Salary and pay

The Compensation Unit in Human Resources oversees the pay programs for all staff employees covered by Personnel Policies for Staff Members (PPSM) and various collective bargaining units.

UCOP pay programs support salary decisions that help recruit, retain, and motivate highly qualified employees. Our salary program goals include:

  • Make salary decisions based upon appropriate qualifications, contributions, performance, and equity and budget considerations
  • Encourage and reward excellent performance
  • Provide salary increases, when appropriate, within available funding

Policies, procedures, practices and required approvals for the various pay programs differ in their flexibility to manage salary actions.They are defined in greater detail in UC Compensation Policy (PPSM-30) (pdf), PPSM-30 UCOP Revised Local Procedures 4-15-2019 (pdf) and PPSM-30 UCOP Delegation of Authority Matrix (pdf)

Career Tracks Salary Ranges

OP has a set of ranges that were developed as part of Career Tracks Implementation in 2013. A salary range is the range of pay rates from minimum to maximum, established for a salary grade that typically reflects the competitive labor market value. The development of salary ranges involves the comparison of the university's internal evaluation and ranking of the positions coupled with external salary data. This salary data is gathered and updated through industry specific surveys of companies and universities with similar pay programs and practices.

OP’s salary ranges will be evaluated annually and will be updated periodically using salary survey data from a variety of comparable sources.

One of the key components of a salary administration program is a salary structure. A salary structure is simply a hierarchy of job grades and salary ranges established within an organization. The salary structure at OP will be expressed in terms of job grades.

During the job evaluation process, jobs are assigned to specific salary grades based on an evaluation of the complexity, required skill set, job market, and internal equity factors. A salary grade is defined as an organizational classification into which jobs of the same or similar value are grouped for compensation purposes. The job evaluation process is performed by the UCOP Compensation Department and is required for every position at the university.

Senior Management Group Market Reference Zones

SMG appointment and compensation is mainly governed by Regents Policy 7701: Senior Management Group Appointment and Compensation: Policy Category (pdf)


As noted in the policy, each Senior Management Group (SMG) role is assigned to a Market Reference Zone (MRZ), representing the labor market in which UC competes for talent.


MRZs are not salary ranges as they represent the actual percentiles in relation to the data points from the salary survey sources as determined by the benchmarking framework determined by the Board of Regents. The 25th, 50th, 60th, 75th and 90th percentiles are displayed for each MRZ.


Certain MRZs are single incumbent roles with one SMG position/incumbent assigned to each MRZ. Other MRZs are multiple incumbent roles with two or more SMG positions/incumbents assigned to the same MRZ, when the positions share similar market comparators and/or a similar scope of responsibilities.


MRZs allow the University to align the salaries of SMG members in a manner that is competitive with relevant external market comparator groups. Any changes to the benchmarking framework and/or the resulting MRZs are reviewed and approved by the President and the Board of Regents


See below for the MRZs assigned to SMG roles at the Office of the President:

Bargaining Unit Represented Salaries

Steps or ranges are negotiated with the appropriate unions. You can see current steps or ranges by looking up the title by location in the Title Code System (TCS).

Other compensation actions

For any salary actions, please work with your HR contact. Complete the Compensation Actions Request Form (xls) for any requests that need review by Compensation and escalated review by UCOP Leadership.