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Average salaries for new travel jobs rose by a marginal 0.61% in March to reach £24,819 following the year starting with successive monthly falls.
Travel salaries are currently broadly static and are just £9 above the average figure for the whole of 2014.
However, despite the seemingly weak growth, wages have actually risen for the past seven consecutive months indicating the relative strength of the market compared to levels a year earlier, according to the latest Travel Salary Index from C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment.
The rise in March was due largely to the increase in pay for standard travel roles – those paying up to £40,000 – which recorded their first increase of the year.
But there was a steep drop in executive wages, with pay for average new senior travel roles falling to its lowest level since February 2014.
March saw the seventh consecutive month of annual increases in the number of new candidate searching for travel jobs.
This trend was almost replicated in terms of the number of new roles being made available, with vacancies now having risen annually in six of the past seven months, according to the travel recruitment company.
Director Barbara Kolosinska said: “March was very much a mixed month for travel recruitment with wages remaining relatively static overall.
“However, salaries are up compared to the same point last year and are also above the average figure for 2014.
“Much more encouragingly, we have seen a very strong annual increase in travel job placements in 2015 so far, with March seeing another double digit rise compared to February.
“It’s obviously still early, but if this trend continues we could well see a record number of candidates being placed in new travel jobs before the end of the year.”
Kolosinska added: “For the past several months, we have seen annual increases in both the number of new travel jobs coming on to the market and the number of candidates looking for these roles.
“While there are still shortages of quality applicants for certain roles, many travel employees are clearly keen to take the next step in their careers before the summer begins.”