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SALARY SURVEY
PROPERTY EDITION
Counted are carrying out a special survey of the salaries earned by accountants working in in the property sector in the West Midlands. Here is our latest!
Sales and Purchase Ledger
The foundation of your finance team, everything is built on an efficient transactional finance team!
Sales/Purchase Ledger: £23k-£28k
The lower end of the bracket would represent a junior with 0-6 months notice, studying AAT. £25k would get you 1-2 years of experience and £28k+ is the salary for an experienced, “set and forget” ledger clerk.
Credit Control: £24k-£30k
At the lower end, you will attract someone looking to get into Credit Control, they may have some office experience. £30k gets you a seasoned credit controller.
Transactional Supervisors: £35k-£45k+
Supervisor role salaries all depend on the size and complexity of the team and its client base. Managers with large teams, looking after national or international clients will command more than local property providers.
Key Variables
- Hybrid: Hybrid working is deeply ingrained in the West Midlands property scene. Most roles offer a minimum of 2 days at home. Office-based roles often need to offer improved packages to compete.
- Study Support: Offering study support in a chosen specialism (AAT, CICM, CIPP) is a fantastic way to secure the strongest candidates available in a competitive market!
- Property Experience: Candidates with property experience often command a circa 10%-15% premium, reflecting the much smaller talent pool.
💷Payroll💷
Not all heroes wear capes! A business critical function which is responsible for ensuring that employees are paid accurately and efficiently within a constantly evolving industry.
Payroll Administrator: £24k-£30k
£24,000 attracts someone at the start of their career with 0-6 months experience. £27,000 is market average for established experience and £30,000+ for “Senior” individuals bringing a wealth of knowledge. Payroll supervisors are £35k – £45k.
Payroll Manager: £45k-£65k
£35,000 attracts someone working in a standalone position, managing a smaller payroll from start to finish in a SME environment. £35,000 – £40,000 is market average for an experienced payroll professional working in a Team Leader/Supervisor position with management support.
Management positions within larger complex environments are offering salaries towards the higher end of the range provided. Salaries rise with the size of the business and the complexity of the payroll/team being managed.
Key Variables
- Hybrid: Hybrid working is deeply ingrained in the West Midlands property scene. Most roles offer a minimum of 2 days at home. Office-based roles often need to offer improved packages to compete.
- Study Support: Offering study support in a chosen specialism (AAT, CICM, CIPP) is a fantastic way to secure the strongest candidates available in a competitive market!
- Property Experience: Candidates with property experience often command a circa 10%-15% premium, reflecting the much smaller talent pool.
Client Finance
The core of the client accounting function, undertaking the day to day tasks of supporting clients and their reporting requirements.
Assistant Client Accountant: £22.5k-£25k
The Person: A candidate with 0 – 1 years in finance, undertaking junior, property-specific, finance admin tasks.
Variables: Candidates from apprenticeships or AAT backgrounds will be attainable at the lower banding level, whilst £25k will secure either a recent graduate or AAT candidate with 6-12 months experience.
Client Accountant: £26k-£38k
The Person: A candidate with 1 – 3 years in finance, assisting more senior client accountants.
Variables: Whilst salaries ranged from £28k-£38k, the vast majorities of responses fell between £29k – £35k. £30k is a quality Assistant Client Accountant stepping up, whilst £35k attracts a strong, experienced client accountant.
Senior Client Accountant: £37k-£45k
The Person: A candidate with 3 – 5 years in finance, an experienced Property Accountant, with their own portfolio. May supervise 1-2 staff.
Variables: Salaries here ranged from £28k – £50k, but most fell between £38k – £45k. £38k is the minimum for a strong senior client Accountant.
Key Variables
- Hybrid working: Hybrid working is deeply ingrained in the West Midlands property scene. Most roles offer a minimum of 2 days at home. Office-based roles often need to offer improved packages to compete.
- Studies: The more ACCA/CIMA exams a candidate has completed, the better the package on offer tends to be.
Study support is key at this level. Most packages cover books, study, and a little time off per exam.
Client Management Finance
Management roles within the client finance team. The size of the team, level of client engagement and complexity of the client will be the main salary variables
Client Accounting Supervisor: £45k-£50k
The Person: Managing a small to medium sized team, 2-5 people. Managing important clients.
Variables: Bandings here will depend on how experienced a candidate is, how large and important the clients are, and how ambitious a candidate is. Qualified candidates command more.
Client Accounting Manager: £47k-£57k
The Person: Larger team, critical to the running of the function. Managing a team of 4+ people and high profile clients.
Variables: £47k will secure you a strong client accountant stepping up, possible qualified, some level of management experience. £57k is a seasoned, highly exprienced team manager.
Head of Client Finance: £55k-£70k
The Person: A seasoned Head of Client Finance, often with a team of 10+ and 2nd in command to a Partner or a Finance Director.
Variables: £55k will secure you a talented manager stepping up, possible qualified. £70k is a deeply exprienced manager used to running large, complex property finance functions.
Key Variables
- Education: A first-class graduate with A levels will often secure more than an AAT-qualified candidate with a similar level of experience.
- Hybrid working: Hybrid working is deeply ingrained in the West Midlands property scene. Most roles offer a minimum of 2 days at home. Office-based roles often need to offer improved
packages to compete. - Studies: ACCA/CIMA qualified candidates can command a 10-15% premium.
Key Variables
- Qualifications: Non-qualified individuals tend to secure salaries up to 15% lower than qualified staff with the same skillset.
- Company: Qualified candidates from a PLC background often command higher salaries than those from smaller, private businesses (unless they are PE backed).
- Training: An Accountant with experience in both practice and industry will often secure a higher salary.
💷Salary Impacts 💷
🗺Geographic🗺
Birmingham is unique in the local property world, as so many companies are based there.
This means that most property talent are within commuting distance of Birmingham.
Whilst rural locations can be cheaper, it can also limit the talent pool.
Finally, Birmingham can be very difficult to commute too, unless you are on a high quality rail line. This does shape salary and flexiblity demands.
- Smaller Talent Pool: Shrewsbury, Wolverhampton, Telford, Walsall,
Redditch & Worcestershire - Deeper Talent Pool: Coventry, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, Wolverhampton
- Deepest Talent Pool: Birmingham & Surrounding areas
Academics
Qualified candidates are rare in property. At the £25k – £45k bandings, offering support for CIMA/ACCA can be real draw for incoming talent. Past £45k, qualified Accountants are rare, and can command c20% higher salaries than those non qualified.
If you are seeking CIMA/ACCA qualified staff, with a property background, there is not a large talent pool to dip into.
🏭Industry🏭
Whilst not an option for many roles, if you can recruit candidates without property experience, it is a game changer. Opening up your industry requirements will instantly offer up a more competitive, deeper and more varied talent pool.
💰Salary Increases💰
Lower Levels
Salaries within these markets have changed dramatically in the current climate, with the National Living Wage increasing to £11.44 c(£22,500) from April 2024.
Often, employers look for their entry level graduate and finance positions to offer an improvement on standard minimum wage, meaning an ever increasing amount of entry level salaries are heading towards £25,000. This in turn has an effect on salaries within the team for experienced employees.
Part-Qualified
Part qualified salaries are also on the rise. AAT qualified candidates are securing improved packages, whilst a part-qualified CIMA/ACCA professional commands in the region of £35k – £37k. A Finalist’s salary expectations will on average be c.£42k – 45k.
Salaries vary widely based on the amount of work experience a candidate possesses, alongside how many exams they have passed.
We have also seen a noticeable decrease on the availability of candidates who are actively studying or at finalist level, which is a real bonus to those candidates that are finishing their exams.
Newly Qualified
Salaries for newly qualified individuals are now c£48,000+, with more experienced candidates approaching £50,000. ACA-qualified candidates with practice experience start at £50,000 and rise to £55,000 depending on experience and background.
🏠Hybrid Working🏠
Hybrid working is key! Even more so in property. Offering hybrid working can dramatically improve your success rate on recruitment processes and attracts the largest candidate pool.
Being unable to offer hybrid working inevitably reduces the amount of options available and often leads to salaries needing to be increased to remain competitive.
The Future
Many companies that offered fully flexible work patterns are now asking for employees to attend the office more. However, companies that require five full days a week in the office are now in the minority.
If you can offer a more flexible work pattern, you have a huge advantage in attracting the best talent available!
Most companies are 2/3 days a week in the office and 3/2 days a week from home.
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