Jeff Mottle Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Hi all, Soon I'm going to begin work on the next Salary and Industry survey to get some more up to date numbers. Post anything you are interested in learning from the surveys so I can try to incorporate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 (edited) I'd like to see a tally to track movement of people who've migrated from a specialized visualization firm to an in-house position within a larger AEC firm. Or the opposite who's moved away from the in-house to a more specialized firm. Edited September 30, 2011 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchrender Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 This should interesting since most of the people in Ireland have dropped thier prices to 1/2 of what they used too. Most have lost their jobs and have gone it alone, no choice. phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ulp Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Bleak bleak Ireland, such a hard time I've have the last year or two. Near impossible over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 I think it'd be interesting to track movements as well. It seems, at least on the semi-barren job boards, that more and more architecture firms are opting to bring the viz back in house. At the same time, many well qualified artists are opting to work on their own as freelancers. Tracking price trends and time trends would be interesting to see as well. Is it more common to be asked to create more work than ever for tighter budgets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 asking if the survey respondent has changed employers over the last 18 months and if they answer yes a followup question with options: a. moved from viz studio to arch firm b. moved from arch firm to viz studio c. moved from freelance to arch firm d. moved from freelance to viz studio e. moved from viz studio to freelance f. moved from arch firm to freelance g. selling insurance now or something like that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eagle_ear Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Even when a boom hits we will all be doing more for less. A lot has been said here about how it is easier and easier to do of this type of work now. Location determines your cost of living, and the amount the clients in your area are going to be willing to pay. I've seen prices quoted for $100 rendering, (claiming to be in the US). Now some of you guys should be/ might be making that by the hour, or used to. What type of quality of work can you achieve in a one day render ($100?!), which is still more time than you can allow, for basically chump change. I have to price lower (way lower) because I'm new, and my location. Freebies for and $100 dollar renders are okay to get a start I think, but it is bad for the field if pros, (part time) pros?, are working for this. young, hungry, passionate is good, but that does not last forever. This is a grim question, but it is what we are facing for a bit longer it seems, and this is an art to some, and there are the ones who are going to do it regardless. How low is too low to price? Some of us will probably be 'selling insurance' if things don't pick up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frog_a_lot Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 May be hard to implement, but when i hear people say they charge this or they charge that, it is worthless without pictures. So maybe an option to upload an image when you answer how much you charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brodie Geers Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I'd be interested to know HOW people are charging for work. I've seen a wide range from extremely fixed prices (commercial interior = $600, residential exterior = $400, etc.), to hourly, or an overall quote once an overview has been done, etc. And perhaps as a side note, how revisions are handled (free, hourly, each revision gets a new quote, etc.). Furthermore, if it's possible and interesting related tidbit would be to connect HOW people charge to how much they earn/year. It would be interesting to find out, for example, that only 10% of people charge a flat hourly fee but they tend to make 20% more than the average salary. -Brodie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 I'm interested in seeing a breakdown of years of experience with regard to salary, and correlated to that I'd like to see what the size of the organization is. I think it's also important to know how many jobs (number of renderings & animations) a person is doing per year, I think those in firms are proportionally getting paid less than freelancers due to the ease of accessibility and control the firm has over in house people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jophus14 Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Maxer: I believe years of experience with regard to how much someone earns couldn't be justified due to location as well as how much they started off making. I agree that an artist working in a firm would get paid less (I know I do) than a freelance artist. Working at a firm is almost guaranteed work (even when it's shitty work) and the possibility of working for clients that you might not have access to otherwise. The benefits to freelance work is that it is almost pure profit and you get to work on projects and for companies that you are truly interested in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 (edited) That would be interesting to compare, freelance versus employed wages after the fact. Meaning. Factor in 25-30% income taxes, business taxes and expenses (especially if you want to get a tax ID and open yourself up for larger contracts), legal fees, software licenses, computers, online render farms (as/if needed), your own insurance both health and business, more time spent at home means more utilities/food consumed, phone, website costs, if you need online storage, and so on and on. Do you really make that much more as a freelancer or are you pretty comparable to industry wages? Just because a freelancer may charge $85 an hour, doesn't mean they are taking home $85 or even $80 as profit. Edited October 3, 2011 by VelvetElvis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 3, 2011 Author Share Posted October 3, 2011 That would be interesting to compare, freelance versus employed wages after the fact. Meaning. Factor in 25-30% income taxes, business taxes and expenses (especially if you want to get a tax ID and open yourself up for larger contracts), legal fees, software licenses, computers, online render farms (as/if needed), your own insurance both health and business, more time spent at home means more utilities/food consumed, phone, website costs, if you need online storage, and so on and on. Do you really make that much more as a freelancer or are you pretty comparable to industry wages? Just because a freelancer may charge $85 an hour, doesn't mean they are taking home $85 or even $80 as profit. So basically we can just ask what your profit margin is then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Jeff, yes in a sense. But now that I think about it, maybe this is too deep for the industry survey? Because if you dive that deep into freelancing cost breakdown, you'd have to do the same for an industry wage as you get taxes and the like taken out as well. In retrospect, that's asking a lot of math for a survey. I wonder if there is a simpler way to compare freelancing and industry to see if the myth that freelancing is typically way more profitable than working for a company or if the two are closer than one would think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 4, 2011 Author Share Posted October 4, 2011 I think asking what the profit margin is for each will work and provide the insight you're looking for. It's a good question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwanp Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 As well as asking how people have moved from one area of employment to another (a-viz to AEC firm, or real world into academia) it might also be interesting to see if there are geographical migrations too. Some areas are hit worse than others, such as Ireland by the sounds of it. So it might be worth seeing if people are willing to move or actually relocating to where the work is or sit tight and hope that remote/online working will carry them through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristocratic3d Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 Also it would be a good idea to generalize people according to their country to see who are working cheap and who is charging standard price. This info will make some one think about whether he should continue job or he can open a farm and outsource his works to a certain range of country where artist works cheap? or he can open a sister concern of his firm there. Sorry for my bad English. I think I added a point there anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 Ok, sorry for the longer than anticipated delay on this. With the launch of the new site in Feb and a host of other things afterwards, this got pushed off. I think I now have the final questions completed for the first survey, which will be the Salary/Employment survey. The industry survey will be a few more weeks yet as it's much harder to put together. Here are the questions that are currently in the survey. Some are forked questions meaning you only see them if you answer a previous question a certain way. If there is anything that you think is missing please let me know. [Demographic - User] What is your gender? What is your age? What is the highest level of education you have completed? [Demographics - Location] Please select the country where you are currently live. Please indicate which State or Province you live. Do you work in a major city? [Employment Status] Are you currently employed? Were you previously unemployed in the last 12 months? Have you changed employers in the last 18 months? [Employment] Please describe the nature of your employer change within the last 18 months. (forked question) [Demographics - Industry] Please select the option that BEST describes the type of company or organization you are involved with. [Demographics - Job Title/Function] Please select the job title/function that BEST describes your position. Please indicate the percentage of your time that is directly involved with architectural visualization activities. (Production or Management) How many years have you been involved with computer generated Architectural Illustration/Animations? [Demographics - Company] How many people work for your company in all capacities (including yourself)? [income] Please indicate the total gross income (before taxes) you will earn this year. (in US Dollars or Converted to US Dollars) What is the (average) hourly rate you or your company use to determine the rate to bill your clients? How much of a salary increase have you received in the last 12 months? Did you have a decrease in your salary in the last 12 months? (forked question) How likely are you to receive an increase in pay in the next 12 months? How much of a salary increase do you anticipate receiving in the next 12 months? (forked question) [benefits] Which of the following benefits are provided for you by your employer? How many weeks of paid vacation do you receive? [Work Habits] How many hours per week do you work on average? [Job Satisfaction/Security] How do you rate your job satisfaction? How do you rate your feeling of job security? What is your company's current workload? The other thing I wanted to mention is that the results will be published in a very detailed PDF ebook along with some interviews with top studios in the industry answering specific questions about skill sets they look for, the type of people they hire, the education they look for, how they like to see resumes and portfolios presented. How to improve your chances of getting hired etc. Because putting all of this together is A LOT of work and there is huge value to everyone I will be charging for the survey results. I'm thinking something along the lines of $25 if you take the survey and $50-60 if you don't take the survey. Feedback, please. I hope to get this online next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Looks good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 (edited) Do you work in a major city? >>wouldn't the question above this one asking for the specific city provide this answer in a less objective manner? [Employment Status] Are you currently employed? Were you previously unemployed in the last 12 months? Have you changed employers in the last 18 months? >> If they answer yes to the first two, perhaps a question asking how long it took the person to find another fulltime job may give an indication of the overall job market strength? Have you changed employers in the last 18 months? >> If yes, then a question asking how far their new job is from the previous job in miles or km could help address Iwan's question and provide some insight into how transient the industry is (or isn't). Edited June 20, 2012 by John Dollus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punnen Thomas1 Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Looks Good. Again it might be warranted to introduce a variance for the cost of living in the country the artist is in. For example an artist in the states can charge $500.00 per rendering but one in India.. etc. can charge less($200.00) because the cost of living is lower. So whether it is freelance or a regular job, the cost per rendering should be compared to cost of living. As the cost of living determines what we charge and also why people settle for a regular job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 Punnen, this info can be generated from the questions he has already. once the data is sorted on a city/country level, it will be obvious what the average rate/compensation data is per region for comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punnen Thomas1 Posted June 20, 2012 Share Posted June 20, 2012 John, I understand what your saying. I was referring to the cost of living as compared to the compensation in the area. the latter doet not give a true variance for the cost of living. For example: the salary for a 3D visualization artist is the same in Houston as it is in Washington dc but their is a huge different in the cost of living in these two places. Hence the freelance artist will charge accordingly but the employee's salary will remain the same. So if we are trying to compare rates between freelance and employees , then the compensation plan per region will not be accurate and in reality, be a mere statistic unless augmented with data concerning cost of living. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 John, I understand what your saying. I was referring to the cost of living as compared to the compensation in the area. the latter doet not give a true variance for the cost of living. For example: the salary for a 3D visualization artist is the same in Houston as it is in Washington dc but their is a huge different in the cost of living in these two places. Hence the freelance artist will charge accordingly but the employee's salary will remain the same. So if we are trying to compare rates between freelance and employees , then the compensation plan per region will not be accurate and in reality, be a mere statistic unless augmented with data concerning cost of living. I'm not sure I really understand this. In the final report I'll break down Freelance and Salaried income numbers separately. I'll be able to break down numbers by region. So a freelancer in DC might pay themselves $100K whereas in Houston maybe $75K for example. The actual cost of living metric would require an entire other survey just to determine that number and there are other sources for this information. This is also a worldwide survey so hard to do that to factor situations around the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted June 20, 2012 Author Share Posted June 20, 2012 Do you work in a major city? >>wouldn't the question above this one asking for the specific city provide this answer in a less objective manner? No because I only ask for State/Province in US and Canada as doing so for everywhere in the world would take me a year to figure out. But now that you've mentioned it, it reminds me I need to add a separate City/State/Province for international countries so the data is at least there to mine if needed. I don't think I'll be able to determine specific regions for 196 countries. That would be insane and generally there are not enough responses for every region for that to make sense. Even some places in the US make that difficult. [Employment Status] Are you currently employed? Were you previously unemployed in the last 12 months? Have you changed employers in the last 18 months? >> If they answer yes to the first two, perhaps a question asking how long it took the person to find another fulltime job may give an indication of the overall job market strength? Have you changed employers in the last 18 months? >> If yes, then a question asking how far their new job is from the previous job in miles or km could help address Iwan's question and provide some insight into how transient the industry is (or isn't). Good questions. Will add those in. Hope people don't mind the time this will take Will probably be a 20 min survey. The industry survey is about an hour if I recall from the last one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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