Traditional job salaries

[huggybear]

I've been thinking today, due to the talk of the living wage, how in the past is has been fairly common for families with parents working very normal jobs to be able to buy what we consider now unobtainable houses for a lot of young people.

Being the very nosy person I am, I decided to look up how much these traditional professions earn but I can't say I believe it.

Mumsnet is skewed of course on the 'what do you earn?' threads so I would be very interested if anyone knew the average salary of say a postman, or a bin man etc. No other reason than being nosy.

NHS clerical officer in NI, with sole responsibility within our department for a particular specialism, covering our entire trust area. I'm on minimum wage - £15k a year with no government to even implement our generous 1% increase

PA to the CEO of our company, City based small consulting firm earns £45k plus bonus.

In a good year in the past she's earnt well over £50k. London market she could probably earn similar or more if she left tomorrow.

Nursery manager, 30 staff, south east, just under £20k.

I'm a room leader in a private day nursery, I work mon-fri 8.45-5.30 and I'm on £8ph which I think is pretty low for what we do

@shoesoff1 Not doubting you at all - just jealous as I seem to be in an area that doesn't pay well! Agree about the older staff thing.

On London salaries, I know someone in architecture who is worse off after moving from London to Fife. He says his living costs have decreased by a lot less than his salary after losing his London weighting.

DP accountant/regional finance manager 50k, me non medical private healthcare 30k

My head teacher can only afford to hire nqts now as new staff as they are so much cheaper.

They cost about £22k ish as opposed to me on £38k when we are ‘essentially’ doing the same job.

Thanks user1471468296, the London weighting thing seems to be very varied depending on job/industry. I know a surgeon & accountant who salaries dropped by 15% when they moved to other cities so if you take into account living costs they are actually better off. However some salaries outside of London seem very low.

Nursery staff even in London get shockingly low wages.

Salaries of people I'm close to (that are happy for me to share):-

Sales exec selling houses - £20k basic + mileage + commission at £500-£1000 per house average earnings £30k per annum.

Hotel cleaner - minimum wage £5.90 an hour as under 21. Works out as a little over £12k a year.

Managing director of a medium sized company in property sector - £167k plus bonus of approx £80-£150k per year.

Travel exchange desk clerk £18k (£8.80ph PT)

Police constable £32k including some night shifts.

Civil servant investigation department £30k.

@RedPandaMama

Do you ask all your friends how much they earn? And also whether they are happy with you sharing?

They aren't my friends they're my family, and I was sat chatting to them at the time I was reading the thread and they said they didn't mind as long as it was anonymous.

dilemna - why on earth would panda's family care? There is absolutely nothing identifying about that information!

I don't really understand this concern people have over others knowing their salary - if I wanted I believe I could guess the salary of most of my friends/family within a few grand. There's so much publicly available information out there - anybody who works in public sector will be on a salary scale that's googleable within seconds, and most private jobs you can get a close benchmark from looking at recent job adverts for that role/sector/company. Often searching for 'x job y company' will bring up a cached result for the last time that job was advertised. I believe the only variance would be for higher paid jobs/people who have been in the role awhile and who have been able to negotiate increases.

I'm not in the slightest bit bothered if people know how much I earn. What difference does it make?

OP I think the biggest difference in affordability is not so much variance between areas in terms of wages but in terms of affordability for living. e.g. I earn slightly above national average but can live on the outskirts of my fairly cheap city in a two bedroomed semi-detached, run a car and afford several holidays per year. Colleagues in London on the same grade earn the same wage as me plus roughly four grand London living allowance (civil service) but are sharing houses with five other people and spend more on commuting than I do on running my car.

The turnover in the London office is something like 11% because people a) have more opportunities but b) cannot afford to live long term on a comparatively stagnant wage, whereas in mine, and other regional offices it's barely 1% because the opportunities for other jobs aren't there, but also because the wage is high for the local area and completely affordable.

I have a younger brother who is an apprentice electrician and his girlfriend who works in retail, who have just bought their first house in their mid twenties, whereas friends more than a decade older in professional jobs earning three times as much are nowhere near buying in the South East, and have much less disposable income.

I’m a healthcare scientist, bottom of band 5 earning 23k (if I was full time) although it does increase when I work shifts.
H is a director of a (private) healthcare company and gets upwards of 100k.
We’re separating. I’m crapping myself about living on my nhs wage.

Higher education administration £30k-£50k depending upon experience and seniority in London

I’m an EA for an M.D. £45k plus bonus. London. Very flexible working hours, could earn more but I like the 830-430 hours :)

I’m classed as Admin but it’s a bit specialist - £17k FT......told that’s what they’re prepared to pay as ‘we’re in a cheap part of the country ‘ 😡