Salaries are rising in business travel, according to the latest figures from C&M Recruitment.
Its salary index for the first half of 2022 found the standard new business travel job had an average salary of £29,207, up by 13.44% from the first half of 2019 (£25,746).
For travel jobs overall, including those in the leisure sector, wages for standard jobs (those paying up to £40,000) have climbed by a similar amount (13.03%) since before the pandemic to £27,635.
But new executive travel roles (those paying more than £40,000) have seen an average drop in salary of 4.81% since 2019 to stand at £50,189.
Recruitment activity levels in the travel industry hit a record high during the first half of 2022, with the number of candidates being placed in new travel jobs jumping by 25% per cent from 2019.
Barbara Kolosinska, Director at C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment, said: “It may look like travel salaries have unexpectedly jumped in the past year, but this has been a long time coming. Travel has always been a comparatively poorly paid industry and, when you couple this with the current lack of available candidates, wages simply had to rise.
“Travel companies are realising that it’s no longer acceptable to pay minimum wage to experienced candidates – and they’re also realising that they simply won’t be able to fill their job vacancies if they offer such derogatory salaries.
“We are also seeing many candidates handing in their notice and then being counter offered by their current company with significantly higher salaries in an effort to convince them to stay. This bidding war for top talent suggests that wages will continue to rise for at least the short-term.
“There continues to be a lack of experienced applicants in the marketplace, but with the record numbers of vacancies and the more attractive pay packets currently on offer, we expect many talented travel professionals will want to assess the fantastic variety of travel jobs on offer in the second half of the year.”
