Australian HR professionals might want to
consider Switzerland as an option when
choosing overseas working destinations,
because, according to pay data released by
Mercer, it’s the European country in which
HR professionals are paid the most.
Surprisingly, HR professionals in the UK
are being paid less than many of their Euro
pean counterparts, ranking 12th out of 16
Western European countries listed in Mercer’s
latest global pay summary.
The average total remuneration for a UK
head of HR was £114,000 ($197,000), in
cluding an annual base salary of £95,300.
However in Switzerland the HR heads are
taking home an average of £172,000. In Bel
gium they earned £131,300 and Portugal
recorded the lowest annual pay, at £69,300.
Pay for lower-ranking HR staff in the UK
was even further down the scale, with only
two countries registering lower mid-point
salaries in the benchmarking survey. The
average salaries for an HR manager and HR
administration clerk in the UK were £59,300
and £22,700 respectively
“You’d naturally expect there to be dif
ferences in compensations between coun
tries for similar roles,” said Milan Taylor, a
principal at Mercer. “Drivers of these differ
ences will include local country employment
legislation and localised pay practice, as well
as supply and demand of key talent.”
