21/03/2024: Last week we released our 10th annual Games and Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Survey report, marking a decade of the report, a key resource in the industry for insights into salaries, job hunting and a range of other topics. This year our key findings are as follows:
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The average UK salary has increased by approximately £4,000 from 2023, an increase only half the size of the jump from 2022 to 2023.
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21% of respondents have been made redundant in the last 12 months, with 24% considering leaving the industry in the wake of the redundancies.
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78% of respondents would actively seek out a studio offering a four-day work week.
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47% disclosed that they are considering looking for a new job to find a studio offering better employee support due to the cost-of-living crisis, with 48% saying they are financially worse off than this time last year.
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There is an average global gender pay gap of over £11,000.
Our goal with the Salary and Satisfaction Survey is for the games and interactive industries to offer more transparency in salaries, employee support and more. Our Director of Games and Interactive, Giles Fenwick, said the following when asked about why we do the survey; “We hope to make the industry a more equitable and better place to work by not only promoting transparency in the areas we research, but by actively providing the data which allows this transparency”.
The data from our 2,683 global respondents (our highest response rate yet) is broken down by region and the questions breached topics including salary transparency, job hunting expectations, most valued aspects of work, most wanted benefits, the four-day working week, the cost of living crisis, industry redundancies, conditions, education and recruitment processes.
Our data analysis uncovered many noteworthy data points, some of which we see repeated year on year, and some of which uncover questions which are essential to consider moving our industry forward. With strong opinions continuing to emerge regarding the cost-of-living crisis and studios approach to the four-day work week, should studios consider new approaches to keep their staff happy? If studios fail to keep up with what workers want, they risk losing out on talent to studios with better schemes and support in place. Though with studios listing budget cuts and lack of profits as the top reasons for redundancies, retaining talented staff may be an even bigger struggle in the coming year.
Alongside much more, our 2024 survey uncovered the following:
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93% of respondents expect to work one or more days remotely per week in 2024.
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70% of respondents will be or are considering job hunting in 2024, a rise of 26% from 2023.
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Work/life balance is consistently cited as one of the most important aspects of work.
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Financial remuneration is regularly cited as the top reason respondents are considering looking for a new job, with concerns about the future of their company reaching the top three for the first time.
The above is just a handful of the data available in the full report.
About Skillsearch
Skillsearch exists to make recruitment as quick and easy as possible for everyone involved. We work hard to make matches between people and companies that genuinely fit well together. We’re made up of a team of dedicated consultants that work across a range of niche technologies in both Games and Interactive as well as Enterprise Systems, and we are always exploring other cutting-edge markets.