How much do you earn in retail management or as a department supervisor in retail?

[CompetitionMyArse]

Can anyone give me an idea of what someone managing a small shop earns please? Or managing or supervising a department in a larger chain store? Do you get paid a flat salary or an hourly rate?

This person will be managing a small team (three to five people, one full time the others part time) and reporting to senior management who are off site but would be in daily contact. Responsibilities for shop floor staff training, rotas, cashing up and banking the cash, keeping on top of stock control and using Lightspeed and Shopify to process orders and deliveries etc. Not responsible for placing the orders but for informing senior management of what's needed etc. Keeping the staff motivated and on track with tasks etc.

Not London or south east based, but in England.

I need a ball park figure to know what's realistic to attract the right person for the job. Ideally they'd have some retail management experience, or solid supervisory experience of some sort, not necessarily in retail but with some crossover skills.

If they've already worked for a large chain that would be better because they'd be used to the discipline of working with very defined systems and procedures and daily/weekly reporting.

This is the first time we've recruited for this position as it's usually done by us, the owners, but we are moving on to expand elsewhere. So we need a benchmark between what the current staff earn now (anywhere between minimum wage for their age and £13.00 per hour depending on age/ability/length of service and what someone in charge of them would be on.

I’d guess £28-30K? It’s tricky because all the recent minimum wage rises means there’s less of a gap between ‘juniors’ and middle management in these sort of roles. Following with interest.

I think £35k - £45k a year is a good ballpark especially if you want someone to stay in the role and not just leave after they’ve got the title and experience under their belt.

Yes, exactly. That's the tricky bit. We've always paid more than we need to by law, even for the saturday boy, but obviously we've created a situation where we will need to continue that for there to be enough of a meaningful gap between what the staff with little responsibility earn and what the manager with a lot more responsibility earns. But at the end of the day it's still a relatively easy retail position with a small team. Not brain surgery. Just need to find someone reliable with some common sense that isn't a complete flake or a numbskull. which is proving much harder that it sounds.

Lol. I would offer a reasonable basic benchmark of maybe £28-32k depending on experience, and offer a bonus based on overall company performance and performance in the role. Is there anyone in the team who could be supported to take on the role and learn on the job? I don’t think you need too much of a meaningful wage gap as this is a great opportunity to gain management experience while being supported with eg. the orders. As for someone coming in and moving on, that could happen at any salary point. A retail store is not likely to be able to keep someone by way of paying the best wage, but by offering a structured career path and good working environment. If your company is growing, it sounds like a great opportunity.

MIL is a department manager in Primark and is paid £38k a year

That is really interesting is that one department in one store (although very well deserved as primark must be so fast paced!)

Yes, just for one department (womenswear) which is the biggest department in that shop. Although overall, it's a very small Primark compared to Bristol, Birmingham etc

get yourself on a local job advert site, simple search near me found:

• new store opening in big city, major high street chain, retail manager £37.5k
• shop manager, major high street chain, outside of big city, £33k
• assistant manager roles being advertised at £29k and £33-36k
• shop manager, small local brand, outside of big city "from £13.20 per hour"
• retail manager, small shop in suburbs, £31k

Thanks. I did do that, (small city) but absolutely nothing relevant came up. Not much opportunity here at the moment, obviously. But then I googled what do department managers and team supervisors earn at M&S, ASDA etc and that was much more enlightening.

£35k. Recruited for these roles for years.

I think that's a good idea about the carrot and stick of a decent bonus for strong performance. We run a pretty niche business and prefer to take staff who already have an interest or some knowledge in the products we sell, hence why we pay a bit more than the usual entry level retail rate. But this really narrows down the pool. You can be a really good retail worker or manager but still not much use to us if you can't hit the ground running to some extent on product knowledge. Obviously training is given but to come in with no knowledge of our area whatsoever just wouldn't work.

We did look at recruiting internally and did a bit of a trial run with someone but it's really not working out. They've really struggled to make the necessary transition from team member to manager, their heart just isn't in it, so we are going to have to go outside.

Would I get someone with a proven track record and some decent ability for that?

I know an Assistant Manager for well known store, works in one of their flagship stores. Manages around 20, but often they struggle to recruit, so more often than not he manages 40 - and expected to do rotas over two teams (not sure if he's got Lightspeed or Spotify experience). He earns £34k. He has previous experience as an overall Manager in a shop with approx 10 staff.

DH earned £45k as a department/sales manager in a large household name retailer. He was one of the higher paid amongst his peers as he has nearly 20 years experience - most were on £35-45k.