Companies in the construction sector place a premium on experience compared to academic qualifications when setting salaries for their employees such as architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.
This is according to a 2022 salary survey by the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) that compiled responses from 65 companies.
“Built environment firms employ various criteria to decide the salary scale,” the report says.
“Specifically, 84 percent base the employee salaries on years of experience, 48 percent on academic qualifications, and 15 percent on the possession of relevant skills such as software.”
On average, architects, quantity surveyors, construction project managers and engineers with the most experience in terms of years tend to earn the highest monthly salaries.
A third of architects with more than 30 years of experience earn between Sh100,001 and Sh200,000. That range of income applies to only 28 percent of architects with 21 to 30 years of experience.
Those with zero to 10 years have the majority of their ranks earning between zero to Sh100,000.
The largest salaries are drawn by the owners of the architectural firms which, like most other companies in the construction industry, hire a few employees on permanent contracts.
“For the partner position, 36 percent of companies pay zero to Sh100,000, followed by companies that pay Sh100,001 to Sh200,000 at 28 percent,” the report says.
“It is noteworthy that three percent of companies pay partners Sh900,001 to Sh1 million, while five percent of them pay above Sh1 million. In some companies, partners receive club memberships in addition to employee benefits.”
For engineers who have worked for more than 30 years, 60 percent of them are paid from Sh200,001 to Sh600,000.
Comparatively, 40 percent of professionals in the same field with zero to five years of experience can expect to be paid Sh20,001 to Sh40,000.
There is a wide variation in the salaries drawn by directors of engineering firms, with 60 percent of them earning between zero and Sh100,000.
The highest-paid directors earn Sh400,001 to Sh500,000.
The report found that 38 percent of construction project managers who have worked for more than 30 years can expect to earn from Sh100,001 to Sh200,000.
Some of the professionals with similar experience are, however, paid as high as Sh600,000.
The majority of those with zero to 10 years of industry experience earn a monthly salary falling between Sh40,001 and Sh100,000.
Partners in construction project management firms can be paid from zero to more than Sh1 million.
The majority of quantity surveyors with more than 30 years on the job are paid between Sh100,001 and Sh200,000, with the top salaries in this area hitting Sh800,000.
The survey found that 58 percent of those with zero to five years of experience earn Sh40,001 to Sh60,000. Partners are paid anywhere from zero to Sh300,000.
