Companies across the Middle East have implemented widespread executive pay rises averaging 5.7 per cent, a new survey has revealed.

The pay data released by Mercer shows that employees in managerial roles have received higher pay rises in 2011 than those in executive positions, as companies allocated their scarce resources toward perceived ‘rainmakers’

The average pay increases in the Middle East remains far higher than those received by executives in Western Europe, though executives in Pakistan received an average salary increase of 13.5 per cent.

Executive salaries are set to increase by an average of 5.7 per cent in the Middle East and 8.2 per cent in Africa.

Qatari executives received the lowest pay rises in the Middle East of 4 per cent, followed by executives in Kuwait (4.5 per cent), Saudi Arabia (5 per cent) and the UAE (5 per cent). Executives in Bahrain received the highest average pay rise in the Middle East of 6 per cent.

Mercer’s Pulse Survey analyses data from 406 subsidiaries of multinational organisations with operations in over 60 European countries.

While the data covers the median salary increases for a variety of employee groups, this release focuses on executive pay rises as reported by all organisations, including those freezing salaries.

Executives are defined as employees who lead an organisation, business area or corporate staff function, such as head of IT or Human Resources. Broadly, 2011 salary increases were higher among companies in the service, consumer and high-tech industries and lowest amongst the financial services and energy organisations.

However, the average salary does not reflect the sizeable variation across organisations in terms of pay increases, as well as substantial differences across the Middle East.

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