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.

For a PGCE that is.

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.

I work in a clinical job in the nhs, 15 years in. I have a first class degree, a post grad diploma plus extra post grad qualifications. I am at the top of band 7 which is about £43k. It’s ok. But that’s it for me in terms of progression . My boss is on the grade above but I know that if she left that job it would go. I would be managed from a larger hospital probably. So there isn’t much for me to aspire to here on in. I have a lot of responsibility and accountability.

My dh got a 2:2 BA. He has no further qualifications. He is bright but not as academic as me. He is super confident and clever in a different way mind. He is good at what he does. He earns in excess of 6 figures.

Something is wrong, though.

My relative in the 70s scrapped onto a teacher training college course (not a degree) with two very poor A level grades. Not a bright person by any stretch. I did at one point think that was unusual but it seems it wasn't at the time.

In the early 90s, aspiring teachers (who wouldn't even be allowed to stay on at most sixth forms now, with equivalent GCSEs) were happy knowing that plenty of BEds would accept EE.

These examples of very low entry standards stigmatise the whole profession, but it happens every generation because of shortages.

The grammars haven't encouraged anyone towards teaching in at least two generations now. It's not seen as a good choice of career for bright teens.

Now we have "teachers" without QTS anyway, courtesy of the Academies fiasco.

There must be a better way of arranging things.

FWIW I get £16.30/hr pre deductions and insurances as a hospital consultant
I think it’s fairly poor for the responsibility and training path, but there we are - public sector pay.

I’m a healthcare professional in a job that required me to get a degree, pay to be on a register, and get a professional qualification. I’m top of band 5 so just under £30k. The problem is that there is so little scope for progression. Eventually I should get a band 6, but I interviewed for one recently, along with 4 of my colleagues, and didn’t get it. There may be other opportunities over the next few years, but not many and every time my equally deserving colleagues will also be applying. After that there is very little room to progress.

I have a good quality of life and I know I don’t earn a bad wage, but it doesn’t compare to some of the lifestyles I’ve read about on Mumsnet.

@MoreProseccoNow there's a lot of career progression in radiography. Many of my colleagues are band 7 and there's a growing number of advanced practice and consultant radiographers.

But I came from a background in local government and so maybe that's why I feel lucky in the opportunities available now. I thought pay rises we're pitiful wherever you work the last few years.
I also bank in private practice and the money is no better unless I did agency work.

Agree moreprosseconow It’s very hard to progress past band 6 or 7 if you are clinical. I am a in a speciality of the radiography profession and there is little scope past a band 7. I don’t know why radiography is always touted as one of the professions to get into on mumsnet. It’s really not that great and it will only get worse as technology improves and they try to get people on lower grades doing the work. Already there are band 4s now doing a lot of the work band 5s would have done in the past.

I know people that work in non clinical management areas in the nhs and the sky is the limit for them but there really is a ceiling in clinical work.

I'm in Scotland & most AHP's are 5's & 6's - we seem to have done particularly badly under AFC .

There are very few clinical Band 7's - even CNS posts, regional specialities, single-handed etc.

The very few that there about are generally downgraded once someone leaves.

I think the problem is around here is that on a teacher'/nurse's salary you would struggle to by a small flat and I know the South East is a bit of a housing bubble but we still need nurses and teachers. Other professions have to work long hours too, 60 hours a week is normal for dh's job and that's not including lots of travel and working away from home but I think they can move up the pay scale more quickly, moving through employers and renegotiating salary.

I recently moved roles but used to work in a nurse-led residential facility for adults with PMLD.

With additional shifts, additional overtime premiums and sleep-in allowances, most of the support workers (myself included) we earning close to what the nurses were. While we were all working our butts off, sometimes with few staff and high pressure, I dont have the student debt and registration fees to worry about.

The problem with giving pay rises is that there are so many of you. According to Google 300,000 nurses, 450,000 teachers compared to eg firefighters 34,000.

sharptic

I was also in your position, having specialised to get out of shifts/nights/weekends.

However, in my mid 50s, they have caught up with me. Again. I believe I will be able to escape them, but others, in their mid 60s, are being forced back onto 12 hour rolling shifts, from 9-5 jobs.

Unless you're in U/S, mammo or Nuc Med, watch out- they're coming for you too!

As for 'not too stressful', I genuinely hope it continues for you.

We're on the brink of catastrophe on a daily basis. Under-skilled, non-UK trained staff (thanks, Brexit and the pulling of the bursary); equipment older than some of the newly qualified staff and bean-counting, bonus pursuing middle management, who'll all be on their 3rd chardonnay as the last third of your shift begins.

Other roles requiring comparable qualifications (degree+) don’t get me same publicity/ outrage

eg criminal barristers undertaking prosecutions for the CPS

Sorry, read your next post, Sharptic.

You're in London, aren't you?!

I'm in the southern shires, very edge of doable daily London commute, shall we say (sorry, can't be specific- I had a stalker on here!). Just this last 3-4 years, they've started handing Band 6s out because we were losing so many good, 2-3 year qualified Band 5s to other hospitals.

This has meant there are B6 doing quite straight forward stuff, and B6s doing the complex, ooh angio, trauma, cauda equinas. Same pay band.

But there are only 3 clinical B7s

We couldn't recruit, I'd like to say 'for love nor money' but a bit more ££ might have helped. (So we looked to west Africa, which went the way you might expect). Management crow at how successful recruitment days have been. Then 10% actually show up to work.

It's demoralising.

Graduates who go into investment banking regularly start on £40K as do trainee solicitors with top firms. Outside London this may be nearer £35K. So graduates with zero experience in some industries will START on more than some will earn after 30 years of experience. That is why people moan about the low pay of equally qualified and arguably more important teachers and nurses.

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

Well, that's not all they look at though is it?

To do a PGCE you also need to have a degree.
To get onto that degree you need to have A levels - the grades depend on the course being studied.
They also look at making sure you have a grade C or above in English, Maths and Science.
In addition you need to pass a Maths and English test - this is a quick fire, mental maths style test iirr.
For many PGCEs you also need to have x number of hours of related and relevant work experience.

Not all teachers will have A Level English and Maths as that is not, and never had been, a requirement for a teacher - unless doing English or Maths as their focus subject. Just like they aren't requirements for various other degrees.

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

Entry requirements for teaching degrees (BA, Bed degrees, with QTS, usually) are currently ABB-BBC at most institutions at present.
They don't need to be higher.

Infact at primary I could see a move towards more vocational assessments and studies, and more on the job courses. A very high academic achievement in just two or three subjects isn't especially needed for teaching up to year 6 really.
However, more experience, more knowledge of working with children, understanding children's development and how their early years affects their later life, etc is a much better skill for the job in reality, rather than having grade A at A level is History or Spanish, for example.

So more a mix of decent A level grades - B/Cs - but a greater emphasis of time spent working with children, understanding children, etc.

Oh, and in reference to a previous poster:

Every teacher in my (infant) school has a minimum of a 2:1 degree. A couple have Masters. There is a mix of BEd and PGCE routes.
All of our TAs have a minimum of A levels, many have a degree and some are qualified teachers.

I believe the problem is not remuneration but the lack of value attributed to these roles. The responsibility that is intrinsic feels huge yet the abuse and judgment from government and service users is also a big role.

You only have to come on here to hear how little people think of teachers with the easy number and loads of holidays 🙄

Also not forgetting the understaffing issues, not replacing staff leaving through natural wastage/redundancy, unrealistic targets and pay freezes.

And the NHS-bashing too!!!

Graduates who go into investment banking regularly start on £40K as do trainee solicitors with top firms. Outside London this may be nearer £35K. So graduates with zero experience in some industries will START on more than some will earn after 30 years of experience. That is why people moan about the low pay of equally qualified and arguably more important teachers and nurses.

TBF you are talking about a very, very small segment of the legal profession there, and there really are only a small handful of firms outside London offering those kind of salaries to trainees. There are some rather prestigious corporate firms in my city where the trainee salary is nowhere close to that. And many more solicitors are working on the high street, where frankly it can take a few years to get to teacher and nurse levels of payment. It took me a while.

It's also the case that there are some legal specialisms where the higher levels of salary just aren't available. It'd be like if you were a paediatric nurse and you were only ever going to be able to earn a third of what the best oncology specialist nurses earn even if you had the same qualifications and years of experience.

It's clear to me that nurses aren't paid enough, given the recruitment problem. But most lawyers aren't paid a great deal more either. A lot of the things people have said about the general shittification of nursing as a job would apply for solicitors too really.

What do solicitors earn, @slappingjoffrey?

How long is a piece of string?

Huge variation basically, across specialism, location and years of experience. There are also solicitors who are partners in the businesses so the closest nursing or educational equivalent would be like if you owned the hospital or school. Like GPs in partnerships as well.

If you're in a Magic Circle firm with 5 years post qualification experience you'll be on more than 100k, if you're in a criminal legal aid firm with 25 years of experience it might be 35k, if you're a trainee solicitor in a small high street firm it'll be probably under 20k, if you're working for a CAB it won't go much above 25k whatever your experience, if you're doing commercial work at a big regional firm you could be on 60k, if you do care work for a local authority it'll be 30-35k, if you're experienced and working for the government legal services could be 50k etc.

What sort of solicitor salary are you specifically interested in? You can find out what large corporate firms and also the public sector pays solicitors fairly easily.