Friday 02 December 2016 3:00 pm

From consulting to insurance: These are the sectors where you’re most likely to get promoted

Have you been promoted lately? Chances are if you’re in consulting or insurance the answer is a resounding yes.

Consulting and professional services and insurance were the top sectors for promotions in the past five years, according to a study from Emolument.

The salary benchmarking site asked 1,950 professionals if they’d been promoted in the past five years and this is what they found…

Promotions by sector

Have you been promoted in the last 5 years? Yes | No

Consulting & Professional Services	68 per cent	32 per cent
Insurance	68 per cent	32 per cent
Retail & Trade	67 per cent	33 per cent
Construction, Real Estate, Architecture	64 per cent	36 per cent
Apps, Web, eCommerce	62 per cent	38 per cent
Consumer Goods	60 per cent	40 per cent
Manufacturing & Industrials	59 per cent	41 per cent
Financial Services	58 per cent	42 per cent
Transportation & Logistics	56 per cent	44 per cent
Technology & Telecoms	55 per cent	45 per cent
Services, Tourism, Restaurants	54 per cent	46 per cent
Energy, Mining, Chemicals, Environmental	54 per cent	46 per cent
Public sector & Education	53 per cent	47 per cent
Media, Communication	53 per cent	47 per cent
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech	48 per cent	52 per cent

Working for a large firm in a well-established industry paid off; it was one of the best way to obtain regular promotions, while smaller firms were much more restrained on that front.

Consulting and insurance firms promote junior employees on a regular basis – as many as 68 per cent of employees in both sectors said they’d been promoted in the past five years.

Emolument said the constant concern over good employees moving on for a corporate job partly explains this; and a more impressive job title is often used as an incentive when pay doesn’t stack up to expectations.