The size of the people profession has grown by 42% between 2011 and 2021, compared to the general UK workforce only growing by 10%. Junior roles, such as HR and industrial relations officers, have grown by 47% and senior roles, such as HR managers and directors, have grown by 40%.

89% of people professionals are white and 11% are from ethnic minorities. This remains slightly above the total UK workforce average. It is more diverse than STEM industries and sales, media and marketing but is less diverse than the legal and IT professions.

63% of the profession is female and 37% is male. This is more pronounced than in the UK workforce in general and in other accredited professions, such as finance and legal.

The percentage of those with a disability (under the Equality Act 2010) in the people profession is slightly lower than in the UK workforce as a whole (14%).

The majority of people professionals are employed by organisations (90%). Only 10% are self-employed, compared to 15% of the whole workforce. And just 16% work part-time, compared to 26% of the whole workforce.

Across the UK, the people profession is most represented in the South East and London. In these regions, there is an over-representation of HR professionals compared to the general workforce.

On the other hand, the proportion of HR professionals is lowest in Northern Ireland and Wales. HR representation in these regions is more in line with the general workforce.

Median salaries across all roles in the profession range from £22,802 for an HR assistant role to £113,628 for an HR director role. These are overall medians, and there will be variation according to region, industry and level of responsibility within role.

The biggest gender pay gap across the profession exists at manager and director level, where men are paid 3.1% more than women. At mid-level, the gender pay gap is in favour of women and at the most junior level, men earn slightly more.

The profession gender pay gap is much lower than that of the general workforce (where men are paid 15% more than women).

The most popular job postings for top-level people professionals include recruitment managers, talent acquisition managers and HR managers. The top five companies searching for HR managers and directors include the NHS, Health Education England, Amazon, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

While HR manager roles have been advertised the most since 2017, 470 job postings have been for Directors of Talent Acquisition and 172 for Directors of Inclusion & Diversity – the majority for both having been advertised in the last year.

In job postings for HR managers and directors between July 2017 and July 2022, employee relations was the most-wanted specialist skill, followed by talent acquisition, labour law, performance management and service quality.

Over 20,000 senior people professional job postings between July 2017 and July 2022 asked for general CIPD membership. The other top requirements and qualifications included CIPD Level 5, CIPD Level 7, Chartered CIPD membership, and General Certificate of Secondary Education.