Facilities Management Salary Survey 2024
Resource type and category
Resource type: Salary survey / industry research report
Category: Facilities Management Salaries, FM Market Insights, Recruitment Research and Career Resources
Intended audience
Facilities Management professionals, FM Directors, Heads of Facilities, Engineering leaders, Property and Estates professionals, HR teams, Talent Acquisition professionals and employers benchmarking salaries, benefits and wider employment trends within the FM sector.
Resource-card description
Explore the Maxwell Stephens Facilities Management Salary Survey 2024, covering FM salaries by job role and industry, hybrid working, qualifications, experience, benefits, working hours, career motivations and job satisfaction.
Full resource-page description
Understanding salary levels is only one part of understanding the Facilities Management employment market.
The Facilities Management Salary Survey 2024 from Maxwell Stephens draws on data collected from thousands of FM professionals to provide a detailed snapshot of pay, employment conditions and career attitudes across the sector.
The report examines the changing role of Facilities Management as the profession expands beyond traditional building maintenance into areas including sustainability, workplace experience, technology, energy efficiency, data and strategic organisational support.
Alongside salary benchmarking, the survey looks at the people working within the profession, how they work and what they value in their careers.
Facilities Management salaries by job role
One of the central sections benchmarks remuneration across a range of Facilities Management positions.
The report provides lower salary thresholds, average salaries and upper thresholds for roles including Facilities Assistant, Estates Manager, Multi-Site FM, Single Site FM, Senior FM and Director/Head of FM.
Among the averages shown in the survey:
- Facilities Assistant: £29,900
- Estates Manager: £36,468
- Single Site FM: £46,750
- Multi-Site FM: £49,010
- Senior FM: £59,163
- Director/Head of FM: £80,812
The survey reports that average salaries across these FM roles had increased by approximately 2.4%, although the report notes that this represented a minor real-terms reduction when considered against inflation at the time.
A particularly useful aspect of the data is the difference between lower and upper salary thresholds. The report explains that this reflects the enormous variety within Facilities Management roles: site size, geography, organisation type, technical complexity and level of responsibility can all significantly affect remuneration.
Engineering salaries
Engineering is treated separately because of its specialist nature and strong demand within the wider Facilities Management market.
The survey reports average salaries of:
- Engineering Technician/Support: £36,115
- Engineering Manager: £79,800
- Head of Engineering: £89,122
Engineering salaries had increased by around 11% on average according to the survey, making technical and engineering specialisms some of the highest-paid roles represented in the report.
Project, Account and Office Management
Associated management roles are also benchmarked.
Average salaries shown include £42,609 for Office Managers, £65,883 for Account Managers and £60,431 for Project Managers.
The report highlights Project Management in particular, where average salaries had risen by almost 20% compared with the previous survey.
Salary by industry
Pay also varies considerably according to the sector in which an FM professional works.
The Salary by Industry chart shows Finance, Banking & Insurance as the highest-paying industry represented, with an average salary of £68,279, followed by IT/Technology at £66,391.
Engineering & Construction, Energy and Legal also sit towards the upper end of the chart, while areas such as Local Government and other public-sector environments appear towards the lower end.
The wider industry section shows how broadly Facilities Management professionals are distributed, with Property & Real Estate, Engineering & Construction and Wholesale & Retail among the major employers represented.
Qualifications and salary
The survey provides useful insight into both academic and industry-specific qualifications.
It reports that 51% of respondents held a Level 4 qualification or above.
The salary data also suggests a broad positive relationship between qualification level and earnings, with MBA-qualified respondents recording the highest average salary among the academic qualification categories included.
Professional FM and health and safety qualifications are also examined.
Almost half of respondents—49%—reported holding an IOSH qualification, while 21% held NEBOSH qualifications. IWFM qualifications were represented across Levels 3 to 7.
The survey’s salary comparison indicates that NEBOSH-qualified respondents tended to earn more than IOSH-qualified respondents, while salaries generally increased as the level of IWFM qualification increased.
Experience and earning potential
Experience emerges as another significant factor.
The Salary and Experience chart shows a clear upward progression in average salary as respondents accumulate more years within the Facilities Management profession.
Those with fewer than three years of experience sit at the lowest end of the salary chart, while professionals with more than 20 years of experience record the highest average salaries.
This supports one of the report’s recurring themes: formal qualifications matter, but practical experience continues to carry substantial value within FM career progression.
Gender and workforce demographics
The report also provides insight into the demographic profile of the profession.
Respondents were 65% male and 35% female, with the survey noting a four-percentage-point increase in women compared with previous Maxwell Stephens surveys.
It also highlights some improvement in female representation at Senior FM and Director/Head of FM level, while engineering roles remained considerably more male-dominated.
Age presents a different workforce challenge.
The largest groups were aged 45–54 at 35% and 35–44 at 31%, while only 1% of respondents were aged 18–24. The report therefore raises the ongoing issue of attracting younger professionals and creating more entry routes into Facilities Management.
Employment status and flexible working
Permanent employment remained dominant at 87%, although this had fallen from 95% in the previous survey.
Temporary workers represented 7%, self-employed professionals 2% and unemployed respondents 4%. The report links the increase in temporary work with project requirements, economic uncertainty and growing use of temp-to-perm hiring.
Flexible working is another major theme.
The survey found:
57% working on site, 36% working hybrid and 7% working fully from home.
The report interprets this as evidence of increased candidate demand for flexibility and changing expectations around how FM professionals work.
Benefits and total reward
Salary is only one part of remuneration.
The survey found that 57% of respondents received just 0–5% of their overall package through benefits or bonuses, while 26% received the equivalent of 6–10%.
When respondents were asked which benefits they found most attractive, the strongest preferences were for pension, annual leave and flexible working.
Health insurance was also popular, with 60% of respondents identifying it as an attractive benefit. Gym memberships and share incentives ranked considerably lower.
Working hours and work-life balance
The report also provides a revealing picture of workload.
Around 50% of respondents worked more than 41 hours per week, while nearly one in ten worked more than 50 hours.
The survey also reports that 52% of professionals were required to work unsociable hours at least several times a month, reflecting the operational and emergency-response responsibilities frequently associated with FM.
This helps explain why work-life balance features so prominently elsewhere in the report.
What FM professionals value
Salary remained the most commonly selected career motivation, chosen by 82% of respondents.
However, work-life balance followed closely at 71%, reinforcing the report’s broader message that professionals increasingly consider flexibility and quality of life alongside financial reward.
Interesting or engaging work, benefits, flexible working, job security, company culture, recognition and location also feature among the factors influencing career decisions.
Job satisfaction and future moves
Overall satisfaction remained relatively positive.
52% of respondents described themselves as Satisfied or Very Satisfied, compared with 18% who were Unsatisfied or Very Unsatisfied.
When asked how they expected to make their next career move, 32% selected a recruitment agency, making specialist recruitment the most common route identified. Internal moves accounted for 21%, direct applications 20%, headhunting 14%, social media 8% and word of mouth 3%.
Taken together, the report offers employers and professionals a much broader picture than salary data alone.
It provides a snapshot of the 2024 Facilities Management employment market, combining remuneration with insight into flexibility, skills, qualifications, benefits, career priorities and workforce behaviour.
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