Why Sharing Your Data Helps the Payroll Industry

Our Portfolio Payroll Canada’s Salary Survey for 2026 is now open: Take Part now!

Building on our commitment to the payroll community, we’re creating Canada’s definitive benchmarking resource and hiring guide that reflects the real experiences of payroll professionals nationwide; in close collaboration with the National Payroll Institute (NPI).

The results will be presented at the NPI Annual Conference in Montreal in June 2026, and this year, we’ve made the survey available in both English and French to ensure every voice can be heard.

Why Your Data Matters

When hundreds of professionals share their salary and employment information, individual data points become a collective picture of the profession; one that provides industry-leading insights across all payroll roles and experience levels.

Think about the answers to questions like:

• What does someone with five years of experience typically earn in British Columbia versus Ontario?
• What benefits are becoming standard across the country?
• How are flexible work arrangements reshaping what candidates expect?

Your participation helps answer these questions with real numbers rather than guesswork. The aggregated data reveals trends in salary ranges, benefits, and changing work arrangements – providing up-to-date market intelligence that shapes compensation decisions at Canada’s top employers and influences how our profession is valued nationwide.

Data Privacy and Security

The survey platform complies fully with PIPEDA legislation. When you submit your responses, personal identifiers are removed immediately.

What gets published? Only aggregated information: percentages, charts, and statistical ranges. No individual response can be traced back to a specific person. To further protect your privacy, we will not publish data for areas where response volumes are too low, ensuring complete anonymity even in niche categories or smaller regions.

How Sharing Data Drives Change

Salary surveys are powerful tools that help companies align pay with market rates and develop competitive compensation strategies. When businesses have reliable benchmarking data, they can offer fair, competitive packages that reflect the profession as it exists today.

Employees gain clarity about their market value; insights that help you plan your career and negotiate effectively.

Beyond base salary, the survey captures benefits, perks, and work arrangements. By documenting these elements across the industry, we help both employers and employees understand what a competitive package looks like in 2026.

The Changing Payroll Landscape

The payroll profession looks very different today than it did even five years ago.

Automation now handles many tasks that once required hours of manual processing, from data entry to routine calculations. This shift has freed payroll professionals to focus on higher-value work, but it has also changed what employers expect from their teams.

AI is transforming payroll through improved fraud detection, predictive analytics, and self-service portals, shifting roles toward analysis and strategy. Payroll professionals increasingly need skills in data interpretation, compliance management, and systems oversight. The job title may remain the same, but the day-to-day responsibilities have expanded considerably.

Remote and hybrid work arrangements have also reshaped compensation expectations. Many professionals now factor flexibility into their total compensation calculations, weighing the value of working from home against salary differences. Employers are responding by adjusting their packages to remain competitive in a market where location matters less than it once did.

The 2026 survey captures all of these shifts. We’re collecting in-depth analysis on how AI integration affects team structures, how remote work influences candidate expectations, and how the scope of payroll responsibilities continues to grow. This information helps businesses make informed decisions about hiring and compensation that reflect current market realities.

Understanding these trends matters for professionals too. Knowing which skills command higher salaries, which designations employers value, and how compensation varies by work arrangement gives you the information you need to advance your career with confidence.

Join the Survey – Help Us Build the Most Complete Picture

We want to give every payroll professional a voice. Your input takes only a few minutes, but its impact extends across the industry. We encourage you to participate and share the survey within your professional networks, including anyone who:

• Works in payroll solely
• Handles payroll tasks or responsibilities, regardless of their official job title
• Has visibility into payroll compensation within their organization and can contribute salary data

Download our 2025/26 Payroll Salary Guide now

Together, let’s set the standard for payroll salary data in Canada. The future of payroll compensation is being written right now – add your voice to the conversation.