What makes a good benefits package?

What makes a good benefits package?

Based on data points from 394 job descriptions on cord, most company benefits packages can be assessed based on the following criteria.

NB. where pension data not included in job descriptions, assumed to be 3%.

An average benefits package

In sum, the average (median) benefits package looks like this:

• 25 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays

• 3% pension contribution (i.e., the statutory minimum)

• Ability to work remotely 1 day per week

It will likely include some other common but less tangible benefits, such as in-office yoga or massage classes, office equipment such as a company laptop, budgets for learning and development, or flexible benefits packages such as Perkbox. It will also, in all likelihood, contain some provision for maternity and/or paternity cover, but these haven’t been included here due to the difficulties in obtaining this data.

Above these numbers in any category puts your package in the top half of those available to engineers across the cord community for that benefit. Below this, it’s a below-average benefit. This isn’t to say that the package as a whole is below average. It might be above average in other benefits, and it’s for you to decide which benefits you give the greatest weighting to.

Note that this package doesn’t include equity, medical insurance, dental insurance, life insurance, volunteer days or a bonus. Less than half of the benefits packages we assessed offered these perks, so a benefits package that includes medical insurance is in the top half of packages as far as medical insurance is concerned. That said, it would be unusual for a benefits package to offer none of these, so you can probably consider a package that looks exactly like the above to be slightly below average on the whole.

A great benefits package

A benefits package like this:

• 36 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays

• 7% pension contribution

• 0.79% equity (in the form of stock, or share options)

• Medical insurance

• Dental insurance

• Ability to work remotely four or more days per week

• Life insurance

• Volunteer days

• Bonus

… would be in the top 1% of packages across all individual benefit categories. In reality, this would make it one of the best packages imaginable, since benefits packages are usually a balance between the different benefits and it’s unusual for a single package to be market-leading across all categories.

Key Insights

• The average benefits package offers 25 days' holiday and at least one day per week from home

• A great (top 1%) benefits package offers 36 days' holiday annually, plus a 7% pension