To think salary is very low for this job ad

Mine was £17k… 7 years ago!

@Addictedtohotbathsdidnt the government just scrap salary sacrifice for pensions?

My firat London job after graduation paid £12k. But that was in 1986. It would be worth £45k today. My dd will graduate soon and yes, I worry for her.

Incidentally, I'm not earning very much more than £45k now. My glorious career.

Exactly I was earning £20k in the north in 2006 not doing exactly a hard job.
Times have moved on and everything is so expensive.
Due to family commitments I am earning only 4k more per annum in a basic band 2 role in the NHS as I was 20 years ago!

....and play the piano for the Friday meeting.
It's bloody shocking & everywhere. It's pennies above minimum wage which is hard enough to live on anywhere but I imagine is virtually impossible in London.

That is shocking OP!

I have re-entered the job market having had my career years ago, and was self-employed until recently. I am 55. After looking at everything in line with my background and education (educated to masters level with post qualifying awards in my discipline) I decided, fuck that. I am not being paid a pittance for huge roles that will bring mega stress. I now have a wee part time job, minimum wage, which I generally love. I'd far rather that than getting £3 odd more an hour for a job spec the length of my arm and all the working round the clock, stress, etc beyond work.

I am fortunate that I have planned for another income stream in 2026, so my part time job is fine enough, but I feel for new graduates today. It really is a tedious situation in the UK just now.

Shockingly low, for anywhere

I think you sound like you’re in a position to to take a step back to go forward. If I’m gathering correctly you want to go into project management- software development? If so a project coordinator role may be a good stepping stone. But while you are doing that you’re going to also want to work on some certifications PMP as an example or BA certifications, Scrum master are some other options.

You are right that at 3 years you need to be making the next step. Can you use you friend network for potential job opportunities?

I'm not sure this is as true as it used to be. DS met up with some school mates at Christmas. A couple of them were on graduate schemes with the Big Four. They were paid around £35k - so about 5k more than him, but doing 60 weeks regularly. He worked out they earned less than him and had no quality of life, no energy to enjoy London in their twenties.

DS took a job like this as his first job post uni - £25kpa and they worked him to the bone. Per hour he was earning WAY under minimum wage. But he moved on after 6 months to a far better company with a small pay rise. Two years after leaving uni, working in London he's still only on £29k, though he does get some perks which have financial value. The industry he is in is highly competitive and creative - lots of people are on far less. It's shocking. But his company barely broke even last year. If they all had fair pay rises, it could fold.

I’ve sent you a PM

If this is the kind of role that you are looking for I’d encourage you to look at PMO Analyst roles in banks and insurance (financial services). It’s a junior role but would be paid much more than £25k and then there are plenty of progression opportunities into Project Management or Business Analysis.

I’m a Senior PM and contracting at the moment at £850 p/day and could get up to £1k a day (this is with 20 years experience tho but shows what salaries are available over time).

You’d get twice that amount for the same job in the banks or insurance companies.

The problem is clearly your employer and you’re looking at moving so it can be fixed. It’s good that you’re worrying but what I’m saying is you have plenty of time to catch up.

I appreciate it’s a tough job market out there.

And in public sector it’s unusual for an EA to work more than a 35 hour-ish week. Maybe if the completely unexpected has happened but it’s not the norm- and yes, that’s 35 hours for a 50k salary for a decent EA.

edited for typo

There is progression in lots of organisations for EAs- business manager, fixer, head of private office, chief of staff are all roles on EA progression path at orgs I’ve worked at- I’ve seen people make multiple promotions from an EA role and end up in really well paid jobs (if they’re good).

you are SO young, you have no liabilities / house / kids

That does make me wonder if lower salaries for older workers could be considered discriminatory 😀

you are SO young, you have no liabilities / house / kids you’ve got so much time to sort your career, don’t panic at all.

Make sure you’re paying into your pension, ideally more than minimum and salary sacrifice. If you do ask employer if they’ll put the NI saving on top

thats the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career

I am extremely lucky to live in Zone 2, 20ish mins commute for £800 pm.

You pay £800 a MONTH- so £9K a year on fares?

Was this a typo?

Could you say what your degree is in, if it's relevant to a career and what kind of career you are looking for?

If you are looking at jobs that do not require a degree and which anyone with a few GCSEs could do, then they will be paid the minimum wage which is around £24K pa.

Market forces.

A factor which is regularly ignored is the impact on raising the pension age for women from 60 to 66/67 over a very short period. Although lots of people are still retiring or cutting their hours before the state pension age, the trend is towards working longer. If you have good qualifications and experience, but worked part time and / or faced sexism earlier in your career, you may feel short changed about the rise in your pension age but carry on in your career as retiring on a reduced occupational pension (perhaps aligned with the state pension age) with no state pension for a number of years will mean a low standard of living. This creates a bottle neck as those who would have happily walked out of the door 15 years ago at 60 will now be staying in their middle management / senior role, perhaps until 67 or beyond. To be fair, at the beginning of their career they wouldn’t have expected progression on the scale of graduates over the past few decades.

It's an absolutely shocking salary. I suppose the only people it might benefit is someone who lives/can stay with family for free in London so could use it to get their first "professional" role for 6 months to put on their CV, with a reference, which is often the hardest step, then leave to progress up the ladder. The company will then probably moan that nobody has any staying power or loyalty, but serve them right. If they had any nous at all they'd realise that spending a bit more would actually save them a fortune in turnover and recruitment!

I suppose there is a possibility in some sectors where job hopping is normal/expected that perhaps they deliberately lower salaries as a result - i.e. they were previously paying £40k and the last few candidates left as soon as they got some experience so they thought 'Well fuck it then, if they're going to leave anyway even if we pay the max we can afford, we may as well halve it just to get a bum in seat doing the doss work, which we'll ramp up to sound a bit more important, and accept we'll be recruiting every year.