Now that the results are in from the 2018 CADagency Survey, we’ve taken the opportunity to dig deep into the fresh data and compare it to the results from the previous four years of the annual survey to pick out changing trends and a few surprises in the ever-evolving CAD industry.

The good news is that the average salaries continue a slow but steady climb. Back in 2015, the most popular salary bracket was £25,001 to £30,000, earned by 24% of the respondents. Over the years, we’ve witnessed a stronger push into the £30,001 to £35,000 bracket, with the latest survey showing a majority of 23% now earning this amount.
This would appear to tally with the general pay growth in the UK in 2018, the biggest we’ve enjoyed in a decade.

This year has also seen another small rise in the higher salary brackets, with 9% more of you now earning over £40,000 compared to just a couple of years ago, perhaps suggesting that more of the respondents are moving into senior positions.

One particularly interesting finding from the survey results is the shifting trends of younger people working in the CAD industry. The number of workers aged between 18-24 has held fairly steady for a while at around 8%, but last year saw a dramatic drop to less than 1%. This could possibly have been a part of a common reaction to Brexit, with far fewer younger Europeans choosing the UK as the ideal location to fulfil their creative career paths, although on a more promising note, this year’s results have seen a significant rise back up to 6%.

Talking of Brexit, it’s worth noting that only 22% of this year’s respondents felt that Brexit has affected their employment options, with an overwhelming majority of 78% feeling that Brexit has made zero impact in this area.

So how rewarding are we finding our current roles in the industry?
Well, we appear to be making an encouraging move away from the middle-ground here. Over the last few years, ‘rewarding enough’ has been the mildly cautious but most popular response, often reaching a winning figure of around 34%. Although the number of people who feel that their roles are less than rewarding has held fairly steady at around 23%, we are generally witnessing a positive trend in which a higher number of workers are finding their roles more than moderately rewarding.
For example, an average of 12% have chosen the most positive option ‘very rewarding’ over the last four years, but this figure has climbed to a new high of 17% this year, suggesting that more respondents are getting their high expectations met in 2018.

The prospects and hopes of career progression through management level has edged away slightly from the opposite extremes and moved into more moderate levels over the years. Last year’s figures dipped to a record low of 45% of respondents feeling that they had little or zero hopes of career progression, while back in 2015, a record high of 38% felt that their chances were more than likely. This year’s survey results show that fewer people hold extreme opinions either way, with a majority of 30% feeling that their chances were moderately likely, indicating a broad settling down of prospects across the board.

It should come as no surprise to discover that a higher salary has remained the top key motivator for a job change over the years, and in quite in a convincing fashion. Who wouldn’t be persuaded by more money?
It’s more interesting to observe the slow but steady rises in ‘flexible working hours’ and ‘pension’ as growing key incentives. Back in 2015, only 43% of you would have been tempted by more flexibility in working hours, but this has increased to the current figure of 54%, showing that while money may still be the supreme concern, more and more workers are seeking a healthier lifestyle balance between work and personal life.
Pension has seen a slow but steady rise as a key motivator to a new high of 19% this year. While Brexit may well be casting a shadow of uncertainty over many of the UK’s industries, it would seem that the shrewd workers of the CAD industry are increasingly taking sensible and practical measures to protect their long-term future and beyond.