In-House tax market update and salary review
Each year, with help our tax network we are able to bring together all the latest changes to the in-house tax market and offer comprehensive year-on-year salary comparisons and market trends and insights.
It’s no secret that there has been a slow down in tax hiring in over the last 12 months. With macro-economic instability often comes a cautiousness to hire and following the post-covid hiring boom that saw salaries increase significantly, it isn’t a surprise that our market data for 2024 has shown a period of stability.
Compared to 2023, salary increases have stalled with more people not receiving any increase at all this year than last year. Businesses have felt the market pinch and responded with below inflation increases. The bulk of pay rises (for over 50% of respondents) remained within the 1-5% bracket which is the same as a year ago.
Sector analysis
Our data shows that the sectors where tax professionals received the highest increase (over 21%) was very much within the financial services industries including: investment services (banking, PE and alternatives), insurance and brokerage. Commerce and industry businesses kept pay rises more at the 10% level.
The majority of pay rises of 21% or more, were for Manager and Senior Manager grade candidates. This shows the continued battle for talent at this level
Bonuses
Continuing the theme, it’s clear that bonus performance is down compared to last year. In a challenging market, this is always going to be the case. Compared to 2023, our data suggests a significant decrease in bonuses over 20%, which is likely why there was an increase in the bracket of 11-20% bonus. There was also a big increase (12%) of tax professionals receiving no bonus so far in 2024 compared to last year.
The largest bonuses this year (over 31%) have been paid across the pharma, travel, energy and insurance sectors.
Vacancy trends
Vacancy flow has slowed down and we have seen about a 10% drop compared to 2023. However, there is still a strong appetite to hire both permanent and interim tax resource. Despite a tricky market, newly qualified and manager-level tax candidates continue to be in demand and can achieve significant uplifts on their package. Naturally, there are less Director/Head of level roles, but this level of the market has been particular quiet this year while many people settle into new positions. The good news is that we are starting to see senior roles come through and the churn will start to create more opportunities at this level.
In terms of job types, corporate tax compliance &reporting and VAT are core areas that are continually buoyant even in this market. Senior and experienced tax reporting candidates are becoming increasingly popular as demands become greater, and businesses are separating out process improvement/tax technology into dedicated process improvement driven positions.
Hybrid working review
Our data suggests that hybrid working policies are remaining consistent year on year. The average days in the office has moved more towards three days compared to two days in the office last year. A figure that is consistent with last year’s salary survey, is that 85%+ people would turn down a job offer if they had to be in the office four days per week or more. Certainly something for businesses to keep in mind when they are scoping roles and considering their internal policies.
If you are looking for more comprehensive benchmarking for your particular sector we are able to provide this for you across tax, treasury and finance. Our brand new online salary guide is a new feature that will let us provide real-time updates to our global network. LINK
For more information on any of the above and to arrange a discussion, please get in touch,
