CAREERS | HAYS SALARY SURVEY STAYING PUT, FOR NOW Despite the pandemic, salaries across the building services sector rose last year, according to the Hays Salary Survey. While engineers prime concern now is job security, two-thirds will look to move in the next 12 months. David Blackman reports E veryone was on a rollercoaster and didnt know where it was going to end, says Toms Neeson, managing partner at Cundall, recalling last March, when the construction sector was hurtling into lockdown part one. After what he describes as a three-month bump, however and despite a slowdown in commercial work Neeson says Cundall is in a strong position as it enters the new year. He adds that bad debt has proved to be a smaller headache than initially feared. Everyone says clients have behaved, and cash flow hasnt been the issue anticipated. Clients didnt go bust and didnt stop paying bills, which was really good. Wendy Belfield, commercial director of Hampshire-based InTandem Systems, agrees that building services has weathered the Covid-19 storm better than many other sectors. Its challenging, she says, but in the current environment we feel that the sector is buoyant. This perhaps surprisingly upbeat picture is reflected by the results of the latest annual salary survey of the building services sector, carried out for CIBSE Journal by recruitment consultants Hays. Across construction and property, 89% of employees expect their organisations activity levels to increase or stay the same over the next 12 months, Hays says. According to its survey which was carried out last year, before the latest tightening of restrictions pay has suffered during the pandemic. Exactly a quarter of building services professionals said their salary has decreased over the past 12 months and just more than half (53%) said it has stayed the same. Three-quarters of those who had suffered a salary drop blamed it on the Covid-19 crisis. The proportion of building services professionals who reported a pay increase was down from 41% in last years survey to 22% and the 26 February 2021 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Feb21 pp26-28, 30 2021 Salary survey.indd 26 22/01/2021 15:40