As a meeting professional, knowing the average pay for colleagues in the industry is invaluable when you find yourself in the market for a new job or when it comes time to ask for a raise.
The Professional Convention Management Association is on the job, providing the industry with its annual salary survey. The 2024 report analyzed data from 462 event professionals, providing information on their average salaries, role, experience, job satisfaction, and more.
PCMA reports meeting-industry salary averages in several ways, the most relevant being by job title and by organization type.
Here are the results for the survey conducted in mid-2024:
Average Salary by Job Title
Coordinator/Specialist: $64,268
Manager: $84,622
Director: $104,558
Executive Level/VP: $116,144
Average Salary by Organization Type
Independent Meeting Planner: $75,000
Professional Conference Organizer: $81,600
Association Management Company: $89,240
Corporation: $89,457
Association: $101,864
Nonprofit: $105,183
Overall, the average 2024 salary of PCMA’s respondents is $103,150, which is increase of six percent over last year’s average of $97,130.
The report does not correlate demographic data with each of the job titles and organization types. However, the majority of respondents are either managers (36 percent) or directors (25 percent), with lower concentrations of executive level/VPs (13 percent), coordinators (9 percent), and have other titles (10 percent).
Looking at respondents’ organizations, they are largely associations (45 percent) and corporations (25 percent). PCO respondents (9 percent) are the next most common group, while other types of organizations each comprise five percent or less of the respondent pool.
In addition to valuable salary data, the PCMA survey provides a snapshot of today’s meeting professionals, who are, on the whole, highly experienced, female, and hard-working.
Seven facts about PCMA’s 2024 respondents:
• 87 percent of respondents are female.
• The average salary for men is higher than that of women: $108,871 versus $102,839, respectively.
• On average, respondents have 18 years of meeting-management experience, while 49 percent have more than 20 years of experience.
• About a third of respondents are in the 40 to 49 age range, with 46 being the average. A quarter are 39 years old or younger, and 40 percent are 50 or older.
• Almost three quarters of respondents are Caucasian (73 percent), with 10 percent Hispanic or Latino/a, 7 percent Black, and 6 percent Asian or Pacific Islander.
• More than have 55 percent of the group has earned the Certified Meeting Professional designation. Respondents with a CMP earn, on average, $5,682 more than those who don’t.
• A majority of respondents (71 percent) work for companies that pay for them to attend educational events (three per year, on average).
• Three quarters of respondents work more than 40 hours a week, with the average being 46:
Hours Worked Per Week
30-40: 25%
41-50: 49%
51-60: 19%
61-70: 5%
71-80: 2%
