Our 2021 Salary, Engagement & Diversity survey has landed and we’re really excited to share it with you all. This is our biggest, most comprehensive report yet, encompassing the contract and permanent project, programme and change market and how its responded to a very turbulent year.

Between the economic fallout caused by lockdowns, changes to the way we interact digitally, and changes to contractor legislation – all during a time where business transformation has been at an all-time high – it’s been eventful for the sector to say the least.

Our survey examines how the job market has responded against the backdrop of all these major disruptions. By looking at salary, day rate and pay rise trends, overall employee satisfaction, the impact of IR35, and how diverse the sector truly is, we’ve gleaned some valuable insight from project, programme and change candidates.

Being a people business first and foremost, we felt it was right to uncover how the people behind the change and transformation space have been affected…

Changes to the market

While some industries experienced an acceleration in business transformation in 2020, retail for instance, other sectors had a sizeable backlog to work through in 2021. This is partially down to many organisations taking a “wait and see” approach earlier on in the pandemic and ramping things up as we came out of lockdown.

This is evident in our data as the most common industries among our respondents were Technology, Media & Telecoms and Financial Services.

Impact of Covid-19 on employees

As much we’d love to forget that we’re in the midst of a global pandemic, we saw major impact for both permanent and contract employees.

For contractors, Covid-19 raised a concern around income as many respondents said that their income dropped or that they lost out on work. Non-business-critical contractors were among the first to be cut when we entered the pandemic.

As for permanent staff, many noticed an increase in work load, most likely brought on by cuts to teams and lower utilisation of contractors leaving fewer people behind to complete projects.

Diversity & Inclusion

ED&I is a key part of Deltra’s values, so we were eager to explore the state of diversity across gender, ethnicity and disability. We were really encouraged to see that 35% of our highest earners identified as non-white, suggesting that our industries are becoming more diverse.

Though 30% of our respondents are non-white, they make up 40% of people who said they didn’t feel valued at work – suggesting there is still work to be done on the inclusion side of the coin.

It’s important to note that across the board there was substantial evidence that the majority of organisations are taking diversity and inclusion seriously, however the execution of it isn’t always there.

When it comes to disability, we noticed a pretty big discrepancy in perception of a workplace’s disability policies between those who live with a disability and those who don’t. More than half of non-disabled employees felt that their place of work catered well to the needs of disabled colleagues whereas only 23% of said colleagues actually agreed.

Impact of IR35

We’d be remiss not to mention one of the biggest changes to rock the contracting world: IR35. 63% of contractors would consider taking a permanent role as a direct result of the new legislation.

There are substantially fewer contract opportunities out there, and far greater competition for said roles as a result, which has elicited a strong reaction. We wonder what the future holds for the contract market as only 31% of contractors had managed to avoid any major effects.

Whether you’re looking for the knowledge to help build a team, or you just want to compare salaries in preparation for negotiating your own, you can download your copy of our 2021 Salary, Engagement & Diversity Survey here.