Workforce salary survey - what did you tell us?
Earlier this year, BIGGA invited its members to participate in an industry-wide survey looking at the state of the golf industry in 2024.
It was the second consecutive survey hosted in collaboration with the GCMA, R&A, England Golf, Wales Golf, Golf Ireland and Scottish Golf and the latest in a series undertaken by BIGGA in recent years.
Jim Croxton, BIGGA CEO, recently joined Tom Brooke, GCMA CEO, and Kevin Barker, Director - Golf Development at The R&A, on the Golf Club Talk UK podcast, to discuss the findings of the latest survey. Listen using the link below and keep reading to discover some of the survey's key findings.
Jim Croxton: 'This survey shows some real positives'
The workforce is critical to the health of our sport. We need two things for golf to thrive – we need a place to play and people to operate those businesses.
My main takeaway from the survey is that despite there being some negative numbers, the trends are nearly all positive.
We’re seeing salaries outpace inflation over the last three or four years – I would argue that in some cases that’s only getting up to reasonable levels – but it’s a good sign that we’re getting strong growth. That's not just driven at the bottom end by minimum wage but also at the top end by golf clubs that recognise the importance of highly qualified and professional greenkeepers.
If we look at the last few surveys, we’re seeing incremental increases. They’re not massive, but as an example, the number of golf clubs taking notice of CGCS guidelines and that having an impact on what people are paid, has grown year-on-year.
Something else that’s interesting is how the workforce are all in it together. There are some startling numbers in terms of stress levels and feeling under-appreciated in the professional side of the business, which is something our members don’t always recognise. Over the last few years we've been working closely with the GCMA team, trying to educate both our sets of members that we are on the same side most of the time and we have the same challenges.
The general direction of this survey is showing some real positives, but we have still got some numbers that are worse than we’d like them to be. There’s also a job to be done at some point, to get comparisons into other industries. There are stresses in every role and so it would be useful to see how the golf industry compares to the wider world.
This year, 370 participants took part in the survey, a drop from 527 in 2023 and 1,370 who completed BIGGA's own survey in 2022.
The average number of greenkeepers at golf courses in the UK is 7.6.
In 2023 that number was 6.54. In 2022 it was 6.3 and in 2019 it was 5.5.
And yet despite this increase, 69% of survey respondents said they were shortstaffed, with 72% saying there were not enough greenkeepers at their facility.
The number of greenkeepers working at golf clubs has increased, and yet so has the perception of the number of staff you need to achieve the standards that are expected.
The use of seasonal staff is also changing. 51% of clubs now have no seasonal or temporary greenkeeping staff and 27% only employ one in that role. The average number in 2024 is 1.0, down from 1.6 in 2022. It appears clubs are investing in permanent staff and working harder to retain those they get on board.
Fifty-five per cent (55%) of clubs don't have a dedicated mechanic, something the Turf Equipment Technician's Organisation is attempting to correct, while specialised roles such as irrigation or spray technician and ecology manager remain extremely rare occurences.
Course manager salaries vary greatly across the UK, from the lowest earning in the £20-25,000 bracket evenly spread up to £80,000+.
The most common answer was £45-50,000 (18%) but anywhere between £35-60,000 was a common response. In 2023, the most common responses were between £40-50,000 (36%).
Head greenkeepers earn less on average, with £35-40,000 being the most common answer (38%) and none recording more than £70,000. In 2023, 50% said their head greenkeeper earned between £25-35,000 and this continued in small increments up to about £50,000.
Sixty-eight per cent (68%) of deputies earn between £25-35,000 and 53% of mechanics earn a similar amount. There was also an increase of mechanics earning within the £35-40,000 bracket.
Seventy-seven per cent (77%) of first assistants earn between £25-35,000 and the £25-30,000 bracket (56%) was the most common for senior greenkeepers.
Almost every assistant greenkeeper (91%) earns between £25-35,000 and 70% of unqualified greenkeepers earn less than £25,000.
In all categories, geographic location has an impact on earnings, with the south of England having the highest average salaries.
To contextualise, here are some average salaries for other tradespeople in the UK according to talent.com:
Bartender: £24,607
Assistant greenkeeper: £25,526
Olympic swimmer: £26,000
Landscaper: £26,030
Actor: £26,260
Hairstylist: £26,325
Senior greenkeeper: £28,287
Librarian, £29,546
First assistant: £29,750
Journalist: £31,393
Deputy CM/HGK: £32,784
Warehouse manager: £33,011
Accountant, £36,000
Dentist: £37,430
Head teacher: £47,013
Course manager: £48,883
Lawyer: £50,000
With 69% of respondents saying they were shortstaffed, it's unsurprising that many attempted to recruit over the past year. This was an increase from 2022, when 53% said they had a vacancy on their team.
Interestingly, greenkeepers look on enviously at retail (53%) and coaching (61%) where they believe there are the right level or even too many members of staff.
Twenty-five per cent (25%) of clubs said they had attempted to recruit in the past year but were unsuccessful. The most popular reasons given were a lack of qualfied applicants (70%), demands for higher pay (63%) and applicants gaining work elsewhere that offered a higher salary (56%). More sociable working hours was the reason in 41% of cases.
Seventy-five per cent of respondents said they hired someone with lower experience and skills than they would like, just to fill a vacant role.
For those who lost staff, 71% said they had lost at least one member of the team who had moved out of the industry.
Word of mouth (63%) remains the biggest driver for recruiting new staff, followed by the BIGGA website (24%).
However, in terms of promoting itself as a place of work, golf remains an overwhelmingly insular industry. While the governing bodies enact initiatives such as Golf Futures or BIGGA's own First Green, golf clubs themselves aren't reaching out into the local community.
Thirty per cent (30%) say they do no outreach activities whatsoever. Twenty-six per cent (26%) host work experience opportunities for students and schoolchildren, 23% work with wildlife groups, 20% engage with community groups, 11% visit local schools, 8% attend careers fairs, 10% attend local events.
A key factor with regards to recruiting news staff is providing them with facilities suiting a modern workplace and in this area golf clubs fall behind other industries.
Although welfare facilities are steadily improving, there is much work still to be done if we are to attract a new, diverse workforce that has an expectation of working conditions and resources.
One per cent (1%) of respondents told us their golf club provided no welfare facilities whatsoever.
The availability of training is improving, however, with 73% of golf clubs providing a training budget and 90% allowing greenkeepers to attend education events within working hours.
Despite many of the challenges facing the industry, 41% of greenkeepers feel positive about the future, outnumbering the 34% who feel stressed in the workplace.
To compare, 23% of club managers and a massive 57% of pro shop staff say they feel stressed most or all of the time.
Likewise, although 42% of greenkeepers feel under-appreciated, 25% of club managers and 43% of pro shop staff feel the same.
More information can be discovered by downloading the resource below, which features a summary of the findings and provides further details.
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