One of the attractions of working in a large corporation is clear, standardised career progression.
But when you’re a small fish in a big pond, how easy is it to get promoted? And which companies value loyalty, and are more inclined to fill roles in-house rather than out-sourcing new talent?
To find out, we took the largest companies by market capitalization in the UK and US, and analysed the listed career histories of 19,363 UK and US employees on LinkedIn.
The study not only considered the length of time it takes to be promoted, but also the percentage of current employees who had been promoted within the company to their current position, and how these findings differ depending on the seniority of your role.
Key findings
- It takes on average 30.4 months to get promoted in the world’s largest corporations
- The shortest work time until promotion is at Tesla (10.4 months).
- Employees wait longest to be promoted at Rio Tinto (98 months).
- Across all companies, 43.1% of current employees had been promoted to their current position from within the company.
- Nine in ten (90.3%) of Vice Presidents are promoted to the role from within the company – the highest promotion rate followed by Associate (70.1%).
- Promotions happen less often as you climb the career ladder: Vice President takes 22.1 months compared to 8.7 months for an Intern.
- Most employees are due a promotion: on average, employees have worked in their current role for 48.6 months – 18.2 months longer than in their previous position at the company.
Considering all the employees who had been promoted to their current position from within the company, it takes 30.4 months (about two and a half years) to be promoted.
But the time it takes to be promoted varies significantly between the companies in the study.
The companies with the shortest wait time for promotion
The company with the quickest promotion rate is multinational automotive company Tesla at just 10.4 months.
Tesla may have come under fire for it’s ‘ultra hardcore’ work culture, but employees can expect to be promoted 20 months before the norm of the large companies in this list.
JP Morgan, the multinational finance company, has the second highest mobility in the study.
It takes on average 15.2 months to be promoted, followed close behind by Diageo, the global beverage company and major distributor of Scotch whiskey, at 15.5 months.
The companies with the highest promotion rate
However, putting the hours in doesn’t necessarily guarantee a promotion. The study also analysed the percentage of employees who had been promoted to their current position from elsewhere in the company. On average, out of all employees in the study 43.1% had been promoted to their current position. This ranged between Google and Meta which both had the lowest promotion rate at 23% and the highest promotion rate at Linde of 57.2%.
The company which had the highest percentage of promoted employees is gas and engineering company Linde (57.2%) – this is despite the fact that Linde also has the 2nd longest length of time to get promoted (at 60.5 months).
Consumer goods titan Unilever came second with a promotion rate of 54%, and has a considerably shorter promotion wait time of 17.3 months (the 6th shortest in the study). Eli Lilly (52%) came third, again, Eli Lilly also has one of the longest wait times to be promoted (47.1). Perhaps loyalty does pay off.
| Rank | Company | Most recent promotion rate (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Linde | 57.2% |
| 2 | Unilever | 54.0% |
| 3 | Eli Lilly | 52.0% |
| 4 | Broadcom | 51.7% |
| 5 | HSBC | 51.4% |
| 6 | Diageo | 48.8% |
| 6 | GlaxoSmithKline | 48.8% |
| 8 | Shell | 47.7% |
| 8 | Tesla | 47.1% |
| 10 | BP | 46.5% |
The companies with the longest wait time for promotion
Which companies take the longest to promote their employees? RioTinto, the world’s second largest metals and mining corporation, hasn’t just come under ethical scrutiny, but was the worst offender in our list: with employees working over 8 years (98 months) before being promoted.
For context, this is 38 months ahead of chemical company Linde, which has the 2nd longest promotion length in the study at 60.5 months. Information and analytics company RELX came third from bottom with a promotion length time of 53 months on average.
The companies with the lowest promotion rate
We’ve assessed the companies where employees are most likely to be promoted, but which companies have the highest turnover rate? Less than a quarter of workers at Meta and Google had been promoted from within the company – the lowest score in the study. NVIDIA – one of the most dominant suppliers of AI hardware and software – came 3rd at 28%.
In fact, six of the ten (60%) companies on this list were from tech companies. Retention in the Tech industry is a known issue, and one Linkedin report found that the industry has the highest turnover rate at 13.2%.
| Rank | Company | Most recent promotion rate (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23.0% | |
| 2 | Meta | 23.0% |
| 3 | NVIDIA | 28.0% |
| 4 | Apple | 37.4% |
| 5 | RELX | 38.9% |
| 6 | RioTinto | 39.9% |
| 6 | Microsoft | 40.0% |
| 8 | AstraZeneca | 41.3% |
| 8 | JPMorgan | 42.9% |
| 10 | Amazon | 43.1% |
Promotion rate according to seniority
The data clearly shows that as you climb the career ladder, promotions take longer and longer to achieve. Reflecting the limited nature of internships, Interns were the most likely to be promoted after the shortest amount of time (at 8.7 months).
Each promotion you get afterwards takes longer and longer to achieve, for example, it takes an average of 22.1 months for a Vice President to be promoted.
What percentage of people were promoted per seniority level
But whether or not you will be promoted depends on the role you are going for and your rung on their career ladder. The data suggest a general incline towards choosing to go in-house for more senior positions, but this varies greatly per individual roles.
For example, an Intern is almost twice as likely than a Junior to be promoted (42.4% compared to 20%) whereas an Associate is more than three times more likely than a Junior to be promoted (70.1%). In fact, an Associate is the 2nd most likely to be promoted, after Vice President with a high promotion rate of 90.3%.
| Seniority | % of people promoted from this position |
|---|---|
| Intern | 42.4% |
| Junior | 20.0% |
| Associate | 70.1% |
| Manager | 59.8% |
| Executive | 50.2% |
| Senior | 55.6% |
| Vice President | 90.3% |
All employees are overdue a promotion
At the current moment, promotions are taking a longer time to win across all industries. The data found that on average employees at these companies had been in their current role for 48.6 months – that’s 18.2 months (a year and a half) longer than they had been in their previous role. In total, it took on average 30.4 months to be promoted previously, but in every single company the average employee has worked longer than this in their current position – ranging from 32.5 months at Tesla, and 72.9 months at Linde.
The companies where employees have spent the longest time in their current position:
- Linde (72.9 months)
- RELX (71.9 months)
- Eli Lilly (60 months)
- Broadcom (57.6 months)
- HSBC (55.8 months)
Promotion statistics per industry
Which industries offer the highest promotion rates and fastest routes to promotion?
Promotion rates in the Tech industry
Tech is a faster-paced industry, and offers faster-paced career progression too. On average, it took just over two years to be promoted in a tech company – 6 months quicker than the study average. The tech company offering the fastest career progression in the study is Microsoft, at 16 months. Followed by Amazon at 18.8 and NVIDIA at 19.9.
But putting in the hours doesn’t guarantee a promotion. Overall, the rate of promotion was lower than the 41.3% average for the study at 35.2%. At Broadcom, patience pays, as half (51.7%) of the current employees had been promoted from another position. Amazon comes in next at 43.1%, followed by Microsoft at 40%.
| Company | Timeline of promotion (months) | % of Employees who have been promoted |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | 16.0 | 40.0% |
| Amazon | 18.8 | 43.1% |
| NVIDIA | 19.9 | 28.0% |
| Meta | 20.4 | 23.0% |
| 21.9 | 23.0% | |
| Apple | 33.2 | 37.4% |
| Broadcom | 44.4 | 51.7% |
| Avg. | 24.9 | 35.2% |
Promotions in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotech industries
Pharmaceuticals and Biotech industries are worth a cumulative 1.5 trillion dollars. Pharmaceutical companies focus on making medicines, whereas biotechnology is focussed more on general medical research and chemical drug manufacturing.
Although the timeline to promotion was in line with the average of 30.4 at 31.4, the promotion rate was 4.3% above average. Of the three companies analysed, GlaxoSmithKline had the shortest timeline to promotion (at 22.8 months) whereas Eli Lilly – as mentioned earlier – had one of the highest promotion rates in the study at 52%.
| Company | Timeline of promotion (months) | Most recent promotion rate % |
|---|---|---|
| GlaxoSmithKline | 22.8 | 48.8% |
| AstraZeneca | 24.4 | 41.3% |
| Eli Lilly | 47.1 | 52.0% |
| Avg. | 31.4 | 47.4% |
Promotions in Energy & Chemicals industries
Companies which work with natural resources (energy, industrial gases, and mining) often attract controversial press, but how well did they fare for promotions? In terms of timeline to promotion, the range between the companies was the greatest between these categories (ranging between 52.8 and 22 months).
Shell and BP, fare best for the length it takes to be promoted, and the competitors have similar promotion rates too (at 47.7% and 46.5% respectively). Linde has the highest promotion rate in the category and the study (57.2%), and RioTinto has the longest timeline to promotion in the category and the study at 98 months.
| Company | Timeline of promotion (months) | Most recent promotion rate % |
|---|---|---|
| Shell | 22.0 | 47.7% |
| BP | 30.5 | 46.5% |
| Linde | 60.5 | 57.2% |
| RioTinto | 98.0 | 39.9% |
| Avg. | 52.8 | 47.9% |
Promotions in the Financial Services industries
Financial service companies HSBC and JP Morgan have some of the best results for both the time to promotion and the promotion rate in the study. JP Morgan has a promotion rate of 42.9% and HSBC has the 5th highest promotion rate in the study at 51.4%. JP Morgan also has the 2nd shortest time to promotion length at 17.2 (after Tesla at 10.4).
| Company | Timeline of promotion (months) | Most recent promotion rate % |
|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan | 15.2 | 42.9% |
| HSBC | 17.2 | 51.4% |
| Avg. | 16.2 | 47.2% |
Methodology
The largest American and British companies by market capitalisation were chosen from this source:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/usa/largest-companies-in-the-usa-by-market-cap/
https://companiesmarketcap.com/united-kingdom/largest-companies-in-the-uk-by-market-cap/
This was correct as of the 2nd May 2024.
This was correct as of the 2nd May 2024. The job profiles of 19,363 employees (between 944 – 999 per company) were then analysed from Linkedin in both the UK and US. In the cases where there were not enough employee profiles to analyse, the next largest company was then chosen from the list. In total 20 companies were analysed.
Analysing the last three listed employment titles on each employee’s job history, the study could calculate whether the employee’s most recent job change was a promotion, and what percentage of current employees at each company had been promoted from another position in the company.
The study also categorised these job types into different seniority levels:
- Associate
- Executive
- Intern
- Junior
- Manager
- Senior
- Vice President
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.