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

[Rollovers]

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.

All teachers in Scotland will be starting on £27500 by next April and rising to £41500 within 5 years. I don’t think that’s too bad but wholeheartedly agree with PPs that the working hours/ conditions are more of an issue than the pay.

They earn comparable to other graduates with specialist skills working in the public sector eg surveyors, solicitors, since when was being a solicitor a public sector job? And if you compare a nurses salary and a solicitors salary 10 years down the line they will be very different.
The problem is that we don’t value essential public sector workers and have put them in a position where they can’t negotiate for salaries because it’s a monopoly. A nurse in the US earns the same as a doctor in the UK.
Agree with pp that it’s not the pay in itself, it’s the workload that goes with it. Teachers don’t rock up at 8.50 and leave at 3.15; the ones I know spend hours doing prep and marking. I’m a dr in the nhs. The working conditions are hideous, but I get paid enough to make it worth staying. I’d pay my own children not to do nursing.

Holidays are good for teachers though. I have teacher friends who spend most of the summer out of the country so they're certainly not in the classroom prepping like mad. Not that they should be, but it's a bit much when teachers claim to spend all their holidays working when those of us who know them can see it's not true. I personally couldn't operate the way they do, with longish periods of working long hours and then sudden total downtime, but I guess some people must prefer it.

Scottish teachers have just won a 13% pay rise. Teachers’ salaries had fallen by 24% in real terms since 2008
Feel I should point out this is 13% over three years not a one year rise! And the pp is right to point out the deficit created by austerity (whose fault was that again?) over the last ten years. So a teacher, had it not been for the pay freezes, would be on 24% more today than they are. To lose 24% makes a hell of a difference to mortgages, childcare payments etc - and to how you feel about your job.

We don't get paid for 1265 hours. That is directed time, when we can be told what to do and where to do it by the Head. It is clear in STPCD that we are expected to work additional hours undirected.

70 hours is really very extreme. As is 30 hours in the holidays. What is your role?

bsc - if you apply “traditionally” (ie in the past) to all sorts of occupations, little was needed in the form of qualifications in order to work. Surgeon? Dentist? No formal training at all.

Neuroscience is rapidly increasing our understanding of child development. Midwifery and teaching are currently severely under recognized for their ability to improve human wellbeing.

Because they are low wages for the work they do..

I work for the NHS in a non-patient role, I'm a band 7 and get paid £37k, I work in an office basically (but obviously it's not easy work and I have to use my brain) BUT a nurse, who is responsible for people's lives starts as a band 5 and gets paid 23k? It's not fair and it is low pay.

If I make a mistake, no one dies. I didn't have to go to university and get a degree for my job either, I don't have to work unsociable hours - in fact I have the most flexible hours I've ever had.

LOL there are tonnes of solicitors working in the public sector. They prosecute fraud, environmental breaches, contractor breaches, defend the LA against employee and other claims, undertake care proceedings etc. They need a 2.1 degree minimum, two years of self funded post graduate qualifications and they start out on less than teachers. Surveyors also undertake a wide range of duties, evaluating land, buildings, planning applications including large scale works involving hundreds of thousands of public funds, have self funded their post graduate studies that are stringent and demanding and again are paid less than teachers on starting out.

If house prices were not so crazy then there would be so much more money to go around.

I work in health and I agree with you OP.

Its true that in the private sector people with similar education can earn much more - some can "write their own ticket" as pp said above. But many earn much less. In the public sector you can't negotiate but this can go both ways, as many people aren't great negotiaters anyway and/or don't have unique skills to offer.

The last point is I think many people have heard this talk so often they assume it's true without realising what teachers and hcps actually earn. Patients often comment to me they wish I earned more but they'd be shocked to know I'm on over £60k. They'd be even more shocked to see the over time budget. Staff getting double pay. And the cost of locum staff - especially doctors.

I used to work in the private sector, now I work in the public sector. I took a >50% pay cut.

However, my new job is shorter hours and less stressful, so it's swings and roundabouts.

FTR- I don't think it was nurses clamouring for 12 hour shifts, by and large!

They suit managers who do the rotas, but many people leave HCP jobs when they discover the cost of 13.5-14 hour childcare, spanning unsocial hours, if they can find any!

The young Band 5 HCPs I know earn a decent annual salary, but that's because they work a 15 hour night shift, 1:6 or 7, and never have a weekend free of work.

Ask yourself why there are 40,000 nurse vacancies in the U.K.?

Can’t be because the pay/conditions are so good.

No one goes into teaching for the money.
DD has a first class maths degree from Oxbridge and is an NQT. She earns £23k and works 60+ hours a week plus works through most of her "holidays".
She could have chosen many other careers for a lot more money.

Fwiw we recently transitioned from 7.5 hour shifts to 12 hour shifts in my trust... I finally have some of my life back. It wasn't unusual to do 11 late shifts with only a day off then into nights. 12 hour shifts are hard but at least I get to put my son to bed multiple times a week rather than saying goodnight to him on the phone.

It isn’t a high salary when you consider the level of training we underwent to become a teacher in the first place. We are intelligent people and work many hours, it’s also a stressful job. I earn 30k as a college teacher, it really isn’t much money.

"less well paid than other professionals that require a similar level of education."

Can someone link to specific examples? I'm not convinced.

Describe 2 people with 2.1 Geography degrees & one year postgrad education. One becomes a teacher and the other one gets... how much money doing what alternative?

Describe 2 people with 4 year health science degrees. One is a nurse midwife, and the other one... does what to earn oodles more money in private sector?

Etc.

On paper DH with BSc (works in private sector in "permanent" jobs or self-employed) earns £12k more than I do (with PhD, working FTCs in public sector). BUT, he can be made redundant with moment's notice, has to pay more into his pension, gets no holiday or sick pay when SE. Fundamentally he's willing (& experienced) at work I don't want to do, too. Earns more money but we don't work equivalent jobs at all.

While many furiously type until steam comes out of ears that nurses are ungrateful for their great pay and conditions, the irrefutable evidence is that there are 40,000 and rising nurse vacancies. So it is clear people are not clamouring to benefit from such a good deal.

I met my husband when we both studying for the same engineering degree. He earns triple what I earn as a science teacher and despite the holidays etc he thinks teaching is much more demanding and stressful. He recently employed someone in a data entry role that earns more than me. Good job I love teaching!

Because they are public sector jobs where the private sector equivalent pays significantly more.

This is a myth.

It used to be true, but no longer is. Most people in the private sector work for small and medium sized businesses, where wages are lower, conditions harsher and jobs are considerably less secure.

This is a myth
Not in my profession. I could earn 50% more than I do. Trying to recruit is incredibly difficult unless candidates are looking to be able to extend their area of practice and happy to accept reduced wages in return for that experience.

The only nurses I know on 30k+ are sisters and Matrons. The regular nurses who take care of you in hospital are generally on 23-28k.

That is NOTHING for the education needed and responsibility.

Sometimes I have 13 patients, all acutely unwell. Some dying. Some awaiting theatre. Some coming back from theatre and needing close observation. Some needing ICU care but no bed for them. Some very needy because of one reason or other. On the worst days I also have to be in charge of the ward which means coordinating admits and discharges, ensuring that we have beds to get the new surgical patients in.

If you become unwell it's us that recognise it. It's us that push for doctors. It's us that will argue till we are blue in the face if we aren't being listened to - in the past month alone I've recognised something terribly wrong and had to push and push for further investigation because all seemed well except to my spidey sense. In both scenarios the person was taken for x-ray, I think mainly to appease me, and then had to be taken to straight to theatre because I was right.

I manage morphine pumps, epidurals, wound infiltration, NG feeds, drains, sliding scales, chest drains, negative pressure therapy, high flow o2 etc. I train people in the management of these things. I give people medication including high risk cytotoxic things that require specialist training. I cannulate and bleed patients including blood cultures. I give telephone advice for patients who ring. I assess, admit and prepare for discharge. I organise social workers, physio, ot, dietician, Macmillan support, district nurses. I do a lot of things only doctors were once able to do. I perform and interpret ecgs, live bladder scans. I manage complex wounds. I constantly assess and recognise when something is wrong. I am an Advanced Life Support provider. I try to get people through the worst times of their lives including miscarriages, terminal diagnosis, losing loved ones.. And these are just the actions. That doesn't include the knowledge needed to do these actions to a high standard that is best for patient outcomes and how much training we have to do each year. It doesn't include the fact we are doing the job of 3 people with no breaks and too many patients. It doesn't include how if one little thing goes wrong because we have too high a workload, we are still dragged through the mud and could lose our careers. I have done some stressful none stop jobs but this takes the biscuit. There isn't a single moment to think some days. Some days I come home and I feel shellshocked at what has just happened.

It isn't work the approx 25k I'm on. It just isn't. If I knew then what I did now I wouldn't be a nurse. I LOVE my job which is why I haven't changed but it's not worth the money.

Stress involved. Pay does not reflect it at all.

And I'm tired of hearing the 'it's a vocation' thing.

Yes I'm sure once upon a time that was enough, nursing has drastically changed and advanced and now requires much more than a 'caring' attitude. We are no longer handmaidens to doctors. We are professionals who work independently and require extensive training to do so properly.

It's still used as a stick to beat us with though whenever we wish for better. The fact that it's mainly a women's role doesn't help either. A lot of people don't really have a clue what we do and don't think we are much different from our fabulous healthcare assistants, but the HCA are the nurses we once were and now we are... well just something else. Some sort of weird 'let's keep upskilling you but not pay you more' role. The government and NMC now even want our newly qualifieds to come out of uni with the ability to prescribe. No extra money though funnily enough.

Oh and whilst I'm on my soapbox...

The government are CONSTANTLY putting shit at our door, making us responsible for wider society issues. Things like terrorism for example. Oh and now there's proposals that we need to recognise risk of knife crime and if we don't we will get a bollocking we are the easy target.