Oil & Gas Salary Survey: 2012

Drawing on over 25,000 professionals and skilled employees in the oil and gas industry, the report highlights the major trends and movements within the industry by drawing on the experience of those who are employed in the industry; their salaries, their concerns and outlook.

2012 was a good year for many in the oil and gas world with an increase in salaries, benefits and conditions, says the report.

But the same could not be said of many other industries. The European financial crisis, had a wide range of consequences for the global economy, in particular, the debt issues weighed down on consumer demand for manufactured output, most notably from China.

But demand for energy remained relatively high, with nearly every country around the world striving to secure its own energy future, either through exploration, increased production or developing infrastructure, “demand for the oil and gas professional, in all its guises, was most definitely high” says Matt Underhill, managing director of Hays Oil & Gas.

The report found that the average base salary for 2012 was $87,300, an 8.5% increase on the previous year, and a 14% increase in base salary over the last two years alone. But in the GCC region, average salaries surged by 16.7% year on year, to $81,735.

“I think the Middle East was pretty much in line with what’s happening around the world, the only difference was that it was quite subdued last year.

We had a lot of issues with things like the Arab Spring which really kept salaries back in the Middle East, where the world was going at around 6% the Middle East was kept flat, so I think there’s been a sort of catch up this year where things have rebounded quite strongly.”

“If you look at places like Egypt, production levels have come down, as production comes off, the overall level of population falls. Libya would be the same, Libya came down from last year, I suspect it’s going to be the same thing in Algeria,” says Underhill.

“When demand falls, then salaries will fall and that’s the number one reason behind falling salaries.”

This rapid increase was of course, brought on by a number of factors, especially the proliferation of non-conventional field developments. This was seen by many nations as the route to energy independence saw a wave of hiring.

“Indeed many countries eagerly embarked on this path only to discover that the skills didn’t exist, at least not in their own country. This was consequently, for some, their first steps onto the global recruitment market,” says Underhill.

But with the highest Imported Workforce to Local Workforce ratio, and the lowest percentage of nationals working overseas, the Middle East region is no stranger to the global recruitment market. The major movements into the GCC came from India, the Philippines, the UK, Pakistan and Egypt.

The world also saw a 13.2% increase in graduate salaries to 39,051. “The Middle East tends to hire experienced hires from elsewhere, so it’s always importing experienced people into the market.”

As such, the Middle East has more limited exposure to the graduate level market, and was not directly affected by the increases around the world. However, Underhill believes that there was a knock on effect because an increase in demand for graduates can also result in increased salaries throughout the supply chain.

Gender: Disappointingly, the survey found that throughout the global oil and gas industry, there was a very uneven gender ratio, especially in the Middle East where only 3.1% of industry employees are female.

The spread of discipline splits amongst women in the industry remained the same as last year, with business development, project controls and HSE as the largest sectors of employment for females.

The report also found that there has been a slight aging of the working population within its sample and this was in line with the years of experience throughout the industry.