{"id":16677,"date":"2026-10-15T10:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T10:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sr2rec.com\/?p=16677"},"modified":"2026-10-15T10:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T10:04:10","slug":"120k-or-240k-for-the-same-ai-engineer-whos-got-it-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sr2rec.com\/en\/tech-for-impact\/120k-or-240k-for-the-same-ai-engineer-whos-got-it-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a3120k or \u00a3240k for the same AI engineer. Who\u2019s got it wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A candidate accepts a \u00a3120,000 offer. The offer is agreed, the start date is confirmed, and the business thinks it has secured its new hire. So did we, to be fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two days later, another company offers \u00a3240,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Same candidate. Same experience. Same skills. Double the salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So who\u2019s got it wrong? Is the first business massively underpaying? Is the second throwing money around? Or is this individual worth \u00a3240,000?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The answer might be that neither business is wrong, and that is the part most employers miss when hiring AI talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>You\u2019re not competing against businesses like yours<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When businesses set salaries, they tend to look at market benchmarks, internal salary structures and what similar organisations are paying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s sensible. But it doesn\u2019t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An established business hiring an AI engineer to improve its internal capabilities might value that person very differently from a funded AI company whose next product release depends on making the right hire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For one, that engineer is an important addition to the team. For the other, they could be the difference between shipping a product and missing a critical commercial milestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second business isn\u2019t ignoring the market. It\u2019s assessing the value of the hire against a completely different commercial outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You might be offering a perfectly reasonable salary for your business and still be nowhere near competitive for that particular candidate. That\u2019s uncomfortable, but understanding it before you start hiring is considerably better than discovering it after you\u2019ve made an offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Are you paying for skills you actually need?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everyone wants AI experience. But what does that mean for your business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do you need someone who has built and deployed AI models into production, scaled them and maintained them in a live environment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or do you need an excellent software, data or platform engineer who can help you build the infrastructure to make AI useful?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those aren\u2019t the same hire. And they don\u2019t come with the same price tag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a difference between paying a premium for genuinely scarce expertise and paying that premium because you\u2019ve written an unrealistic wish list into a job description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before entering a competitive market, businesses should be asking what they need this person to deliver, what experience is essential, and where they could afford to develop capability internally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Otherwise, you risk competing for some of the most expensive talent in the market without a clear commercial reason for doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sometimes you have to decide not to compete<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a temptation when you lose a candidate to a higher offer to assume you need to increase your salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes you do. But not always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Matching a significantly higher offer can have consequences well beyond the individual hire. It can affect internal pay structures, team dynamics, future hiring budgets and what your business can sustainably afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes the right decision is to pay more. Sometimes it\u2019s to walk away. Neither makes you a better or worse employer. The mistake is not knowing which one makes commercial sense for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If another organisation is prepared to pay significantly more for the same individual, you need to understand why, and then decide whether matching that investment makes sense for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the person is critical to your commercial plans, paying above your original budget might be entirely justified. If they aren\u2019t, you may need to accept that another business values them more highly than you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that\u2019s fine. Not every candidate is worth winning at any price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You don\u2019t have to win every salary battle. But you do need to understand the ones you\u2019re choosing to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>If you\u2019re not going to win on salary, where can you win?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every company talks about exciting projects, great culture, career development and flexible working. Candidates hear it constantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019re asking someone to turn down a significantly higher salary, you need a much stronger reason than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Will they own something meaningful? Will they have genuine influence over technical decisions? Will they get to build and ship products rather than spend months navigating internal approvals? Will they have access to leadership and a credible opportunity to progress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, importantly, can you demonstrate those things rather than just promise them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A compelling opportunity can sometimes outweigh a higher salary. But the bigger the financial gap, the more compelling that opportunity needs to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And sometimes, no matter how good your proposition is, the money wins. That\u2019s the reality of the market, and pretending otherwise doesn\u2019t help anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Understand the game before deciding how to play it<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lesson from a \u00a3120k offer being beaten by \u00a3240k isn\u2019t that every business needs to double its AI salaries. It\u2019s that businesses need to understand the competition for the people they\u2019re trying to hire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Who else wants this talent? What might those businesses be prepared to pay? Why would the candidate choose you? And, perhaps most importantly, do you need to compete for that particular profile at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At <a href=\"https:\/\/sr2rec.com\/\">SR2<\/a>, we believe these conversations need to happen before a search begins, not after an offer falls apart. What does the business actually need? What is that talent worth to them? Who are they competing against? And how far are they prepared to go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because the question isn\u2019t whether \u00a3120k or \u00a3240k is the right salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s whether you understand why someone else is prepared to pay twice as much as you, and what you\u2019re going to do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sr2rec.com\/contact\/\">Talk to the SR2 team before you open your next AI search<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A candidate accepts a \u00a3120,000 offer. The offer is agreed, the start date is confirmed, and the business thinks it has secured its new hire. So did we, to be&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":16678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"class_list":["post-16677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech-for-impact"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u00a3120k or \u00a3240k for the same AI engineer. 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