Service advisers have seen their average wage increase by £12,000 over the last four years, according to new figures compiled by Jobco-op Automotive.

The company says that a typical franchised dealer service adviser salary for advertised posts is now around £35,000 when, just four years ago, it was below £23,000 in almost all cases.

The change has been prompted by the way in which servicing and maintenance has become recognised as an increasing important source of dealer profitability, said director Derek Webb.

He said: “Dealers have come to see service and maintenance as a key area of profitability and an important element in their customer retention strategies, and clearly service advisers are very much at the heart of this development.

“There is an increasing recognition that a good service adviser is perhaps the most important person in the dealership when it comes to keeping a customer happy over the course of their relationship with the business.”

Webb added that a parallel development was that, in more and more dealers, service advisers were being incentivised on not just overall sales but also for sales of warranties and service plans.

He said: “We are seeing more and more service advisers being incentivised to drive their part of the business forward. Some of them are very successful and it is possible that their salaries could continue to rise in the next couple of years.”