Findings from Totum’s Business Services Reward Survey 2024 show law firms competing hard on salaries, bonuses and benefits to secure the best business skills and capabilities from within the professional services sector and beyond.
Compared to other industries, law firms continue to offer competitive salaries across all business services functions, with salaries particularly high at the more senior levels. Median salaries (across all functions) of £180,00 for Directors and £255,000 for Chiefs confirm the importance of these roles and the need to compensate well, if firms wish to recruit and retain the best talent.
Finance Director positions take home some of the highest salaries, with Technology Director roles sitting at the lower end. However, firms are seeing huge growth in senior technology positions, so we are expecting this to change. Once a function that sat under a Finance Director, technology is becoming an important department in its own right, with more senior hires and commensurate salaries.
Between 2022/23 and 2023/24, median salaries for Chief BD&M roles and Chief People roles have grown by 23% and 22% respectively.
“The Chief People Officer role is now paying significantly more than it used to and in some firms is now topping the Chief Finance Officer role, which we never used to see. This has happened since the pandemic, when the people function was so integral to so many decisions, with the role’s importance continuing,” says Deborah Gray, Director at Totum Partners.
Since we conducted this survey in 2022/23, there have been some notable changes in salaries across a few functions. Knowledge Management (KM), for instance, has seen a 20% increase in median salaries at Director level – a rise from £140,000 to £167,862, with a similar increase at ‘head of’ level, from £91,475 to £110,350.
Survey scope
Firms that participated in this year’s survey included 12 of the UK top-20 firms and almost half of the UK top 50, as well as US, patent and trademark and off shore firms. The findings took in more than 191,000 data points, 14,500 roles and 11 functions; Finance; General Operations; Knowledge Management; Legal Operations; Transformation and Innovation; BD and Marketing; People and HR; Real Estate and Facilities; Responsible Business; Risk and Compliance; and Technology.
The findings also spanned titles across an array of disciplines, including many that are relatively new to business services functions in the legal sector – for example, marketing technology and systems, content management, digital marketing, reward and compensation, legal project management, innovation, change and transformation, ESG and sustainability, diversity equity and inclusivity.
To discuss the data provided or for more information on how your firm can participate in this year’s Reward Survey, contact Totum’s Head of Marketing & Projects, Sarah Broad.