Since YPI CREW launched its peer-to-peer salary check website for the yachting industry in 2016 over 5.655 yacht crew have entered their salaries onto the system.
The salary check site allows anyone working in the industry to anonymously enter their salary along with their rank.
Salary data is entered by members of the community. The Salary Check website works on an honesty system. There is really no incentive for contributors to mislead people about what they earn. Any inflated or inconsistent salary entries can be ‘flagged’ as suspicious by other members of the community or by YPI CREW and these are quickly removed from the system to ensure the accuracy of data is maintained.
For the good of everyone in the industry the salary data is free for anyone to access.
The figures shown here are median values of the real salaries entered by yachting crew. They can be used as orientational figures but the real salary offered during the recruitment process will vary depending on the candidate’s experience, training, certificates and additional skills. This is why, when looking for work, it’s important to have someone guiding you and championing your skills and experience.
All yacht crew salaries are expressed in euros. Blanks in the graphs are due to either lack of entries for that particular category or the nonexistence of a role in a specific segment. For example, there are generally no third officers on yachts less than 50 meters.
Because data presented here is collected from anonymous yacht crew members, it should not be seen as a definite portrayal of the current market but should be used merely as an informal indication.
Captain Salaries
347 captains have contributed with their salaries. Of those, 287 (82%) are working on motor yachts and 60 (18%) on sailing yachts. This is coherent with the ratio of the global world fleet. 83% of which are motor yachts and 17% are sailing yachts. Overall, only 33% of captains who contributed are on rotation. Rotation usually, if and when available, starts on yachts over 50m. When talking about sailing yachts, we didn’t receive any entries for sailing yachts above the 51-65m segment. Also, salaries were on average slightly lower on sailing yachts compared to same sized motor yachts.
Captains present the most senior management of a yacht, which is obviously reflected in the salary they command. Expectedly, with the size of the yacht increasing, so do salaries.
Experienced recruiters are invaluable at this level as they can definitely add value in the salary negotiation stage; it is their role to act as a middle person to ensure that, when a job offer is made, it is to all parties satisfaction and is therefore accepted. They not only know how best to champion captains, their skills and experience at interview stage, they help craft and finesse a deal.
Deck Crew Salaries
214 Deck Crew have contributed with their salaries breaking down to 116 chief officers 16 second officers, 12 third officers and 64 deckhands.
From the data we see that fewer chief officers (43%) reported having a rotational position compared to second engineers (57%). However, they reportedly benefit more from rotation than captains who are at 33%.
Engineer Salaries
279 technical crew have contributed; 162 chief engineers, 60 second engineers, 16 third engineers and 25 ETO/AVIT.
Overall, many more engineers reported being on rotation than captains. We see that 72% of Chief Engineers, 57% of Second Engineers and 56% of Third Engineers are rotational, along with 88% of ETO/AVIT Engineers.
For chief engineers we note that beyond the 66 – 80m segment, there is no data for permanent salaries. This reflects the engineering recruitment market where in fact, from +65m upwards, the market is rotation only, apart from a few exceptions. The same goes for Second Engineers and ETOs where permanent contracts on +65m yachts are for build contracts only. It is our experience that the market is rotation-only for Engineers on operational yachts over 65m.
Chef Salaries
65 chefs contributed to the salary check site of which 50 were Head Chefs and 15 Sous Chefs.
It is our experience that at the point of recruitment on yachts +50m most Chefs jobs offer some sort of rotation so it surprising that only 26 % of chefs who contributed are on rotation.
Pursers & Stews
34 Pursers, 61 Chief Stews and 22 Second Stews contributed to the salary check website.
Pursers, after Engineers are the category who most have access to rotation. 59 % of Pursers reported having rotation whilst only 18% of Chief Stews said they benefit from that perk.
Our experience is that in the past year, perhaps due to Covid-19, salaries offered to Stews were somewhat lower that the year before.
This underlines again the added value of registering and teaming up with recruiters who have their fingers on the pulse and are able to assist in negotiating the best conditions for job offers. Each situation is unique. Likewise, the same recruiters will advise Captains on the state of the crew market and how to position themselves in terms of conditions and salary to attract the best suitable, interested and available candidates.
