By Yogendra Balayar - Senior Associate Data Integrity
Compensation strategies in consulting often focus on client-facing positions, but administration and support teams play a critical role in keeping firms running efficiently. These roles—ranging from reception and office management to recruiting, design, and internal research—are diverse, and compensation practices can vary widely. Without reliable data, it’s difficult to know whether pay levels are competitive or appropriate.
Vencon Research’s Administration & Support Staff Survey provides firms with detailed, market-based insights to support compensation planning and evaluation for these roles. The survey covers a broad range of support functions and job levels, helping firms make well-informed decisions across their internal operations.
Why Benchmark Support Staff Compensation?
1. Attracting Talent
Support roles need to be filled by capable, reliable professionals—and competitive compensation is key to attracting them. Benchmarking shows what similar roles are paid elsewhere, making it easier to set realistic salary ranges.
2. Retaining Skilled Staff
Good employees are hard to replace. Monitoring compensation trends helps firms stay aligned with the market and reduce the risk of losing valuable team members to better-paying offers.
3. Planning and Managing Budgets
Understanding what comparable roles cost across the industry supports more accurate and sustainable budgeting. Benchmarking also helps firms plan for changes, such as adjustments during reviews or promotions.
4. Demonstrating Fairness
When employees see that their compensation is based on objective market data, it fosters transparency and trust. Firms that benchmark regularly are better equipped to explain and justify their pay structures.
How Vencon Research Supports Better Compensation Decisions
To help consulting firms make informed, market-aligned decisions around support staff pay, Vencon Research offers a dedicated Administration & Support Staff Survey. The survey is designed to reflect the realities of internal roles within consulting—providing comprehensive, reliable data that goes beyond job titles to capture the actual scope and structure of support positions
Detailed Compensation Data
The survey provides a comprehensive view of compensation components: base salaries, bonuses, total cash, and applicable market-specific allowances. Results are broken down by role, level, and geography.
Accurate Role Matching
Job titles alone often don’t reflect the real responsibilities behind a role. The survey includes a structured job matching process that looks at actual tasks and reporting lines to ensure valid comparisons across firms.
Support for Multi-Function Roles
Support staff frequently handle responsibilities across more than one function. The survey allows for incumbents to be matched to multiple sub-functions when necessary, reflecting the way these roles actually operate.
Career Level Consistency
Instead of assuming equivalence based on titles, roles are matched based on skill level, responsibility, and decision-making scope. This results in more accurate level-to-level comparisons across firms.
Additional Insights
The report also covers non-compensation elements such as overtime pay, vacation days, and year-on-year salary movement. These data points help provide a broader understanding of employment practices in support functions.
International Coverage
Data is collected from consulting firms across a range of markets, including the US, UK, Middle East, and selected emerging markets. This global perspective is especially useful for firms with cross-border operations.
Confidential and Reliable
All data is gathered directly from HR professionals or firm leadership and treated with full confidentiality. No firm- or individual-level data is disclosed in the reporting.
A Structured Approach to Support Staff Pay
For consulting firms, the Administration & Support Staff Survey offers a clear and reliable basis for setting and reviewing compensation across non-consulting functions. With accurate job matching, robust data coverage, and detailed reporting, firms gain the insight needed to make better decisions—whether the goal is attracting new hires, retaining experienced staff, or aligning internal structures with the wider market.
Vencon Research helps consulting firms make informed, data-backed decisions on compensation—across both client-facing and internal roles. From accurate job matching to reliable benchmarking, our surveys provide the depth and clarity firms need to navigate compensation planning with confidence. To find out how our data can support your firm, contact us or visit our website.