CIfA announces plan for salary benchmarking

We appreciate that recent announcements regarding the removal of minimum salary recommendations by CIfA may have been met with concern. Today, CIfA’s Board of Directors, Advisory Council and staff discussed and agreed a plan for salary benchmarking – proposed to replace minimum salaries recommendations. CIfA will now start the process of collecting data to produce a salary benchmarking report by autumn 2024. The aim of this will be to provide a basis for highlighting better paid roles and providing guidance on ranges. This practice will bring CIfA into line with other professional bodies like the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, the Museums Association and the Chartered Institute of Building. We will make the details of this plan available on the CIfA website soon.

We welcome the responses from Prospect Union and BAJR to our announcement regarding minimum salary recommendations and the opportunity to work together on the programme of salary benchmarking to replace them. We also welcome comments from CIfA members, which will continue to inform our approach to developing this benchmarking process As has been highlighted, CIfA, Prospect and BAJR have very different remits and tools at their disposal in the ongoing campaign for better pay in our sector but we are all committed to achieving the goal of a sustainable and equitable profession working in the public interest. CIfA’s policy position on low pay in archaeology is unchanged and you can find out more about the work we’re doing to promote the value of archaeology and the highly skilled work that CIfA members do in our values and strategy document, the 2023 Annual Review and in our guides for clients.

We fully understand members’ concerns about the removal of the minimum salary recommendations, but the Board of Directors has a duty to ensure CIfA works within its remit as a professional body and in accordance with its Charter and by-law. Moving the focus to ranges of pay will provide a more useful tool to help employers and employees make informed decisions about rates of pay and removes the focus on minimum.