Many safety and health organizations conduct salary surveys and publish results of the surveys. Some survey studies involve in-depth studies and analysis and others involve brief surveys and limited analysis.
The Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) previously conducted salary surveys previously in 1998 and 2000. In January 2008, BCPS completed a new survey of individuals holding the Certified Safety Professional® certification (CSP®). This paper explains many of the key results.
BCSP developed its own survey questionnaire. The survey operated electronically over the Internet using Snap Survey software on a web site established by BCSP for the survey. The survey operated for about two weeks in late January 2008. BCSP sent email invitions to participate to about 7,000 individuals holding the CSP. With 14 days, the survey generated 2,572 completed responses, a 37% response rate and representing about 23% of all CSPs. No reminders to participate were sent.
The questionnaire contained four sections. Section 1 sought information about the respondents themselves. Section 2 sought information about each respondent's employment. Section 3 covered information about the professional safety practice of individual respondents. Section 4 sought information about the salary and benefits of respondents.
Of the 2,572 respondents, 13.3% were female and 86.7% were male. The average respondent was 48.9 years old, had been in safety practice for 25.2 years and had held the CSP for 11.7 years. Table 1 lists the education levels of respondents. Over 45% held a masters or doctoral/professional degree as the highest level of education achieved. Only 3.9 % had less than a bachelor's degree, although a significant number with bachelor's degrees had started with an associate degree. 41% held one degree and 55% had two or more degrees.
(Table in full paper)
Of those working in government, 2.9% worked at the federal level, 3.8% at the state level, and 2.1 at the local level. 34.5% of the respondents worked for privately owned companies and 49.8% worked for publicly traded companies. Some companies had U.S. operations only (35%), while the majority had international operations (62.8%). The employers with foreign involvement were engaged in North America (54.5%), Europe (12.1%), Pacific Rim (12.1%), the Middle East (7.4%) and in other world locations.
Most respondents worked for large companies. 29.5% work for companies with more than 25,000 employees. 63.2% worked for companies with more than 2,500 employees. 15.3% worked for companies with 500 to 2,500 employees. 6.9% worked for companies with 100 to 500 employees and 10.4% worked for companies with fewer that 100 employees. Nearly all respondents worked in business units that had many fewer employees.
The number of safety, health and environmental (SH&E) specialists in the overall company or organization for which they worked was quite varied. For 14.3% of the respondents, they were the only SH&E specialist. For 44.8% of respondents, their employer had 2 to 10 specialists. The employers of an additional 19.5% of respondents had 11 to 25 specialists.
