Brexit expected to boost finance and executive salaries in Ireland

Survey by recruitment specialist suggests high-level salaries could rise by 20%

Brexit is expected to boost executive salaries in Ireland, in some cases by up to 20 per cent, according to recruitment specialist Ardlinn.

The firm’s latest salary guide suggests top-level finance and multinational salaries will “increase significantly” in 2019 as more firms relocate to Ireland, stoking demand for key executive roles.

“Companies relocating to Ireland due to Brexit developments is helping to drive a growing demand for senior executive roles in FDI (foreign direct investment) and the financial services sector, which will see top level salaries surge by 20 per cent,” it said.

These salary hikes will also be boosted by other factors including Chinese FDI investment, which rose 218 per cent in 2018, alongside Dublin’s ranking as the number one city in the world for tech FDI.

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Similarly, rises in top- level salaries in areas such as finance will continue to grow in 2019 due to sectoral growth which now sees a €2.1 billion contribution to the exchequer with Irish-administered funds now exceeding €4 trillion.

The research is based on recruitment data from recruitment firms CPL and Ardlinn.

“With international investment and asset managers setting up offices in Ireland on the back of Brexit, 2019 will see an increase in the need for senior executive appointments to manage workloads and capitalise on business opportunities,” Ardlinn founder Áine Brolly said.

“ We predict that 2019 will be a year of expansion for Ireland’s FDI and finance sectors as demand grows for skills in these areas,” she said.

“We know Brexit will be hugely challenging from an Irish economic perspective, however, we are seeing certain sectors benefit from the uncertainty in the UK, with our stability and unfettered access to EU and global markets proving to be popular with international investors,” she added.

Top-level level salaries in Dublin continue to dwarf their equivalents in Northern Ireland with variance ranging from 30 per cent to 80 per cent.

"Our financial services sector is set to grow by a further 15 per cent in 2019, whilst there's good news for regions such as Limerick, Kilkenny, Galway and Cork with them all continuing to represent attractive investment locations for the year ahead, with this underlined by recent sources showing 60 per cent of FDI companies are now based outside of Dublin," she said.

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy

Eoin Burke-Kennedy is Economics Correspondent of The Irish Times