Quay Crew Releases Crew Salary and Leave Report

Quay Crew surveyed more than 280 superyacht captains to obtain the current salary and leave information for all crew on board. The superyacht recruitment agency received real-time compensation data across all departments, excluding captains, with various yacht sizes, private and charter yachts, and full-time versus full rotation roles. 

Yacht and average crew size remain similar to Quay Crew’s 2022 survey, but salaries are generally up for all crew. Rises range from as low as 0.5% for second stews to 20% for pursers and 14% for ETO/AVITs, with the engineering department seeing the largest increase of all onboard departments.

As expected, monthly salaries tend to increase as the yacht size does, but many cases point to a dip after 80 to 89 or 90 to 99 meters. Quay Crew suspects this is due to yachts larger than 100 meters requiring commercial tickets, with a significant percentage of these crew entering the industry in mid-level positions with little to no experience. Programs on yachts larger than 100 meters are also more likely to hire outside of the common yacht crew nationalities.

Quay Crew also found the pay difference between private and private/charter yachts to be shrinking. In three size brackets, private yachts paid less than private/charter. Crew with secondary skills are shown to achieve slightly higher salaries, with dual roles on deck in carpentry, watersports, and personal training receiving between 12.3% and 18.6% more than deckhands. Interior crew with skills in massage, beauty therapy, and hairdressing earn more than 20% more.

Leave packages across the industry seem to be heading in the right direction, according to Quay Crew. From 2022’s survey to this year’s survey of crew on board yachts between 60 to 89 meters in size, deckhands have seen a 77% increase in 3:1 rotation, chief stews received a 111% increase in time-for-time rotation, chief officers saw a 27% increase in time-for-time rotation, and service and housekeeping stews saw a 43% increase in 3:1 rotation.

“We believe this is the most accurate salary survey ever completed due to the quality of the data, which has come from the captains themselves,” Quay Crew’s Survey stated.

Find the full survey at quaycrew.com