Devin Johnston Posted March 3, 2006 Share Posted March 3, 2006 I've been curious for a long time about what the national salary average is for someone doing Arch Viz work. I've never seen any statistics on the subject probably because the field is so small it's simply never been done. Does anyone know or willing to venture a guess based on your area, maybe we could put together an unofficial poll on the subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 i took this years survey, but i can't remember if there were any salary questions. however, i think there were in last years survey. try looking that up. i knew where it was at one point, but i am not sure now. also, if you find it, link to it in this post for others to read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exception Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Hey if it's all moderators here talking, I want to be one too. Just kidding. Took the survey too, no salary questions. I think it varies a lot since so many of us are freelancers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Well I didn't get the response I was hoping for and the reason is because this information doesen’t really exists. I was able to find a web site that will evaluate your current salary against predefined categories. The only category that I thought was close to architectural visualization was "Illustrator". This is the web site, please let me know if you find a better match for our field. http://www.payscale.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 this is quite interesting for UK users (2004 based, but a good idea all the same) - http://www.hays.com/common/salary-survey.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Here is one for the US, it's pretty comprehensive but doesn’t include anything for Arch Viz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 A long time ago, Jeff was going to do a survey on this. It was going to include data on regions, experience, and all sorts of stuff. I'm not sure why it never happened but there seems to be some general resistance to collecting data like this for arch-viz. Like I said, I'm really not sure why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Brian, I asked Jeff about a month ago if he would be interested in running a salary survey poll. He said that it was on his list of things to do but that he hadn’t had the time to get around to doing it yet. I think this information would be invaluable to people and I'm surprised that no one has ever done this before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 I too would be very interested in seeing a survey of this sort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfa2 Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Count me in too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 That pay scale site is kinda cool but I'm either doing something wrong or something isn't working, because no matter what job/position I enter, the pay scale never changes. I even tried entering "entertainment attorney" and the pay range was identical! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Your probably can't get an accurate amount until you pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 The salary questions were ommitted from the current running survey on purpose. Most importantly because in order to get a good response, we had to offer prizes. Prizes mean supplying names, which does not go too well with providing those kind of details. I'll be launching a new survey shortly that is strictly about salaray and money related issues. I'll be breaking it down into regions as granular as states and provinces for US and Canada, but only regions and countries for the rest of the world. Also, I will not be releasing the full details until I get a sufficient number of replies to the survey as not doing so could be detremental to our industry. Example, I release it with only 50 responses and those 50 just happen to be the top most expensive salaries in the industry. We could put a lot of companies out of business as employees use it as leverage for a pay increase. Likely I will need 1000-2000 replies before I will make it public. I'll try to get it up over the weekend. I will be asking where you live, how much you make, what position and experience you have, and to the best of your knowledege what others in your region/country also make. I have a few other ideas as well, but feel free to post info you would like me to add. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Thank you Jeff, we praise your efforts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted March 7, 2006 Author Share Posted March 7, 2006 Man Jeff you are spot on, I really appreciate you moving on this so quickly. As far as additional questions go here are a few, they may be appropriate or not: -How long have you worked at your current job? -Have you ever been published? -Do you work as the head of a team, within a team, or solo? -Do you receive a yearly bonus, how much? -What other benefits do you receive, 401K, Health, Life Ins, Dental, ext. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Just wondering if there will be a way for measuring pay per employee and per job. More specifically I don't make a salary I am paid a fee as I work for myself. For this survey to be meaningful to me I guess I would need to see a per job average? I don't know. Jeff is this only meant for hourly employees or is this an industry wide survey? In otherwords a yearly figure I give does not represent what I make of an illustration but is a mix of how much I charge and how much I work. I would be most interested in seeing what people end up charging which is different from what people make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gfa2 Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 I make am paid a fee as I work for myself. For this survey to be meaningful to me I guess I would need to see a per job average? Sawyer...don't you have an idea of what a rate would be for yourself? How do you bid your jobs? Seems like you would look at a job figure how many hours to do it, then put a price (based on a rate??) and you've got your bid. Seems like this could help people who work at a company or individuals alone. Maybe the results could be broken into company or individuals because that was one of the questions that Jeff proposed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 I have many numbers. I have what I charge per hour, I have a fee I might charge for a job based on so many hours. I have a monthly average and a yearly. The last 2 numbers are meaningless. They are an average of jobs I have worked per whatever. Maybe what I would like to see is a cad file and see a national average of quotes based on that. Otherwise I am not sure how my most recent jobs can compair with anyone elses most recent jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 i would take how much you reported on your taxes the last two or three years, and average them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 I will make it public. I'll try to get it up over the weekend. The survey, you mean? I'm confused. Is there a going survey or is there a pending one? -Do you receive a yearly bonus, how much? What's a bonus? I would love to have some real data on the industry, I don't think any exists. For one thing, there is no such thing as arch-vis. We don't exist. However, if we have some real info we may get this industry into lists of real jobs that real people do. And project pricing is more of a Graphic Artist's Guild thing. If you work 'project' I would think you would need to go with whatever your yearly income ends up, as a salary (not gross sales). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 i would take how much you reported on your taxes the last two or three years, and average them. Really? Why? See that only one number and not the most useful. That is going to have so many varaibles in it. Maybe I want something different than what this survey would look at but the best number for me is a straight job breakdown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 @Ernest: There is an industry survey that is going on now here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/industrysurvey/ I have been planning and will launch a seperate salary survey shortly. @Sawyer: Trying to do a survey based on a per project basis, would be difficult if not impossible to do, and honestly would not be that helpful even to freelancers as there are simply too many variables. Time, details, are they an exiting client, was the job part of a bigger job etc etc. I would need literally tens of thousands of people quoting at least 50 different jobs before you could expect to reasonably extrapolate anything useful. The survey I intend to do will ask for your yearly salary converted into USD using a currency conversion site like xe.com. (Yes I know there will be variances from day to day, but it will be close enough.) Even as a freelancer, you still report your income yearly, so you will be asked to report your total gross earnings in 2005. This is still valuable becuase you can compare what the average will be in other areas and hopefully locally as well. Just becuase you quote on a per project basis does not mean you can not compare what you are making to others. If your gross was $50K/year for example and other freelancers are all making $110K/year in your country or state etc, then you are likely not charging enough or are not doing as much work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Yes its valuable. I guess if there was a figure for hour rate and yearly rate it would be fine. It just seems to me an average week is between 15-75 working hours. And averaging that seems really inaccurate. If I made 40k last year I may not be charging enough or I may not be working enough. And I may be thinking way too hard about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Yes its valuable. I guess if there was a figure for hour rate and yearly rate it would be fine. It just seems to me an average week is between 15-75 working hours. And averaging that seems really inaccurate. If I made 40k last year I may not be charging enough or I may not be working enough. And I may be thinking way too hard about this. I will ask a question to freelancers and companies what their hourly bill out rate is. This should help you determine along with the yearly gross income where you stand in both billing rate and volume of work to attain a yearly earning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Cool Beans! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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