CASE STUDY: PAY AND BENEFITS BENCHMARKING
Benchmarking specialist roles for a university college
Detailed role analysis and carefully selected evidence for unusual and specialist roles
The challenge
The college needed independent evidence to help it review salaries for roles that did not always fit neatly within conventional market benchmarks.
College roles can combine responsibilities that would normally sit within separate jobs elsewhere. Job titles may also have a particular meaning within the collegiate environment and may not correspond directly with apparently similar roles in other sectors.
Straightforward title matching could therefore produce misleading results, so the college needed an approach that considered the actual purpose, responsibilities and level of each role before selecting appropriate market evidence.
The client
A university college employing people across a diverse range of professional, specialist, educational, residential and operational activities.
Our approach
EBRS combined detailed role analysis with evidence from several relevant comparator markets.
a) Understanding the roles
We reviewed the available role information to understand:
the purpose and principal responsibilities of each role;
its organisational contribution;
the knowledge, judgement and experience required;
responsibility for people, resources and services; and
its position within the college structure.
This provided a consistent basis for understanding the size and requirements of each role rather than relying on its title alone.
It also helped us identify where a role had a clear external equivalent and where its particular combination of responsibilities required a broader approach.
b) Building the market picture
Depending on the role, we considered evidence from colleges, universities, charities and the wider employment market.
The benchmarking drew on established salary surveys, relevant college and education sector evidence, advertised salaries, recruitment information and wider not-for-profit market data.
Some roles had strong comparisons within the collegiate or university sector. Others required evidence from more than one market because their responsibilities crossed conventional job families or combined specialist, managerial and operational elements.
Where different sources produced different results, we considered the relevance and quality of each comparison rather than relying mechanically on a single figure.
c) Developing the recommendations
For each role, we brought together the role analysis and market evidence to provide a reasoned view of the appropriate salary position.
Our recommendations took account of:
the weight and complexity of the role;
the strength of the available market comparisons;
the college's size and operating context;
relevant relationships with other roles; and
the balance between college sector and wider market evidence.
This provided the college with practical salary recommendations supported by clear reasoning, rather than a collection of standalone survey figures.
The value of the work
The review gave the college a clearer and more reliable understanding of the external market for its specialist roles.
It enabled the client to:
compare roles according to their actual responsibilities rather than their titles;
draw on evidence from the most relevant comparator markets;
avoid placing undue weight on weak or imperfect matches;
understand why different sources produced different results;
consider internal relationships alongside external evidence; and
make salary decisions supported by an independent rationale.
By combining structured role analysis, carefully selected evidence and professional judgement, EBRS helped the college interpret a complex market and reach more informed conclusions about salary positioning.
Need to benchmark specialist or unusual roles?
Where roles do not fit standard job titles or salary surveys, EBRS can combine detailed role analysis with evidence from several markets to develop practical and proportionate recommendations.