Results are in: ESG Salary Benchmarking Survey
In December, we conducted the first salary benchmarking survey on ESG roles in VC. Thank you to the 35 of you who anonymously submitted your data!
We asked only for submissions for roles dedicated to ESG. Our sample represents individuals at funds managing over $40B in total, and whilst relatively small by statistical standards, gives a useful indication of where we are with ESG roles across geographies and functions.
Note: all salary amounts are annual salaries in USD, inclusive of all expected financial bonuses.
- Gender Pay Gap: enormous room for improvement!
We observed a significant unadjusted gender pay gap of 38.24% amongst respondents. On average, across all roles, female respondents averaged $122,202 and male respondents averaged $197,876. This pay gap is more than 10% higher than the UK’s finance industry’s general gender pay gap!
The gap is predominately driven by the significiant difference in pay between male partners and principals and female partners and principals. Unfortunately, there are insufficient results to give a statistically meaningful breakdown of the pay gap per role.
2. By Role: more senior roles are significantly better paid.
Analyst: On average, analysts received $39,244 in total compensation with 2.3 years of experience. The average respondent did not receive carried interest or an expected bonus.
Associate: On average, associates received $109,910 in total compensation with 7.3 years of experience. The average bonus was 21.34%. 42% of respondents received carried interest.
Director: On average, Directors received $142,479 in total compensation with 15.1 years of experience. The average bonus was 4.2%. 62.5% of respondents received carried interest.
Principal: On average, principals received $152,937 in total compensation with 17.6 years of experience. The average bonus was 10%. 60% of respondents received carried interest.
Partner: On average, partners received $243,764 in total compensation with 14.25 years of experience. The average bonus was 14.25%. 100% of respondents received carried interest.
Head of ESG: On average, heads of ESG received $128,561 in total compensation with 11.1 years of experience. The average bonus was 14.4%. 0% of respondents received carried interest.
3. By Years of Experience: most respondents have less than 10 years experience and salaries predictably scale with experience.
Individuals with 3–5 years of experience received an average total compensation of $80,903.
Individuals with 6–10 years of experience received an average total compensation of $116,920.
Individuals with 11–19 years of experience received an average total compensation of $203,594.
Individuals with 20+ years of experience received an average total compensation of $220,460.
4. Geographical Differences: US > UK > EU
In line with general expectations, the reported salaries in the US are higher than those in the UK and significantly higher than those in Europe. What we found surprising is the average years of experience — this might be explainable through an influx of people ‘down’ from roles in buyout firms (and sustainability consultants).
US: $220,725 with 18.7 years of experience
EU: $101,843 with 8.7 years of experience
UK: $193,212 with 15.1 years of experience
Note: other regions had too few responses to be comparable
5. Fund Size: the bigger the fund, the bigger the salary
Unsurprisingly, we found that — on average — fund size correlates with salary level. There is still significant variation between funds of the same size, however much of this is explained by differences in role.
Note: due to skew at the lower end of fund size, a log scale is used.
Conclusion: more insights next year
Obviously, this year’s very first survey can only tell us a limited amount about the state of the industry. We are very grateful for everyone who participated (which, judging from our community is a large proportion of those people with ESG responsibilities)!
The most concerning finding: the gender pay gap. Especially given the focus of the role, this is something we need to be better at!
We hope to repeat this survey next year and will be able to compare and understand more then. Until then, let’s focus on doing the work and providing everyone — especially also those working on ESG — with a fair and good working environment. We hope that this survey can push us a little bit further in this direction.
For more information about VentureESG and how we’re working to support Venture Capital funds with implementing ESG across their fund operations and end-to-end investment process, visit our website or drop us an email at hello@ventureesg.com.
