What we know about development salaries in global health

More than 43 million additional health workers are needed to meet targets for universal health coverage around the world, according to a new peer-reviewed study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed an already indispensable development sector into further focus over the past few years, with commitments to health from international financial institutions, or IFIs, rising from around $4 billion in 2019 to nearly $9.5 billion in 2020. The response to COVID-19 and future pandemic preparedness continues to spur new funding, as do ongoing efforts combating malaria, AIDS, and other long-term health crises. With this in mind, and as part of an ongoing effort to highlight salary trends across the development sector, we are now looking at salaries that have been offered for global health roles this year on Devex’s job board. We’ve encouraged recruiters to include salary information in their job postings since last year, aiming to provide insights to both job seekers and recruiters and foster a globaldev culture of salary transparency. Nearly 800 job postings from 11 organizations with annual salaries — from January to Oct. 21, 2022, in 139 countries and 54 currencies — were analyzed, and 77% of the available salaries were posted in U.S. dollars. The remaining salaries were converted to U.S. dollars to allow for fair comparisons, while salaries shared via monthly and daily rates, which are common among short-term consultancies, are excluded from the analysis. What types of global health positions were most in demand? Jobs requiring specialized knowledge and experience, especially technical officer roles, accounted for 23% of the job postings analyzed. These roles earned anywhere from $26,000 to $123,000, depending on various factors including the location, seniority and type of organization. For example, a World Health Organization posting for an emerging diseases surveillance and response technical officer based in Mongolia offered a salary of $28,000 while another WHO position for a public health intelligence technical officer in India offered $63,000. Health officer and specialist roles were also highly sought-after, with 13% of the job postings including these types of titles. Examples of these, also from the WHO, include a public health officer role based in Tanzania that paid $63,000 and a health expertise and operations officer in Ethiopia with a salary of $76,000. Job postings from INGOs typically included lower salaries compared to bilateral and multilateral organizations, but location and seniority level were key factors within organizations. For example, Oxfam International was seeking an international health and safety lead in the United Kingdom offering up to $63,000, while a posting for a health and safety officer in Jordan topped out at around $22,000. Development bilateral agencies offered an average salary range of $81,000 to $130,000. For example, a health sector adviser based in Vietnam or Mexico, working for the Danish International Development Agency, or Danida, could earn up to $85,000 annually. Higher salaries were also offered by multilateral organizations like the United Nations and its specialized agencies, with salaries typically spanning from $70,000 to $146,000. Many of these were based at an agency’s headquarters. What were some of the highest-paid global health positions? In terms of salaries on the higher end of the spectrum, of the top 30 highest-earning global health jobs in the analysis, 84% were based in the U.S. These included executive and senior-level roles with the U.S. Agency for International Development, with job titles like biodefense and antimicrobial resistance advisor. But postings among the highest-paid could be found in many locations around the world. Here are a few examples: World Bank — Senior human development specialist Max salary: $220,000 Location: Georgia United States USAID — Health development deputy division chief Max salary: $177,000 Location: Washington D.C., United States Other USAID jobs were among the highest-paid global health jobs posted this year, such as senior child health and immunization program manager and senior laboratory advisor in Washington D.C., with salaries of $173,000 and $165,000, respectively. UNICEF — Chief nutrition officer Max salary: $146,000 Location: Kenya Other UNICEF jobs in the high end of the spectrum included a senior health specialist in Senegal earning $139,000 and a health specialist (maternal and newborn health) in the U.S earning $123,000. World Health Organization — Team leader (vaccine preventable diseases) Max salary: $139,000 Location: The Republic of Congo The second highest-paid WHO role offered was for a cluster integration and mainstreaming technical officer, who was expected to mainstream inter-cluster works into health cluster coordination, health needs assessment, strategy development, and resource mobilization in Juba, South Sudan. This position promised to pay up to $123,000. UN Refugee Agency, or UNHCR — Senior medical officer Max salary: $118,000 Location: Dakar, Senegal Other UNHCR jobs offering high salaries included a public health officer based in Sudan and a mental health and psychosocial support officer in Bangladesh, both promising up to nearly $98,000. Explore current opportunities in global health and their salaries on Devex’s jobs board. Interested in salary transparency and other globaldev career topics? We’d like to know more about what you think. 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