P&L BENCHMARK STUDY
The final results will be published January 2025.
What Does Compensation Look Like for a Career in Professional Beauty?
This is the question we’ve sought to answer as we conducted Phase 1 & 2 of the Pro Beauty Compensation Study. What started as a grassroots effort to help service providers better understand their compensation has quickly escalated in importance as media outlets have published more and more misinformation about earnings in the beauty and wellness industry. We came to learn that much of the data made available to the public about cosmetology pay and hours is alarming, shocking, flawed, or biased.
Study Evolution
Phase 2
Summary of Findings
Qnity Institute produces various reports tackling the industries most pressing topics. The current series of reports addresses the need for verifiable data on earnings in professional beauty. In 2023, we will be repeating the Phase 2 Metholodgy as well as expanding the research to include additional workforce segments.
What does compensation look like for a career in professional beauty? Those who have sought to answer this question have done so incompletely and without telling the full story. This Study aims to provide a comprehensive answer to this question and is intended to serve as an additional point of reference about salon compensation. This Study analyzed information from 3,391 employee W2s across 330 salon locations in the US representing $184M in payroll compensation. The final report provides a snapshot of what a career as a service provider in an independently-owned, employee-based, small business with 1-10 locations can look like. Findings include a comprehensive analysis of 8 factors that make up a career in professional beauty, including information about earnings, flexibility, benefits, training, inclusion, possibilities, return on investment, and passion.
Why do we charge for this report? Data collection, research, analysis, and publication takes extraordinary time and effort. We have decided to charge for this report to ensure that we are able to continue to provide quality research and expand on these initial findings. Please note that all monies received for the purchase of this report will be used for future data collaborations on behalf Qnity’s Data and Research Arm, The Qnity Institute.