A new survey of Victorian councils has revealed a significant shortage of council Building Surveyors, with increased vacancy rates in council building departments and difficulties in attracting or retaining surveyors due to the “war” on talent within the highly competitive employment market.
The “Building Inspectors and Building Surveyors Salary Survey 2023” was conducted by recruitment firm Planned Resources in partnership with the Victorian Municipal Building Surveyors Group, regarding recruitment and salaries of Building Surveyors and Building Inspectors from council building departments.
The findings show that while salaries have increased by about 14.48% since the last survey in 2021 across the sector, managers believe salaries are still at least 14% below being competitive in the current employment market.
Regional salaries have barely risen since 2021.
Respondents from 42 councils provided data from Victoria’s 79 municipalities and shires.
The survey found there were 65 vacancies within building departments and on average, these roles had been open for over a year.
Some councils have been unable to find a suitable candidate for five years.
The survey report says that extrapolating these figures to include all 79 of the Victorian councils, “we would be reasonably confident in predicting that there are around 122 current vacancies within Building Services departments across Victoria with an average of 1.54 vacancies per council”.
Other findings include:
- Council salaries cited as a reason for candidates not considering the council sector, however half believed that the applicants’ expectations were unrealistic.
- The main reason for councils losing talent was due to more money at another council (64%) which accounted for more than the losses to both private (40%) and state government (10%) combined.
- 45% also saw difficulties in being able to fulfil all the requirements for VBA registration as another reason that councils had difficulty attracting talent.
- Around 42% of councils had either a Municipal Building Surveyor (MBS) or Deputy Municipal Building Surveyor (DMBS) who were at current retirement age.
- Only 50% of councils with staff at current retirement age had a succession plan in place.
“Extrapolating the figures to cover all of Victoria that would leave 16 councils that currently have senior staff at retirement age who if they chose to resign suddenly would be without an immediate way of fulfilling their statutory obligations for potentially a period of around 12 months (based on the vacancy open rate),” the survey says.