Resellers based in East of England pay their staff the most

Average wage at UK's top 300 resellers rises 3.6 per cent to nearly £47,000, according to latest research from CRN Essential

UK resellers pay their staff an average wage of close to £47,000, with those based in East of England paying the highest salaries.

That's according to CRN's Staff and Salaries Report, which provides a snapshot of pay and headcount trends across the largest 300 resellers, MSPs and consultancies on our radar based on publicly available data. It is available exclusively to subscribers of CRN Essential.

Average (mean) wages among the 257 VAR 300 firms who disclosed the relevant figures in their last set of annual accounts rose by 3.6 per cent to £46,799.

This means that average pay at IT tech providers tops that of IT workers. According to job site CVLibrary, IT workers saw average salaries rise by 4.3 per cent to £44,100 in 2018.

Looking at company HQs, the East of England pipped South East and London to the wages crown.

Average wages for the 16 Top 300 VARs with head offices in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire who disclosed the relevant figures stood at £52,867, compared with £52,368 for London and £51,548 for the South East.

Only one firm out of the 257 paid an average wage of over £100,000 in its most recently reported annual accounts.

It was among one of five cybersecurity specialists in the top 25 payers. Several Microsoft and IBM-focused partners were also among those paying the highest wages.

When it comes to headcount, the channel continues to thrive, with the 287 Top 300 VARs that disclosed their average monthly heacount in their latest accounts employing a total of 60,434 staff, up 12.1 per cent year on year and roughly equivalent to the population of Hereford.

Marc Sumner, managing director of recruitment firm Robertson Sumner, said in the report that resellers are continuing to expand their teams and launch new branch offices.

"We're seeing lots of demand for new offices, new divisions, new teams, additional headcount and so on. I would see it going up another 10 to 12 per cent this year," he said.

"If you're a reseller candidate and you're even reasonable, you'll get a job somewhere as the demand is there.

"I think it will be a brilliant year for the channel. Forget Brexit, we're going to see companies having record years and I think 2019 is going to be the best year yet for the channel."

Available exclusively to subscribers of CRN Essential, CRN's Staff and Salaries Report includes:

Also new on CRN Essential