If you’re thinking about becoming an SEO consultant in the UK, you might be wondering how much you can earn.
Or maybe you’re an employer who’s thinking of hiring and you want to get a better idea of how much you should offer as the salary?
Here’s a quick overview of what an SEO consultant can expect to make in the UK.
We get the best idea of salaries from job websites. They collate all the job adverts for SEO Consultants and then calculate the average. The problem is that many of those jobs are not for true consultants.
The job title of SEO consultant has become confused and can cover a range of roles, so if we’re going to discuss earning potential, we need to define what an SEO consultant is and how employers are using the job title in jobs ads.
At Consultancy.uk they say: “A consultant is a person who provides professional or expert advice in a particular field of science or business to either an organisation or individual.”
“Firstly, a consultant provides expertise that a client lacks or support that a client is unable to fulfill. In return for their professional services, the consultant charges a fee. Secondly, a consultant operates independently from the client, implying that, from the respective consultant, there is no conflict of interests between the client’s issue and the services.”
The confusing part is that if you search Google for an SEO consultant, often the term is used to describe any SEO specialist who not only gives advice on SEO, but who also gets hand-on with optimising your website for Google.
But someone who does the hands-on SEO is not a true consultant. So be careful how you use the term as it has become clouded in the industry.
A true independent SEO consultant is more focused on consultancy advice and training, rather than the doing.
When a company doesn’t know how to solve SEO problems in-house, they look to hire a consultant who has been there and knows how to solve the problem. They learn quickly from the consultant and then implement it in the business.
In contrast, if the job role is a specialist who also does hands-on SEO, they are not true consultants, but more of an SEO Specialist or SEO Executive. So it’s best not to use the word consultant, if you or the person you’re hiring is doing the hands-on SEO work too.
What does this tell us about the salary data?
So this poses us with a bit of a problem with how much SEO consultants actually earn, because the jobs in their data are often not true consultants. Because they can be paid less than you’d imagine a consultant would be paid, the salary numbers may be lower than you’d expect. So bear that in mind when looking at the salary figures.
So now we’ve defined the role, how much can an SEO consultant earn? How much should you offer the successful applicant?
According to Glassdoor.co.uk, “the average salary for an SEO Consultant is £34875 per year in the United Kingdom.” and that “the average salary for a SEO Consultant in London is £42361 per year.”
But of course, there’s a whole range of salaries, high and low, that make the average, and as we’ve mentioned, a lot of the jobs roles in this data are for SEO Specialists rather than consultants.
Salaries can range from £25,000 to £60,000 per year, depending on experience, skillset and location. The highest-paid SEO consultants tend to be based in London and other major cities, where the cost of living is higher.
The most experienced and in-demand SEO consultants can earn up to £100,000 per year.
Another problem we have is that this a salary is how you’d describe the amount you’d pay an employee. But often consultants are external so that are less likely to introduce bias into the recommendations. These people often won’t be advertised on jobs websites as they’re not employees, so let’s take a look at freelance job adverts on a website like Upwork.com where freelancers are hired.
So there you have it.
If you’re thinking about becoming an SEO consultant, or hiring one, you can expect a pretty decent salary. Just remember that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to be successful in this field. But if you’re up for the challenge, an SEO consulting career could be very rewarding—both financially and personally.
So if you’re looking for a lucrative career with plenty of room for growth, SEO consulting is a great option to consider.