Salary surveyors

RICHARD CURTIS TAKES THE MEASURE OF THE BREWER MORRIS 2009/10 SALARY SURVEY

It’s that time of year again when we’ve been looking forward to a major annual tax event. No, I’m not talking about the pre-Budget report. It’s much more important than that, it’s the Brewer Morris annual taxation salary survey.

At Taxation 2 we thought that it would be a good idea to have a little survey of the report itself; hopefully we’ve got the nuggets for you in this article but if you want the real deal then copies of the survey are available from Brewer Morris.

The report’s introduction notes that ‘soon after producing our 2008 salary survey in September of last year, the full force of the economic storm hit the UK and global recruitment market. The fallout – in employment terms – has been significant’.

However, it is noted that firms did try to reduce the immediate impact by redeploying staff or being more sensitive in their handling of the redundancy process.

The introduction ends on the more positive note that instructions to Brewer Morris have increased over recent months. The report then looks at various specific grades in the profession and geographical areas. Salary levels quoted will of course depend on experience, the tax involved and the region.

Semi-seniors/assistants

This is typically someone’s first position in a tax practice and involves mainly compliance work. Employers will often look as much at personal characteristics – enthusiasm, positive approach, desire to succeed – as technical ability, and support is generally given for training and exams.

Salaries range from £14,000 to £28,000 in the north-east to £20,000 to £40,000 in central London.

Seniors/supervisors

Assistant managers are also included in this section. The tax senior grade will be newly qualified CTA/ACA and will have an equivalent level of practical experience. People at this grade will probably have responsibility for the compliance work of their own portfolio of clients and will be expected to identify tax planning opportunities as well as assisting in such matters.

Supervisors and assistant managers will be more experienced and will review the compliance work of others. They will also be more involved in complex tax planning as well as advising the clients in their own portfolio.

Those in these grades will be expected to have good management skills – time management and knowledge of tax computing packages. Business development abilities will also be very useful.

Salaries range from £28,000 to £55,000.

Managers

Being a relatively expensive resource, the report states that managers have been one of the main casualties of the recession.

At this level, practitioners will be taking on more supervisory and client responsibilities, signing off the work of junior staff and often being the firm’s main day-to-day point of contact with clients. They may also be working more closely with directors and partners.

Senior managers will have been CTA qualified for four or more years. Those employed by a Big 4 or Tier A firm will probably be focussing on team and client management, client relationship matters and business development. At smaller firms those at this level will be more involved in man management, while still dealing with advisory and client development matters.

At both manager and senior manager level, there will be some who – rather than progressing to a higher grade – may take on more specialist technical roles, becoming valuable resources for other team members and enjoying higher salaries as a result.

Generally, firms have felt that employees at this level will be the next generation of leaders and redundancies could be counter productive. This rule may not apply so much to those who are ‘career managers’ and who may be seen as a block on those coming forward from more junior levels.

Salaries range from £38,000 to £68,000 for managers and £40,000 to £125,000 for senior managers.

Directors and partners

In Big 4 and Top 20 firms, the director grade describes someone with at least seven years’ experience since qualifying. They are probably on ‘partner track’, senior technical specialists or client account directors.

Salaries will cover a wide range from £80,000 perhaps up to £300,000. The past year has seen few promotions to partner level and some long-term directors have been made redundant.

However, other firms have seen such redundancies as an opportunity to secure the services of people who will enhance their reputation in existing specialisms or provide the ability to move into new technical areas.

The report notes that there have been some partner ‘culls’ over the past year and some older partners have been encouraged to take – or at least make plans to take – early retirement.

Five-year consultancies and restrictive covenant agreements are likely at this level, but – as with directors – other firms may make opportunistic hires, particularly where there is a good ‘fee following’. Remuneration at this level varies considerably and meaningful comparisons are difficult.

Other roles

The report concludes with brief overviews of other roles in tax or tax-related positions and geographical areas as follows:

• Fee-earning tax lawyers.
• Non-fee-earning tax professionals.
• Cross-over roles.
• International tax careers.
• Australia and the Asia Pacific market.
• South-east Asia and the Pacific rim.
• The in-house tax market.
• Transfer pricing.
• Interim tax market.

Don’t forget to download the full copy of the report. This should provide interesting reading for those who are wanting to ‘benchmark’ themselves against others in the profession, as well as those seeking – or considering whether to seek new opportunities in tax.