Friday 24 February 2012

UK IP practitioners: this is what you say you are

The mirror may lie, but you can always believe
a good professional survey :-)
Last month SOLO IP encouraged readers to participate in a survey undertaken by Fellows & Associates. The findings -- which are about as current as you can hope to find -- can now be read in "Report of the 2012 salary survey of the IP profession in the UK" here.

The results -- culled from replies from 308 respondents -- are quite fascinating since they deal with not just pay but matters such as areas of professional expertise, geographical location and willingness to move to fresh employment, qualifications held, age and job title. With disarming and commendable honesty, the survey outlines methodology and the identification of weaknesses which, it is hoped, will be addressed when next this survey is conducted.

As it is, the data gathered here will provide not merely food for thought but actual data which will doubtless influence prospective employers when deciding what to offer future staff -- and also IP practitioners who are wondering what to expect when trading the flexibility and relative freedom of solo practice for the security of a career with a company or firm, or vice versa.

2 comments:

  1. Every patent attorney I know lies about their salary in interviews and I doubt this survey is any different. Presumably, employers knock 10-15% of the figures to reflect this. This is why I added on an extra 15% on top of an initial figure being a 15% exaggeration of the true figure!

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  2. " when designing the question
    addressing salary it was assumed that anyone working part-time would indicate their salary on a fulltime basis"

    Recruiters should learn from this that, in the real world, 'pro rata' expressions of salaries for part-time jobs are NOT what people want to hear. If an employee works one day a week and takes home £5K a year then their salary is £5K. It really is that simple.

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