About the supposed average earnings?

[Orda1]

So this morning I read an article on Sun (I follow every main newspaper on social media). It said the average wage for a 30 something was 24k. I don't earn that much, I've only been working for two years but I get various other benefits. The article had a lot of comments which I assumed would be saying it was too low, but infact they were saying it was way too high. There was even someone that worked as a manager for 17k.

Am I completely out of touch?

[dodobookends]

Millions earning a handful, and a handful earning millions - it skews the averages.

[Mysillydog]

Lots of salary surveys use median earnings to reduce effects of outliers. I think that sounds about right - even though I earn less.

[bumbleymummy]

I would have said that was average if not slightly low That isn't too far above what starting salaries were when I left university over 12 years ago.

[AnthonyBlanche]

dodo aside from the handful earning millions there are plenty of people earning in the 60K upwards bracket. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, head teachers, people working in financial services, engineers, architects etc etc

[Seeyounearertime]

Averages are ridiculous.
Did you know that the average human has less than 2 eyes, fewer than 2 arms, fewer than 2 arms and less than 2 ears?
Evidence that when someone's looks are described as 'Average' its quite the insult

[ZoeTurtle]

You must understand what average means and that wages are so industry specific that an average wage is pretty meaningless?

[iwillbemrsminty]

I'm 34 and still don't earn that much!

[tobysmum77]

You've only been working 2 years op, so you are unlikely to be on the average wage for a 30 year old?

[Orda1]

Of course it's only an average, but it was the reaction from the comments that surprised me.

[Rudeabaga]

I live in the south east, but the deprived bit, and 24k is a good wage here. My fte would be about 22k and I feel very lucky. So yeah I get what you mean. Average wage for people here is about 16k.

[Orda1]

Btw I meant benefits from my employers, not benefits.

[titchy]

It's about a graduate salary, so I'd have thought a 30 year old with 12 years work experience would be paid more tbh. It's only twice the living wage.

[itsmeohlord]

My son, aged 26, a graduate with four years work experiences gets £50K (SE)

My daughter, 24 with 1 years work experience, also a graduate gets £28K - she is still training

[StellaAlpina]

I think it'd be much more useful if newspaper articles etc. gave the mode or the median average wage instead of the mean which is skewed by millionaires at the top.

Completly anecdotally £24k sounds about right for an average wage to me. We're late 20s and at a guess me, DH, friends etc are all earning between £17k and £35k so £24k in in the middleish of that.

[DinosaursRoar]

It really depends where you live in the country, and if you work full time or not. I remember reading an article end of last year that put the average London wage at around £40k. So as London wages and prices effect most of the SE, for alot of the population, like you, £24k seems very low, however for a lot of people in lower paid jobs in lower paid parts of the country, it might well seem very high as to be the 'average' if the average of people they know are on a lot lower.

If the comments are all saying it's a bit high, it could be that the readship of the article/the Sun are prodominately from lower paid jobs.

[dodobookends]

Anthony it was a generalisation, there's really no need to be patronising.

[caroldecker]

£24 is a median, not a mean wage.

[Sadik]

Median weekly earnings for all adults in full time employment were £518 in 2014, so a smidgen under £27k.

So £24k for a 30 something sounds about right (I'm guessing that's for full time employees again)

[thegiddylimit]

The UK average salary is £27k I think so it's not surprising that someone still quite early in their career is a bit below that.

I live in the NE, the average salary here is about £20k, only 15% of school leavers go to university and most people here would think that was high.

Also, did the manager on £17k say what they did? There's a big difference between jobs that could be considered 'management': someone might be managing a couple of school leavers doing a minimum wage job or be managing a department of 100+ graduates including people with higher degrees. One might be on £17k (especially in they work PT), one will be on much more than that.

[Sadik]

Actually, I've just looked (tables are online here) and for 30-34 year olds in 2012-13 median before tax income was £23,400, it won't have changed much.

[mizu]

I've been a teacher for 20 years (I'm 42) and if I was full time would take home around £26,000-£27,000 a year. That's FE for you, in a school it would be higher.

Lots of graduates don't earn a 'graduate' wage.

I thought an average family salary was around £26,000, again must depend on where you are in the country and skewed figures.........

[Crazybaglady]

When I was 24 I earned 30k as a PAYE emoloyee, but that was in London, as a qualified professional... Surely it depends on sector and area?!

[feckitall]

I'm 49 and I don't earn anywhere near the 'average' ..

[lanbro]

I'm 35 and although I don't know my friends exact wages I know most of them earn 30-40k with a handful earning in excess of 50k, so to me 24k seems low. FWIW I'm north east.

[BuggersMuddle]

So much depends on the area, industry, level of education etc. I'm also not sure comparing graduate salaries is helpful since I would have thought most of the workforce aren't graduate (albeit the percentage is much higher for those under 35 than say, over 50), but also many, many graduates don't go into 'graduate jobs'.

I can quite believe that a manager earns 17k in say retail, hospitality or if they have large incentives. I was a 'manager' on £26k 9 years ago. My job title remains 'manager', but I now earn well into the top 5%. I guess what I'm saying is that saying 'I'm a manager' is pretty meaningless.