construction (12.3%), non-environmental consultancies (7.9%) and local government (including planning departments) (6.8%).

Asked about additional professional accreditation, 11.1% of the sample said that they are chartered environmentalists (two-thirds of them registered through IEMA) and 11% said they are IEMA auditors.

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