The recently published results of the 2025 Croner Animation and Visual Effects Survey show noteworthy trends in compensation from the past year among leading companies in the industry.
Croner’s annual report provides in-depth market data for compensation for jobs specific to the production of animation and visual effects. Participating companies include companies in the animation and visual effects industry as well as the software games industry.
Highlights from the recent results include:
- Compensation for all organization levels in the U.S. animation and visual effects industry grew year over year. Growth was driven primarily by increases in base salary and short-term incentives. Growth for support positions was more moderate than production leadership / operations management and individual contributors.
- Canada participants experienced steady compensation growth at the individual contributor level from 2024 to 2025.
- Base salary is the dominant compensation element for all positions among animation and visual effects organizations in the U.S. and in Canada.
- Key positions experienced material growth in base salary. The positions with the most growth in base salary year over year in the U.S are Senior Manager, Production Finance and Senior / Lead Compositor. The highest prevalence of “hot jobs” by job category were in Technology Systems and Support, Technical / Shot Production and Story / Visual Development.
- The mean overtime hours is consistent across all organization levels, ranging from 1.1 to 1.5 hours per week, in the U.S.
The annual Croner Animation and Visual Effects Survey is the trusted industry resource specific to jobs that produce animation and visual effects for film, television and software games in the U.S. and Canada, providing in-depth compensation data on benchmark positions. The 2025 Croner Survey includes data from fourteen companies in the animation and visual effects and software games industries in the U.S. and eight companies in Canada.
For more information about The Croner Company’s compensation surveys, please contact Laurie Krashanoff, Manager, Account Relations, at +(415) 485-5521 or laurie@croner.com.