Housing managers are big winners on pay

Housing managers have topped the pay list in this year's salary survey, receiving average pay rises of almost 16% – nearly four times the average raise enjoyed by association chief executives.

The average salary for a middle-ranking housing manager has risen from £26,334 to £30,498, according to an annual survey of association pay carried out by human resources consultant Incubon.

The survey also found that housing management officers got an 8.1% raise, which took average salaries to £21,209, while heads of housing management got an 11.8% increase, to reach £42,310.

Other big winners included middle managers working in maintenance and property services, and senior personnel and training managers – all of whom received double-digit increases.

The soaring wages have been put down to skills shortages and employers' readiness to pay more for transferable skills and buy in expertise from the private sector.

Jane Greenoak, director of corporate services at the National Housing Federation, said: "Associations are increasingly looking to recruit from the private sector and may find that the only way to secure new people with new skills is to review salary levels."

Barbara Thorndick, chief executive of West Kent Housing Association, said: "This is storing up major problems for the future – we've only got one budget and it comes out of tenants' rents.

"We are trying to address it in lots of ways, including getting people in at lower levels and training them up. But as a sector we need to do more to publicise the benefits of the job."

Council staff are thought to have enjoyed similar pay rises, although the Employer's Organisation, which negotiates pay deals with local government, does not hold specific figures on housing management salaries.

However, recruitment consultant Katie Cherrington, who works with councils and associations, said: "We have definitely seen wages going up. Housing officers are sought after because people just don't seem to want to go into that field."

Cherrington added that a typical housing management officer working for a council in the South of England would earn between £16,000 and £20,000.

Councils have also found their overheads spiralling as a result of rising staff costs (see page13).

The Incubon survey, which covers 7757 staff, reported substantial average pay rises in fields with transferable or highly specialised skills such as property services and development (14%), personnel and training (12.8%), maintenance (10%) and finance (8.9%). The average pay rise across the board was 4.1% with chief executives enjoying 4.5%.