If you’ve been reading the Argentus blog for a while, you know we enjoy providing salary intelligence for our supply chain professional network in Canada. These posts always generate lots of interest and great feedback because everyone wants to know what the buzz is, if their career on the right trajectory, and where they stack up against their peers from other industries. Well here’s some up to date info that is sure to be of interest:

The excellent Canadian supply chain and procurement publication PurchasingB2B recently published their annual salary survey. The survey provides some great salary info for supply chain professionals in Canada, but also goes on to provide some other interesting statistics about the state of the SCM profession as well.

Held in partnership with two other supply chain publications and the Supply Chain Management Association (SCMA), the survey’s top line was that supply chain professionals are taking home almost as much in 2014 as they did last year: $86,897 compared to $87,908 in 2013 – including bonuses and incentives.

So there’s the main number. But there are tons of other tidbits that provide interesting intel about current issues in the field. Here are some other notable statistics from the survey:

• The average procurement professional is responsible for $25.3 million in spend.
• Professionals in Alberta are still earning the highest salaries in the country, on average $98,109 a year, but they’ve gone down considerably in the last year – from $103,049. Ontario supply chain professionals are second, earning on average $85,612. So if you’re willing to make a move to Calgary, it’s worth it and you’re looking at 15% to 20% increase right off the bat.
• Interestingly, when they broke down salary info by type of position, supply chain consultants averaged $102,461. This is on the high end for the profession, higher than managers and below executives. This goes to show what we’ve been talking about on the blog: there are lots of lucrative career opportunities for contingent/contract staff in the field.
• The natural resources industry is still the highest paying for supply chain professionals, but it’s gone down significantly. Manufacturing industry salaries also slipped, while salaries in healthcare, education, trade/wholesale and government supply chain increased this year.
• Another insight into an issue we’ve discussed before is that the gender pay gap in supply chain is still considerable, but closing, which is super. On average, men in the field saw their earnings drop from $94,492 to $92,276 in 2014, while on average, women in the field saw their earnings increase from $77,842 to $78,819. While we don’t like to see anyone’s average salary going down, it’s still encouraging to see the rise in salaries for women in supply chain.
• One final important takeaway is that the average supply chain professional’s salary is considerably higher than the average salary for other fields.

Just a reminder, these numbers are averages, but since the publications and SCMA posed the questions to a large number of professionals, they say a lot about issues we’ve been following in the supply chain field over the past year. Skilled supply chain professionals are still in high demand, and they’re still happy with where the field is going (88% indicated satisfaction with their jobs, while 30% indicated that they were “very satisfied”), so the overall takeaway is good even though the top line salary average has declined ever so slightly from last year.

So check out the article on PurchasingB2B! It’s chock full of additional salary insights for supply chain professionals, including some that we didn’t list here such as salaries by education breakdown and a special section surveying supply chain professionals in the public sector.

So what do you think these statistics say about the state of the profession? Let us know in the comments.

Argentus is a great bold and boutique supply chain recruiter – we look forward to connect with you and helping your business succeed by finding those top professionals to fill the talent gap.

Over and Out

Bronwen