What should we actually be paying for this role?
Hiring in payments has become increasingly competitive. Whether you're building a new payments team, replacing a senior leader or trying to attract specialist technical and commercial talent, one of the first questions we hear from hiring managers is:
But what should we actually be paying for this talent - it's a sensible question and increasingly, it's not one that can be answered simply by looking at a generic salary guide. Payments is a specialist market. A Payments Product Manager with deep experience in orchestration is not necessarily comparable to one working for an issuer. A sales leader with an established network across enterprise merchants can command a very different package from someone with a similar title but less relevant market access.
That's why we created the Payments Recruitment Salary Survey - to provide a more informed view of compensation across the payments and fintech market.
Why salary benchmarking matters:
Getting salary wrong can create problems in both directions.
Pay too little, and you may struggle to attract the people you actually need. The strongest candidates are often already employed, know their market value and have little incentive to move for a role that doesn't reflect their experience.
Pay too much, and you risk unnecessarily increasing your cost base or creating internal salary disparities.
But salary isn't the only consideration. Candidates are increasingly looking at the whole package - including bonus or commission, equity, flexibility, remote working, benefits, career progression and the opportunity to work with interesting technology or customers. For specialist payments roles, the market can also vary considerably depending on the type and maturity of the business.
Payments isn't one market.
One of the challenges with benchmarking payments salaries is that there is no single "payments candidate". The market includes:
- Payment Service Providers
- Acquirers
- Payment orchestration platforms
- Payment gateways
- Fintechs
- Payment infrastructure providers
- Fraud and risk technology businesses
- Open banking companies
- FX and cross-border payment businesses
- Embedded finance providers
- E-commerce and checkout technology companies
The experience required and therefore the compensation required can vary significantly between them. For example, a business looking to hire an enterprise sales leader with established relationships across major merchants may need to pay a premium for genuine market access. Similarly, a technical payments hire who understands complex integrations, payment flows and the wider ecosystem can be considerably harder to replace than a candidate with more general software experience.
Job title alone therefore isn't always a reliable guide to market value.
What should you pay for a payments role?
This is where salary benchmarking becomes particularly useful. Before advertising a role, we recommend looking at several factors:
1. The level of responsibility:
A "Head of Payments" at a 30-person fintech is likely to have a very different remit from a Head of Payments at a multinational payments business. Consider the actual scope of the role rather than simply the title.
2. The depth of payments experience required:
Does the candidate need five years of general fintech experience, or do they need highly specific experience in acquiring, orchestration, fraud, merchant acquiring, payment infrastructure or another specialist area? The more specific the requirement, the smaller the available talent pool is likely to be.
3. The commercial value of the individual:
This is particularly important for sales and leadership positions. A candidate who can bring an established network, open doors with target merchants or accelerate revenue growth may be worth considerably more than the basic salary comparison suggests.
4. Location and flexibility:
The market has become increasingly international. Remote working means companies can access talent across borders, but candidates also have more opportunities available to them. That can influence compensation expectations significantly.
5. The overall package:
Base salary is only part of the equation. For senior payments professionals, the overall package may include:
Base + bonus/commission + equity + benefits + flexibility + career opportunity
A role that looks competitive on basic salary may still struggle if the overall proposition isn't attractive.
The biggest mistake: benchmarking against the wrong market:
One of the most common mistakes we see is taking a generic technology or fintech salary benchmark and applying it directly to a specialist payments role. That can give a misleading picture. If you're hiring a Payments Sales Director, Payments Product Manager, Head of Fraud or senior payments engineer, you're competing for a relatively specific pool of people.
The question isn't simply:
"What does someone with this job title earn?"
It's:
"What will it take to attract someone with the specific experience we need?"
That's a much more useful question.
Our Payments Salary Survey:
Our Payments Recruitment Salary Survey has been created specifically to help businesses understand the compensation landscape across the payments and fintech sector. It provides a useful reference point for companies considering new hires, reviewing existing packages or planning their recruitment strategy.
But a salary guide can only ever provide a starting point. The actual market value of an individual depends on their experience, track record, relationships, technical knowledge, location, responsibilities and the attractiveness of the opportunity itself. That's why we also offer confidential salary benchmarking directly with hiring managers.
Need to benchmark a role?
If you're about to hire and aren't sure whether your salary is competitive, contact me directly. I'm happy to give you an honest view of where I believe the role sits in the current payments market, including whether the package is likely to attract the calibre of candidate you're looking for.
There's no obligation to use us for the search. Sometimes a quick conversation about the market, salary expectations and candidate availability is all that's needed to help you make a better hiring decision.
Planning a payments hire? Contact Billy Nixon at Payments Recruitment for a confidential salary benchmark or market discussion: bn@payments-recruitment.co.uk
About Payments Recruitment
Payments Recruitment specialises exclusively in recruitment across the payments and fintech ecosystem, supporting businesses with permanent, interim and executive search appointments across the UK, Europe, US and international markets. With more than 20 years' experience in payments recruitment, we understand the difference between finding someone with the right job title and finding someone with the right experience for your business.
