There are a lot of ways to get ahead in procurement. You can develop your technical and negotiation skills. You can network internally and build your profile. You can provide real-life examples of the impact that effective procurement is making. But there’s something else that can make a huge impact: MCIPS designation.
In a highly competitive jobs market, being MCIPS helps you stand out from the crowd; among respondents to this year’s CIPS Salary Survey, more than half of procurement employers say they require new candidates either to have the designation or to be studying towards it.
The Salary Survey reveals that across all continents and job levels, procurement and supply chain professionals with MCIPS are paid 59% more than their non-MCIPS colleagues.
The effect is very powerful in the early and middle stages of a procurement career – but the survey results also show that an MCIPS designation pays off as a long-term investment. In fact, the boost it provides can follow you all the way to the C-Suite.
Climbing the ladder
The Salary Survey data reveals that MCIPS professionals are more likely to be eligible for bonuses compared to their non-MCIPS peers, and the bonuses they get tend to be larger as a proportion of their salary. This is particularly true in the private sector, where bonuses are both more common and larger to begin with.
At the senior, “influencing” level of the procurement and supply chain profession – CPOs, heads of procurement, supply chain directors etc – the MCIPS designation’s effect on bonuses is particularly powerful.
The compensation packages for people this level are by far the most likely to include bonuses, and MCIPS appears to play a key role in determining what these bonus beneficiaries actually get.
In Europe, for instance, influencing-level employees with MCIPS are likelier to be eligible for bonuses, but the average size of their bonuses is significantly larger: 15.64% of their annual salary, five points higher than the figure for their non-MCIPS colleagues in our sample.
And if we pick apart the way MCIPS affects both bonuses and salaries together, we can see the difference it really makes at the very top of the procurement profession.
Feeling the benefit
Let’s take the UK respondents in our survey as an example.
The average MCIPS influencing-level professional there takes home a salary of just under £94,000, an advantage of about £5,000 over a non-MCIPS colleague at the same level. Meanwhile, the average UK bonus at this level is around 11%of salary for an MCIPS professional, as opposed to roughly 7.5%for a non-MCIPS one.
That means that on average, MCIPS respondents at this level receive a salary-plus-bonus package of £104,340 – whereas for non-MCIPS, it’s £95,675. And that’s before taking into account that MCIPS professionals are more likely to be entitled to a bonus in the first place.
So while it remains the case that MCIPS can help fire up your early career, enhancing your appeal to employers and giving you the skills you need to get ahead, don’t assume that it’s just a box to tick or a leg-up over the next hurdle.
In fact, you might be directly thankful for it in 25 years’ time.