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.

My DH did a PhD in particle physics in the 1990's. There were 2 of them working together who completed at the same time. Dh went on to do a PGCE and became a science teacher. He now has 20+ years experience, has never been rated less than 'outstanding' by OFSTED and passed all his performance managements with flying colours etc. He even won an award from oxford university for inspirational teaching! He is now a 'lead teacher' for science in the area and trains other teachers, 'troubleshoots' failing departments as well as continuing to have a full teaching load at his 'home' school. He earns approx £45k which is a good wage but is the top of what he'll earn ever unless he comes out of the classroom and becomes a headteacher which he has no interest in. Unfortunately I'm disabled and so can't work which means that £45k is our whole income so things are on the tight side sometimes. I don't qualify for disability benefits as DH's income is too high. DH supplements our income with private tuition and exam marking. I'm not moaning it's a good wage but we're not having foreign holidays or running two cars.

His mate from his PhD went into industry. He also now has 20+ years experience and I'm sure is good at the job he does. He lives in silicon valley in USA, in a 6 bedroom mansion with private pool and flies his own private plane! I'm not sure exactly what he earns but it's well into 6 figures (£150k-ish).

I can see they're not exactly equivalent jobs but they started from the same place and I imagine if DH had decided not to teach but go into industry there's no reason we wouldn't be in that position. I guess it depends what you value most.

@Prequelle the vocation argument is an attempt to pay is less money and an insult

If you consider nursing, the training, personal development, accountability, stress. Factor in a top band 5 stuck at that wage because little opportunity for progression but expected to do a band 6 position rubbish wage and very demolarising.

Absolutely @EL8888. It's all a bit 'oh but the poor loves enjoy it don't they? It won't pay the bills or keep a roof over their heads but as least they're fulfilled eh?'

Another argument is 'well they knew what the wage was before they got into the job'

I have two answers for that:

1. Until you do the job you actually have no idea if it's worth it or not. Even though I was a HCA and a student nurse, I thought I knew but I didn't.

1. People didn't actually know. They didn't know that the government would freeze their pay for 5 years meaning nurses who have been nursing for a few years are now about 4-5k worse off than they were thanks to rising professional fees, national insurance costs, cost of living etc. They didn't know that the unions would screw them over and get a pay deal that's so ridiculously hard to understand that people didn't know what they were voting for and now we are left with a ridiculously insulting pay rise that some of us fought years for. Now having to start all over again :(

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 hmm we are the easy target.

Absolutely agree-this is the same in teaching. Plus things like, to be seen to be addressing the mental health problems on the rise in school children-schools are now supposed to have a mental health ‘ambassador’ to solve the problems.

We are teachers, not mental health experts and with no money or time allocated for training -this is a total chocolate teapot.

The government doing something to tackle the exam pressures and make the curriculum more well balanced, interesting and accessible to all, whilst supporting children with additional needs would do far more to help the problems. But no. Force a teacher to become a mental health ambassador instead and then just blame them when it all goes wrong when not everyone can achieve maths and English GCSE and are attempting suicide.

whatsforu I was 6 months qualified and was running a ward (supposed to be a band 6 role) with just me and another nurse - instead of 4 nurses - to take care of 27 patients.

11.32 an hour I was getting before tax.

@Prequelle yep l totally agree with that as well! The constant pay freeze means we are incredibly under paid. I remember chatting to ex husbands American relation and he couldn’t believe have poor the pay is in the U.K. for nurses

I agree, I think it's ok too. All the nurses and teachers I know have pretty good lives.
We live off a lot less though so it's all comparative.

I finally left ward nursing and moved into something else when I ended up not only being in charge of an acute unit (over 30 beds) but also being in charge of regional bed management of a specialist service at the same time. As a band 5. With my own patients to look after as well.

Prequelle, I agree with every word you write. People don’t have a clue how difficult nursing (and other professions) can be.

Yeah it’s too easy to make judgements and generalisations about other people’s jobs when they have never done it. I wonder if these are the same people who moan on Facebook about the 7 hour wait in A&E when they have cold symptoms 🤔

There was a report on the BBC website last week about jobs being advertised in schools, where the applicant has to be a fully qualified teacher, and the salary was minimum wage. An intern, I suppose.

I feel like it's the thin end of the wage. Teachers are desperate for a foot in the door (it's not like the rest of the UK, where there is a shortage) so inevitably people will apply. Then if they have people clamouring to do the job for minimum wage, they'll decide that it's not that competitive/difficult a job and actually teachers have been being for years, so salary scales will be re-evaluated and suddenly teaching is back to being a poorly paid job.

This sort of thing has already happened in the private sector over the past thirty or so years. Eg banking. The highest paid management in banking are on extremely high salaries but the customer facing staff are paid something similar to a shop worker. People say 'oh, but it's unskilled work, it's right that it's poorly paid'. Yet a couple of generations ago, working in a bank was apparently so highly skilled that mere women couldn't be trusted to do it. Funny how jobs suddenly become 'low skill' when the majority of people doing them are women.

A friend of mine was a head of Year in UK after 7 years teaching. She was on about £38k. Large secondary state school.

She moved to Australia and is an equivalent grade but it’s called head of house (mixed age) in an independent school. She’s on £75k (pounds not AUD) and flies off to CPD courses in Switzerland and Singapore.

Sorry, I meant to specify that the minimum wage teaching jobs were in N Ireland.

I feel like it's the thin end of the wage.

What a typo!

The thin end of the wedge, obviously

It is low pay now that they're both graduate professions.

The number of teachers needed to staff a school or nurses needed to staff a hospital, make it economically unfeasible to pay at a proper graduate level. Only a small number of each profession can gain seniority, despite being highly skilled.

I've recently gone back to work and am doing a boring admin job that is better paid than what I'm trained to do. DH went to Oxford and has a 2.1 in 2001 after graduating he worked as an 11plus tutor earning £1,000 a week in London.

Lots of people would like to be paid more to do the job they do. Lots of professions have people who leave to do other things. Lots of people have degrees and post grad qualifications. Lots of jobs are stressful, require long working hours, and are socially important.

That's okay then, we should all just be quiet and be happy with out lot.

There aren't many professions that have a 40k shortage, directly putting people's lives at risk. And it's only going to get worse.

As an ex teacher I didn't have great a levels, scraped a 2:2 and had barely an interview for a pgce so the entry requirements are not as high or competitive as other professional jobs. Agree though the hours are the killer in teaching . I'm nhs now - band 3 - loads less than teaching but I can forget about work when I go home. Dh - teacher, leadership- gets emails and calls constantly- weekends, Easter Saturday etc etc real issue with work/ life balance and boundaries , expected to go to evening meetings at the drop of a hat etc etc

Don’t you know Prequelle, nurses are angels who do it for the love and teachers do it for the school holidays. Midwives just want to cuddle babies. These jobs do not require appropriate pay or recognition .

toostressy we just drink cups of tea, play cards (looking at you US senator) and get the occasional bed pan. Boring really

I don't know how bloody teachers do it. I would end up locking myself in a supply cupboard.

@Prequelle how did you forget us painting our nails? It’s an important one!

I think the pay seems appropriate. What do you think you should be paid?

Oh and the nursing crisis is only going to get worse. I will be ok for a while most likely as l am on the younger side and have lots of nursing friends / extended family members