NAMA’s expansion since the beginning of last year has been big – it started with seven staff, increased headcount to 104 by year-end and now has 140 employees. Despite this, it still plans on recruiting 60 more before the end of the third quarter of 2011.

The body has just released its first ever annual report, which lays bare just how much it has recruited this over the last 18 months and – as we’ve suggested previously – that it’s being relatively generous with its salaries.

The table below outlines exactly how NAMA’s staff base should look at the end of September:

As you can see, the majority (85) will be working in portfolio management – or engaging with the debtors and managing their assets. NAMA is looking for a range of expertise for these roles, from property to finance and accounting.

Credit and risk is also another big area of employment, a job which involves giving the sign off on credit, asset and debt management proposals as well as looking after the risk profile of NAMA. Both of these types of roles pay, according to our sources, around €120k at manager level.

Despite not giving a detailed breakdown of salary bands, it’s possible to roughly ascertain the average pay at NAMA. It spent €10.6m throughout 2010 on ‘salary costs and expenses’, which (assuming a headcount of 104) works out as an average wage of around €102k.

However, figures from the National Treasury Management Agency (which oversees NAMA) suggest that many executives are earning in excess of €250k. There’s also the fact that €10.6m is the total spent in 2010 and, as new staff members have been brought in progressively throughout the year, the average is likely to be higher than the figure above suggests.

Employment related to the agency doesn’t end with those working in the institution itself. The banks participating in the scheme – AIB, Bank of Ireland, Anglo Irish Bank, EBS and Irish Nationwide Building Society – together employ 500 people in their NAMA teams to administer the loans transferred across.

NAMA picks up the wage bill – around €72m is paid to the banks to cover the cost of these employees, or an average salary of €144k.