There were over 1800 responses to this year’s salary survey. 79% of respondents were female and 90% of responses were from vets and nurses. Over 94% of respondents were in veterinary practices and 60% of these in mainly small animal. This year we have added a supplement on basic salaries rather than just package to help those in practice. We are also looking to provide a user friendly tool for the SPVS website to give a visual for the different regions and periods qualified so people can plot their own practice on the appropriate regional graph to compare salaries.
Is there a gender pay gap?
Again, similarly to last year a similar percentage of males and females are undertaking further training to increase their clinical and non-clinical responsibilities. However,still, a much higher percentage of men are going on to convert these skills into a position of leadership or management than women. Why is this? Looking at all periods qualified across all vets there still appears to be a gender pay gap of 22%. However, this is not the whole story. This figure was skewed by vets qualified by 15 years or more which had the largest pay gap difference between genders. It is worth noting that 22% of women in this category gave their job title as junior/associate veterinary surgeon compared to only 6% of men. This apparent gender disparity is therefore likely due to career progression rather than true gender pay gap. It still leads to the question as to why are more men than women in a position of leadership/management in the veterinary sector when the vast majority of vets are female. In the satisfaction part of the survey females were more satisfied with their hours, working conditions and support than the males but less satisfied with renumeration and prospects.
Over time working
This year had a large change in over time working with only 51% of vets and nurses working over time as opposed to 78% in 2021. There are still 33% of vets working normal day time hours alongside on call but out of hours providers are providing the majority of out of hours work.
Some Figures…
- For all full time vets , compared to last year the median salary package has risen from £48,325 to £52,693 i.e. by 9%. This was true for most regions except London where it rose by an astonishing 47% to £68,950.
- New graduate salary package has increased by 3% to £33,600 . New grad basic salary has increased by a similar precentage to £32,000.
- For nurses, for all QVNSs , median salary package increased from £27,000 to £30,500 so by 13%. For student nurses this figure was 4%
- For locums vets, daily median rates increased by 21% to £425. Their hourly rates increased by 22% to £50. Night working locums increased by 50% to £750/night
- For Locum nurses, median daily rates increased by 38% to £199 and hourly rates increased by 18% to £23.50
As ever, SPVS are very grateful for everyone that took the time to fill in the survey. We hope it provides an up to date benchmark tool to be used in practice as part of responsible leadership for employers and as valuable information to employees.
Let’s see what the next year brings! We will do a fees survey as usual later in the year.
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