Articles » 2003 » June 2003 » Feature
Welcome to the fourth annual Contract Pharma salary survey. We’ve polled more than 800 of our readers to determine their attitudes toward their jobs, their levels of education, and, of course, their salaries.

Our respondents, 72% of whom were male, break down into the following job function categories: Quality Assurance/ Quality Control (18.9%), R&D (18.7%), Corporate Management (10.0%), Other (9.3%), Business Development (8.9%), Project Manager (8.1%), Production/Manufacturing/Packaging (7.7%), Regulatory Affairs (5.2%), Engineering (4.2%), Lab Clinical Research (3.7%), Contract Manager (3.4%), Purchasing (1.8%), and Consumer Product (0.2%).

The average base salary of all respondents was $93,745, with average bonuses of $14,259, stock options of $88,129 (skewed by very large options going to a certain member of corporate management), and average benefits of $19,636.

Top earners were in Corporate Management, in which base salary jumped 31% to $146,639. Consumer Product personnel (only two respondents) had an average base salary of $135,750. Purchasing salaries dropped by 38% to $92,580. Clinical Research base salaries dropped 7% in this year’s survey to $91,331. Regulatory Affairs pesonnel earned 15% less than last year, at $90,542. R&D was virtually flat, with an average salary of $89,017. Business Development base salaries fell by 19% to $88,429, but Contract Managers saw an average salary rise of 33% to $87,882. Salaries for Project Managers dropped 22% to $82,799.
Production/Manufacturing/Packaging salaries dropped 12% to $79,841. Engin-eering pay dropped 26% to $77,691, while QA/QC salaries rose 7%, to $77,124. “Others” earned $78,931 in 2002.

Time is on Their Side
Respondents in the survey averaged 41.1 years of age. The male respondents averaged 42.2 years, while the females were 38.6 years old. Average years of experience were 15.6 years, with men serving 16.8 years, and women clocking an average of 12.6 years in the industry.

By job category, Corporate Manage-ment staff averaged the most time in the business, at 24.2 years (and served 7.5 years at the same company). Consumer Product personnel were the next longest worked in the business, at 22.0 years (also 7.5 at the same company), followed by Purchasing at 20.3 (6.2), Business Development at 16.4 (4.2), Regulatory Af-fairs at 15.4 (4.2), Other at 15.3 (3.6), R&D at 15.1 (5.1), Production/Manu-facturing/Packaging at 15.0 (4.3), Contract Manager at 14.5 (4.1), QA/QC at 13.8 (4.0), Project Manager at 12.9 (2.8), Engineering at 12.5 (4.5) and Clinical Research staff at 11.9 years (3.4).

Gender Splits
On average base salary, women drew $75,027 last year, down 10% from 2001, while men earned $96,036, a drop of 13% from the previous year. The chart on the next page breaks out total compensation by gender in each category. The largest discrepancy is in the field of Purchasing, where women averaged $60,300 in salary and man averaged $104,318.

Both genders were most represented in the QA/QC and R&D fields, but men also had a much larger representation in Corporate Management (13% of male respondents) than women (3%). There was little disparity between the genders in that role ($142,333 in base salary for women, $146,993.93 for men). In R&D, however, men averaged $92,861 in base salary, while women averaged $73,892.

Attitudes
As ever, Internal Politics remains the most frustrating aspect of the workplace (up to 40% from 37% in 2001). Only 11% of respondents claimed Inadequate Compen-sation was their top concern. The average annual salary of those satisfied with their pay was $91,249. The salary of those dissatisfied with their pay was $83,570. The top concern for respondents who earned more than $150,000 last year? Of course, it’s Inadequate Compensation!

And now for the most important statistic: The number of respondents who reported no frustrating aspect to their jobs doubled from 3% to 6%. Clearly, this business must be getting easier all the time!

Statistical analysis was performed by Aaron K. Finkelstein