Pay data built for your sector, by employers in your sector

Who joins

• HR and reward leaders who need dependable market data for roles that general surveys handle poorly.
• Finance directors, owners and board members who want pay proposals backed by evidence rather than anecdote.
• Group HR teams running several properties, schools or sites who want a consistent external reference point.

A hospitality group is running now. In education, we are launching the UAE Education Reward Benchmark for upper-tier schools. New groups are being set up for other sectors that existing surveys serve poorly.

Why general salary data falls short

Sector averages hide the segments that matter. A luxury hotel and a mid-market hotel are both hospitality; a premium British-curriculum school and a lower-fee school are both education. They do not pay the same, and they do not compete for the same people.

• Roles that exist mainly in one sector, such as specialist hotel operations posts or school leadership roles, are poorly covered.
• Pay that depends on experience rather than job title, as teacher scales often do, is flattened into one average.
• Housing, medical, family and other allowances, which matter a great deal in the UAE, are often missed.
• Figures drawn from job adverts or self-reported salaries do not show what employers actually pay.

The trust gap

Pay conversations often stall on evidence. A board or owner wants proof before approving an increase; leaders know they are losing people but have only anecdote to offer. A benchmark built for the right segment closes that gap, so both sides of the table work from the same facts.

It cuts both ways. Good data can show where pay is behind, and equally where it is already competitive or above market.

How a group works

1. Segment. Define the segments that genuinely compete with one another. In education, that means curriculum, fee band and location, with pay compared by years of experience.
2. Submit. Members provide pay data without names or personal identifiers.
3. Validate. We check submissions and put packages on one basis, so like is compared with like.
4. Report. Members receive aggregated results by segment. Thin segments are withheld.
5. Decide. Members use the results to make and explain pay decisions.

The groups are underpinned by 10k’s own technology and governance. 10k owns and runs them and decides method and publication. Benchmark data is firewalled from our consulting work, and no member sees another member’s data.

Safeguards in the education benchmark

Benchmarking among competitors must be designed carefully. The UAE Education Reward Benchmark is protected by these safeguards:

• At least five schools sit behind any published figure, and no school accounts for more than 30% of it.
• Published data is at least three months old, and no pay intentions are exchanged.
• A written competition-law protocol, reviewed by counsel before launch.
• Built to the UAE PDPL and aligned with GDPR, KSA and Qatar rules, with UAE hosting: no employee data leaves the country.

Sectors

• Hospitality: running now.
• Education: the UAE Education Reward Benchmark launches with British-curriculum schools in the upper fee band, followed by IB, then American and CBSE.

10k also runs a reward programme for the FMCG sector.