Why do people think some professional jobs like teachers/ midwives aren't paid well?

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I read a lot on here about people moaning about teacher/ nurse/ midwife wages etc. I thought in the NHS you start off on around 25k which I think is a decent wage. I've seen on MN alot of nurses and midwives earning £30/40k upwards.

I genuinely am wondering why people think that's low pay? What would they want as a reasonable salary? Am I not understanding something. This is a genuine question and I am in no way being goady.

I earn very low @17k so perhaps my perception is slightly skewed.

Increasing teachers' pay and raising entry requirements sounds absolutely fine to me.

Increasing teachers' pay and raising entry requirements sounds absolutely fine to me.

Wouldn’t bother me if you implemented that, even retrospectively-I have very good A levels and degree as do all of my colleagues.

How would that affect the retention and recruitment crisis though?? That is mostly caused by workload.

I'm a radiographer and earn approx £30k now which will progress to £38k in 5yrs

Am pretty happy with that as, although my job is physically and emotionally demanding, it's also lovely and not too stressful, I no longer work shifts.

But it took a long 5 years to get to this point and a lot of stress to train and qualify. Sometimes I wonder if it was worth the effort, but I think it was in the long run.

Every teacher at my DDs school is qualified with undergrad degree (mostly firsts), most hold post grad degrees, many with PhD, all from Russell Groups and a good proportion from Oxbridge and equivalent.

I’m a nurse with a PhD. My husband works in engineering and we both agree I’m far more qualified than he is, with much more responsibility. When we met our graduate wages were similar, but now he earns more than three times my wage, and gets home at a reasonable time, and isn’t checking his emails all evening and weekend.

Without exception, every junior nurse I’ve employed recently has qualified with a 1st or 2:1 and had minimum AAB A levels (often AAA) and a sweep of A* GCSEs.

These are all people who are able to pick and choose which industry they go into. Many are choosing to leave and I don’t blame them. Some of the ignorance, old fashioned and misogynist tripe spouted on this thread is beyond depressing.

Every teacher at my DDs school is qualified with undergrad degree (mostly firsts), most hold post grad degrees, many with PhD, all from Russell Groups and a good proportion from Oxbridge and equivalent.

That's quite unusual for a school though...

How do you know? Have you done a national survey? All our teaching staff qualifications are published on the school website.

My husband's an engineer. He earns twice what I do (teacher). He's working now. I'm not (obviously). I've just had two weeks off. He's had the two bank holidays.

I think that's the problem, though @Sharptic - once you're at Band 6, there is very little progression for the majority.

It's ok when you are still getting increments, but once you're at the top of your band, the salary doesn't increase - and the cost of living does.

And there's the downgrading of posts
, plus increasingly complex & demanding patients, so you are effectively doing more for less.

That's quite unusual too I think.

Because of the responsibility - checking drugs etc. Because of training required (student debt etc). Shift work (damaging for health and difficult for child care). Fixed leave pattern or restricted leave pattern (have to pick christmases, holidays, weddings, family events - hard to swap). Because compared to the number of jobs, few people wish to do it (economics).

The key is that there are so many gaps in nursing rotas. Not enough qualified people want to do it and stay in it. Probably because of the conditions and pay.

We have a teacher/nurse/midwife recruitment/retention problem because they are treated appallingly.

I don’t need to say anything more.

No MrsCasares have you not read the thread? They should be grateful for any crumbs they get, being thick upstart women who don’t know their place.

Just think if teachers/nurses/midwives went on strike for just 24 hours?

Teachers have been known to strike...

The mother of a friend of dd is a midwife. She still tells us of the times she did three 12 hour shifts Friday, Saturday and Sunday when her dc were at primary. Her DH did the childcare saving the family thousands in childcare. How many jobs are that flexible.

What an absolutely batshit thing to be bothered about. Somebody's working arrangements a couple of decades ago.

I felt your mastitis complaint was legitimate. This, however, just does a shit all over your point.

What a thoroughly depressing read. If those of you who have such a low opinion of teachers have passed on those feelings to your children, it does certainly explain some of the terrible attitudes I have encountered in the classroom in the past few years.
Call me naïve, but I just can't understand why people set out to belittle or undermine the contributions of other people to society. We all have a role to play; teachers, nurses, SAHMs, cleaners, shop assistants etc. We shouldn't be trying to knock each other down all the time.
Back to the discussion at hand; there is a problem with working conditions, including renumeration, in this country for teachers and nurses. Both sectors are experiencing a recruitment crisis, the true extent of which is not common knowledge for people outside of those sectors. We are in a dire situation. Personally, I believe it will need to get much worse before the general public begins to grasp how bad things have become.
I work at a school with a good reputation but only 1 person applied for our last science teacher vacancy. It had to be re-advertised twice, to get that one applicant. You should all be worried for you children's education (or going private...I will be jumping ship to private at the next opportunity).

@Hawkinsfirefly99 you are speaking entirely for the UK there obviously. In Ireland primary school teaching is actually a hard course to get into. You have to have a higher level of Irish and it’s a course with very high entry points!! Even if you don’t make that and you train in England, you have to make up the shortfall and do Irish exams when you get back to Ireland. You don’t get into teaching in Ireland on GCSE Equivalents!! You need A level equivalents and in at least 6 subjects (in fact there’s no option to do less than 6 here) when I went to university in Ireland I had to at least have a pass English,Irish, maths and another language (in my case French) if you fail any of those you don’t get into university. Ireland is very different!

My DP is a paramedic and on a salary of £28k. This is with 15 years experience. He regularly deals with death- not surprisingly. At least once a week is in actual danger, waiting for the police, to attend a patient. Working 12 hot shifts with a 45 minute break that often comes 10 or11 hours into the shift. Being sent on a job 15 minutes before the end of a shift, therefore adding at least 2 hours to their shift and so it goes on....

Errrrmmmm... you don't get into teaching in the UK on GCSE equivalents either...

And where would we all be without people like your dh Moonflower

12 hour shifts! Not hot. Though I'm sure it's quite warm doing CPR at the moment.

I know. @PortiaCastis
Thank you.

@Piggywaspushed when you do a pgce they look for you gcse English and maths results not your a level which I found very strange.

Mistressiggi no, just pointing out that most of the people that I know that are teachers were in bottom sets themselves at school
Birds of a feather then, I guess. Personally I was top of my class. But that doesn’t make me a better teacher than others who were less successful academically, necessarily.

They also look for a degree, not just GCSEs...