Pay for standard travel jobs dipped in the first half of the year as salaries for higher paid workers rose, new data reveals.
Salaries for travel jobs paying less than £40,000 fell by 2.47% from the first half of 2020 and by 0.60% from the same period in 2019 to £24,302.
Similarly, pay for executive travel roles was down by 3.86% from last year and by 2.24% compared to the first six months of 2019 to £51,542.
However, a higher proportion of executive roles led to an overall salary increase with new travel jobs commanding average pay of £29,717.
The figure rose by 2.57% from the first half of 2020 and by 5.29% from the same months in 2019.
But the increase was largely a result of a rise in the proportion of higher-paid executive roles paying more than £40,000 a year.
These accounted for almost 21% of all placements in the first half of 2021, compared to only 8.1% in 2020 and 13.4% in 2019.
The results come from a survey of all new vacancies registered with C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M executive Recruitment in the timeframe.
The total number of travel job placements in the first six months of 2021 was down by 53% from the first half of 2020 and by 83% from 2019, the study also found.
However, when comparing figures for the second quarter of the year, the numbers are more encouraging, with placements up exponentially from the same period in 2020 when the industry ground to a near halt due to the pandemic, although still down by 74% from the same months in 2019.
C&M director Barbara Kolosinska said: “It’s very much been a mixed picture for travel salaries in the first half of 2021.
“While the overall figure has increased, this is almost solely due to an increase in the number of higher-paid senior placements, with the average new job in travel actually seeing a small fall in pay.
“However, considering the difficulties that our industry has faced over the last year or so, it’s reassuring to see that not too much has changed regarding salaries.
“The number of people being placed in new roles is still down by a long way compared to pre-pandemic days.
“But things have picked up considerably in the last few months, with June seeing the highest number of placements since last March, so we’re confident that we’ll see an increasingly positive second half of the year for travel recruitment.”