To think midwife’s get a rubbish deal compared to teachers?

And any other time required to fulfill the requirements of the role (off the top of my head ... that's a contractual term fir teachers (or very close wording.).

Things to note:

Pay:
Midwifery starts at £31,049, not £29,970, but crucially, there is unsocial hours in top of this, a 30% uplift for weeknights and Saturdays, and a 60% uplift for Sundays and bank holidays.

Midwifery also progresses to Band 6 immediately upon completion of the preceptorship (average is 12 months, but can be anywhere between 6 and 21-ish) depending on the person) which increases their base salary to £38,682. Top of band 6 is £46,580 which would still not have any management requirements, and plenty of band 7 roles (£47,810 -£54,710) won't have people management as a key component (other than perhaps being midwife in charge for some shifts, but would still very much be clinically based)

Teaching starts at £32916 and top of upper pay scale (which I believe doesn't have to include management) is £51,048. Although my basic understanding is that you need to do each pay step in turn up through the main scale (so 6 years to get to M6 which is £45k) and then apply to cross onto ups, but a teacher may know more than me on that!

Holidays:
keep in mind that full time midwives are only working 3 shifts a week (with one 4 shift week every 4 weeks) so need far less annual leave for routine stuff like appointments, sports days etc due to the flexibility - most areas allow you 4 requests a month of shifts you particularly want off to help accomodate these things without having to touch annual leave, so annual leave lasts quite a while in my experience, and obviously it's subjective and dependent on areas but I work closely with midwives in my nursing specialty and I've never had any issues getting annual leave when I want it and to my knowledge it's not an endemic for them either (and even last minute requests will be accommodated where possible, and the teams I work with will all try and cover each other for these where needed)

Pension:
Both schemes are DB so looking at employer contributions isn't a useful indicator, you'd be better looking at accrual and employee contributions

The accrual rate is better in the NHS pension, but the employee contributions climb quicker (both schemes contributions increase with salary, if you took a midwife at the top of band 6 they would be paying 9.8% into their pension and a teacher at the top of the main pay scale would pay 8.9%, but in turn the midwives pension will be higher as a result of the better accrual rate.

Shifts:

See holidays, midwives work long shifts but fewer of them. In my experience most wards/units are also fiercely protective of making sure they each get a break, and nobody stops them going for a wee when they want to!

I know you said these aren't her deciding factors, but I don't think midwives are getting a raw deal compared to teachers, no. They are getting a raw deal compared to what they deserve, absolutely, but so are teachers. I wouldn't say midwives are being disproportionately screwed over any more than any another public sector role to be honest, least of all teachers. If anything I would probably say it was the other way round (as someone who seriously considered teaching for their career change but pumped for healthcare instead!)

But if her heart can think of nothing better than being a teacher, she will be hard to sway, likewise if midwifery is what makes her light up, teaching won't make her happy even if she managed to rationalise it being the 'better option'.

And if neither of them seem like something she couldn't dream of not doing I would honestly urge her to look at other careers as both will be exceedingly miserable if you're not loving it at the outset,
even if the passion wanes!

I used to be a teacher and gave it up for several reasons (one being that I never had any time for myself, and definitely wouldn't have had time for a family). I see a lot of other people have commented about teachers taking work home, so I'll comment on what I saw when I was in hospital for a couple of weeks before having my baby.

The midwives on the antenatal/postnatal ward were completely understaffed and babies didn't count as patients. They had to do observations on the babies, but they weren't actually allotted time to do these because the babies weren't patients. They often had to share out other patients between them because of staff illness, and had some difficulty with bank staff who were drafted in and didn't know how things worked on the ward. I had a lovely young midwife who had just come off maternity leave herself, and she never finished her shift on time because of having to do so much paperwork she didn't get time to do during the shift.

You're right, they haven't. No such thing.
It's all training in schools now, sometimes back to a uni for some theory.
It's only one of many, many inaccurate claims on here.

midwifery is a very important job and really hard. So is teaching but in a very different way so it’s absolutely pointless comparing them. Depending on your subject or age range you can be doing an extra 3 hours of marking and planning every day so your comparisons of hours are incorrect.
Better pay for midwives - sure. But that doesn’t mean teachers get too much.

Yes but the kids in the midwives case are cute, cuddly and haven't learned to talk yet and there's a maximum of three at a time usually. Teachers get more because little Susie in class is a choppy bint and she has 29 friends with her! 😁

Interesting that nurses/midwives and teachers pay for parking - predominantly female occupations. Does anyone know if firefighters/police/prison officers pay for parking at work?

I agree there’s much better allied health profession roles other than midwifery. Better hours, better/different workload, more chance to work privately or even set up your own business down the line.

I don't think teacher training colleges have existed for about 30 years. My PGCE was at post-graduate level - I could have paid to do an extra few credits in the years immediately following to receive a Masters.

I’m not sure this is a genuine post as I find it hard to believe someone is debating training for two very different careers with the only similarity is that they’re underpaid and stressful.

I’m a teacher and I couldn’t be a midwife as I don’t want bodily fluids on me. Likewise my mate (NHS not midwife though) couldn’t imagine teaching teenagers all day.

In many cases, yes

Teaching is not a family friendly job. You'll never be able to take your child to/from school, see a school play, go to sports day or cover an inset day.
You'll also be so exhausted at the end of the day you won't have any energy for your own child.
This is why teachers either leave or go part time once their children are born.

In a primary school I've never seen a TLR above 4k

Teacher's directed time works out around 6.5 hours a day. During term time.

I've worked in 3 large secondary schools and can't think of a single teacher who only worked 6.5 hours a day. Usually 8+ hours in school each day then planning and marking in the evenings/weekends/holidays. Often double the directed time overall, if not more.

Midwives work longer shifts but fewer of them, get paid overtime/unsocial hours and can take leave easily (compared to a teacher). They can't take their physical work home with them so their downtime is exactly that.

You had me until the 6.5 hr shift!
My husband is in an NHS job at the equivalent banding. I'm in school.
He works full time but does fewer hours than me and I work 0.8 so four days a week. He can also still function at the end of a working week. He gets lunch breaks and he doen't take work home.
If the teaching package was so attractive, teachers wouldn't be leaving within a few years of qualifying or within a few years of taking their first maternity leave (reported on the news this week).

Why does your sister want to become a midwife at all?

If she’s attracted to medicine but doesn’t have the grades to be a doctor then why would she choose a job that requires shift work - working at night, public holidays and weekends?

Your sister could choose to study radiology and then specialise in cardiac radiology and choose to work in private practice during the week days.

It could also be a way to meet men with higher earning potential - either at university or in the workplace.

If your sister works in midwifery she is going to be surrounded by other women. If she’s attracted works in teaching she will be surrounded by other poorly paid teachers.

Your sister should choose a career where she can work in private practice and take time off when she wants.

Do not let her become a teacher (unless she likes working all the hours God sends for not a lot of money.)

They are completely different jobs. It’s a valueless comparison. But even then, your basics are wrong. Teachers don’t have 6.5 hour ‘shifts’. Even in a school with 6.5 hours between the start of the first lesson and end of the last lesson teachers are in school early preparing their resources, photocopying and marking work. They have got time before lessons and detentions and meetings after lessons. They take vast amounts of work home too and are in charge of classes of 32 children all day.

This is basic salary though, midwives get enhanced hours for nights and weekends which depending on their pattern, if they work shifts they can easily earn much more than this. There are often also incentives for bank rates avaliable if there is flexibility for extra hours. Theres a lot more potential to add to a midwives wage.
Both receive good pension contributions and more holiday than most private sector jobs.

I work as a different lower band role in the NHS and Im really happy with my pay and benefits. I think we are quite fortunate compared to many in private sector roles. Maternity and sick pay are good.

There are many people who work hard in difficult roles and are very underpaid and have terrible conditions and poor pensions, like community carers for example.

Id love teachers and midwives to have better pay too, but first for those in poverty to be uplifted.

i have been trying to encourage dd to go into OT - for years
her school friend went into it - so someone listened to me!

No they dont

There is no such thing as overtime in teaching.

Blame teachers?!🤣

I doubt she could shadow but she could try and volunteer a couple of hours every week helping out with reading. There are charities that organise that too.

Probably best if she speaks to as many people from both professions as possible. Both seem tough in the current climate.

Most teachers don’t go home at 3.30 & do hours & hours of work at home. Evenings, weekends, holidays.