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.

In fact, by A-levels, a lot of the teachers would get me to grade other students' papers and even teach the class..!

Would you have marked someone down for using a ..! in a sentence?

In fact, by A-levels, a lot of the teachers would get me to grade other students' papers and even teach the class..!

If you can't buy a family home as a nurse or a teacher, then the pay is too low. End of story.

In fact, by A-levels, a lot of the teachers would get me to grade other students' papers and even teach the class..!

Aah this old chestnut. I bet you were the first in your school to go to Oxford and all the teachers cried when you left becasue you taught them so much.

In real terms, wages for nurses/teachers etc have stagnated, while the cost of living has skyrocketed. That is the real problem.

I do think teachers and nurses are paid a lot for the academic qualifications and "intelligence" they require

Yes, nurses are just doctors skivvies, and teachers just teach children to read, write and figure ::eye roll::

This is the issue with things like nursing. The general public only see the tasks we do instead of the knowledge needed to do them properly

One example of things we do. Woman had a collapse on the ward. Got her back to beside and after doing her observations, they were all reading fine, little breathless but no other symptoms and all vital signs perfect. However i remembered the day prior she had had a suspected bleed so this rang alarm bells. Sats probe may show an Spo2 of 99% but if she's only at say 50% blood volume even if that blood is perfused 99% there's still not enough o2 supply to maintain haemostasis. So for an accurate reading of o2 levels I got an ABG from her and ran it, low and behold she was hypoxic. 15L of o2 later and a call to the doctor to order a blood transfusion after confirmation her haemoglobin was only 67, and we were sorted. No active involvement from a doctor bar documented confirmation of happy with the plan of treatment and prescription of blood. This is no big deal to a nurse or a doctor, it's just another day in the job but it's stuff people don't realise we do because the general public see none of the thought process. They just saw a nurse carrying out actions they assume were ordered by a doctor.

We might not be geniuses, but we know disease process and are able to think critically to look at the bigger picture and allow us to properly assess our patients and begin certain diagnostics, preempting treatment until a doctor is able to assess medically. We aren't just lemmings. I think if people in the government realised what we actually contribute then they might be more bothered about raising our pay.

I'm so sorry everyone for ranting so much but over the years I've been so involved with nursing causes and it just really bothers me that there's still so much ignorance. I will shut up now

I checked earlier in and my take home pay in April of 2017 was £10 less than this month. I work the same hours and have had 2 incremental rises and the shitty "pay deal" rise since then. My pension contributions are more as are my NI contributions.

NHS jobs have always been poorly paid. I discourage DDs from working in the NHS and they both have rewarding and better paid 'man's' jobs.
I'm not sure why people decide to be nurses nowadays with the amount of training required - better to aim for medicine.

The most recent stats I found suggest public sector workers are paid 16% more than private sector workers. Public sector workers are generally better educated (most of the unskilled jobs in the public sector are now done by private companies) and a like for like comparison suggests wages are just 1% behind equivalently skilled private workers. 'My mate from Uni earns more than me' is not data.

In fact, by A-levels, a lot of the teachers would get me to grade other students' papers and even teach the class..!
Oh you as well as my aunt fanny!

Mostly when I have asked a nurse a question they have said "I don't know, you'll have to ask an expert". % of posterior babies who turn, why am I in so much pain breastfeeding after the second bout of mastitis, why is the protocol to admit when the dr has said everything is fine, will dd need that spiral fracture pinned, why are you not testing the tsh when that's the only reliable thyroid marker in pregnancy? Etc, etc, etc.

Then we have the teachers who make spelling errors and fundamental errors over equations, etc.

The girls I went to school with who went into nursing and teaching are now headteachers and one is ceo of a health trust.

Employers' pension contribution, generous sick pay, generous holiday pay. Believe the NHS and TPS are still amongst the best pension schemes in the country.

As someone upthread said compare a grad with a 2.1 in Geography from a mid ranking uni and there won't be much difference.

When teachers and nurses need the 3 A* A'Levels required for Oxbridge and the AAA for many competitve Russell Group courses there could be a reasonable comparison but the comparisons often made aren't realistic.

I earn a high salary in quasi public sector. I work a minimum of 55 hours pw and am almost always available on email. I provide professional advice to people far senior to me and if I said "I don't know my integrity woukd be shot to pieces". If I don't know I find out - it's called initiative and it's why I was promoted to senior mgt.

My 24 year old took a first in Classics, had a gap working for a start up. Carried on working two days per week for them whilst doing a Masters. Been offered £45k from September - he'll still be 24.

I'm not sure why people decide to be nurses nowadays with the amount of training required - better to aim for medicine.
Erm... Maybe because a nurse is not a lesser doctor. We are an entirely different profession with different models of care and a different remit to a doctor.
I enjoy the planning and delivering if care that I do as a mental health nurse, the therapeutic relations I develop with my patients and the satisfaction of working with them on an almost daily basis. I enjoy being a nurse, I don't want to be a doctor.

I’m a teacher, and paid in the low 40s.

With my degree, I could hope to earn around £100k at my age, but I haven’t been dedicated enough to that goal through having a large family.

I get 19 weeks holiday a year, so am very content with my salary.

My job is also ultra secure. I will never be out of work, which is something that super high earners cannot guarantee.

OhTheRoses

Judging by every post I've seen you make on here you have a active disdain and dislike for the nursing and midwifery professions and regularly make sweeping statements about our lack of intelligence and intellect... so you know fuck off with your shitty opinions.

Comparing my teaching job with friends who achieved the same qualifications, ten years after graduating: I was working about 20 hours a week more than them but earning £25k less! That’s one of the reasons I quit teaching, because I felt it wasn’t comparable with what I’d expect to earn in the private sector. I wish I hadn’t wasted my time.

'Public sector workers earned 1% less per hour, on average, than private sector workers with equivalent characteristics in 2016'

Only when you discount the equivalent characteristics and look at averages do we get 'public workers earned 13% more per hour than those in the private sector in 2016'
Taking worker characteristics into account, private sector pay has overtaken the public sector

And that is despite the skill profile of jobs in the private sector remaining broadly unchanged over time (45.7% high-skilled jobs in 2004 compared with 47.6% in 2017), the public sector workforce has become more skilled^

I think it's a bit disingenuous to lead with 'public sector workers are 16% better paid' when that's not the case is it. All it takes is a few highly paid managers in the public sector to bump up that average. Like you said after, like for like, public sector workers are worse off.

anyone else wondering what the fuck lotterbury does for a living and how much they earn.. Must be squillions by now as they were such a whiz at school, what with doing the teachers work for them, finding a cure for cancer, writing that best selling novel, starring in the west end, directing the Oscar winning documentary about Internet fantasists.......

@Shadowboy i also used to work at Laura Ashley! In fact on one my final months wages from Laura Ashley, a job I did as an undergrad - not even a supervisor, was better than my salary as an NQT. At that time NQTs were on £1008 pcm take-home pay.

Top of the payscals in teaching is £39k. That’s after quite a fee years. My colleagues son started on £30k as a grad at a supermarket Head office.

All it takes is a few highly paid managers in the public sector to bump up that average. Like you said after, like for like, public sector workers are worse off.

This is why I hate when people quite "average nursing salary* at around 35k. This is skewed by managers. The vast majority if nurses are employed at band 5 (top rate £28,746) and will stay there throughout their career.

Wouldnt recommend nursing as a career...its brutal...its getting worse. Scarily scarily worse.
If i could have my time again...wouldnt touch the profession.

I work 37.5 hours a week with main job then do a 12 hour shift on top each week to make ends meet. Thats 4 days off a month.

Ive started job hunting for something outside nursing. Reading some of the posts on here makes me want to leave even quicker.

roses Maybe because you're not asking the right nurses the right questions? We all have our specialities. Send me to an orthopaedic ward and I know ball all about fractures (except ribs coz they aren't treated as ortho). Have me on my gynae and female surgical ward and I can answer questions inside and out. Doctors are exactly the same, which is why they refer to specialisms

And I just want to note that teachers in Ireland don’t do the hours that uk teachers do either. We work 9.00-2.40 and most have left the school by half3! 4 at the very latest!!

Have you taught in both Ireland and England,@youngandfree

How do the workload expectations differ?

I admire nurses and midwives because I know I couldn't do the job but I'd like to thank the folks that do, particularly the ladies (and a gent) who nursed me back to some sort of heath after a long stint in ICU with sepsis, wouldn't be here without them.
Also like to thank the teachers at dds school who got her through those A levels by giving up their spare time to help her get that uni place.
Also the paramedics who delivered dd in the ambulance were feckin heroes !

We don't know what we've got til it's gone !