Salaries around the world

[Yumyummyyum]

I remember some years ago a Canadian friend who of DH said he was shocked that UK salaries were so low. Recently I was speaking to someone who knows the salaries of some high earning professionals in the US & Canada who are in similar jobs to DH and I and found out that they earn 2-3 times what we do here. I always find it hard to find salary info online as most jobs don’t advertise and I find glass door quite unreliable at least for jobs I have held. So I’m curious if anyone knows more about this whether the UK is really far behind North America in terms of salaries?

I think it's disgraceful that pay for some people is so low that they're working full time and still need to rely on food banks.

I have a friend who is a nurse in Miami and her salary is way over what nurses get paid here. I know it's a private system there but the working conditions here are worse for much, much less pay.

I kind of wish I hadn't looked my job up 😆

Salary range for my job in the UK is 40-65k

In the US its 90-130k

It may just be some that I know in the US and not representative but they have a small amount of annual leave (3 weeks per year), and the women have basically non existent maternity provision of 6 weeks, can’t recall if that was paid or not.

So, if you are a man and travelling is not high on your list then the higher salary would seem to benefit, but if a woman wanting a family, not so much.

This. Plus it depends what area you are living in as well, as that makes a difference (eg City VS. Rural)

Personally I wouldn't want to live in the US regardless of how much wealthier I would be. However, I totally agree that wages and living standards are lower generally than in many similar European countries. When I lived in Europe, I had a higher comparable salary. Taxes were higher but housing much cheaper and public services far better. I also used to get food vouchers through work for lunch but could use them to get money off my supermarket shop. Unfortunately it's now much harder to go and work in Europe than it used to be.

Our salaries do tend to be lower in the UK.

We’re looking to move abroad, we’ve been looking at both Canada and Sweden. In both countries we can do the same job but we would need to both enter our industry at a lower level. The level we would enter on pays around £45-50k in the UK, we’re finding at this level in Canada the pay is around £75-80k per year with an average cash bonus on top of £20k. In Sweden its £67-77k and a cash bonus of £8-15k.

Now we live in London, so our living costs wouldn’t change too significantly, where as a lot of people would find their living costs did increase which would eat up some of that pay increase.

A friend recently moved back to Canada, the starting salary for a primary school teacher is £36k, he wasn’t earning that as a subject lead and Sendco with eight years experience.

Visited Oz 6 years ago and was shocked to learn that cleaners earn £35/hr there!

I work for a multinational, I'm in the UK, my direct peer in the US earns double than me (we have discussed this and salaries are transparent), when I go to the US on business I definitely find it expensive unsurprisingly. My peer gets one less day than me for vacation, health care is covered and they get vastly more benefits than us in the UK. However....the company keeps looking at cost cutting and it's those in the US who are also identified as being on the list for redundancy (where of course it's easier to lay off than it is here in UK)

I think it's more complicated than just salaries, there's also cost of living and house prices to consider.

My uncle in Italy works for the council and earns around e1300 a month but can afford the mortgage on a flat in Milan by himself. I think you would be in a houseshare in London/Manchester/Other big cities on that kind of money.

I wouldn't live in a country that had no equivalent of the NHS. My adult child is in contact with people with T1 diabetes in the USA, he has it too, regularly he finds people saying they are having to ration their intake of insulin, or they find it hard to get insurance as they have T1. When he says that all his meds are free they are astonished. If you google cost of insulin in different countries you wouldn't believe it.
Cost of Insulin by Country 2022 - World Population Review

I’m in Ireland and I find the standard of living much better here. I used to be a teacher in the U.K. and had a max of 30k over there. I went back to teaching her in Ireland and earned approximately 42k for less hours!!
I left teaching for several reasons and I’m retraining and my degree/apprentice wage is 28k which is considered fairly low here to be fair (will start on 40+ once complete) I never had to pay for university here (although now I think it’s approx 3k per year for fees as an average student.
we have private health through work but there is the public health system here too as an option also;
-no council tax
-no water bills

And child benefit is non means tested and over double here too which helps

I suppose it depends on what industry you are in, what country you compare the UK with as well.

I lived in Cyprus for a while and wages are very low and rent etc is high.

There's not many countries with free healthcare and a benefit system to fall back on like ours either. There's a lot to weigh up not just your basic salary.

And that doesn't cover that health care and childcare are massively cheaper and better in France, so no private top ups because the waiting list is so long. Ireland has crazy expensive health care and rent though. It's so shocking coming back to the UK just how poor the place feels.

One major difference is that US has ample of their own gas, oil, coal. So the country pays itself for all those and all the associated jobs they bring. It is a very rich country. Just because they speak english doesn't mean it is like here.

We have to buy in all that stuff.

Plus we are all paying Apple, Microsoft, Google for the privilege of using their IT stuff. Where do we think all those global payments go. It's making the country billions and trickles down to salaries.

I'm a midwife in Canada and earn about 2/3 more than what I'd be on in the NHS (but pension worse so do save a lot). DH teaches in a very established independent school and he makes a similar salary to what he he'd make in the UK in a top indy, but overall teachers are better paid in Canada with a much less stressful job. Of course we also have universal healthcare, so no massive medical bills like the US. I'd say the cost of living is on par with the UK, some things cheaper and more more costly. Public sector jobs are much better paid here. I think you can earn more in the UK in very niche and specialist roles and in certain fields in the private sector.

NHS staff are paid very poorly in the UK. If you compare what doctors and nurses get salary wise in the US it’s no wonder that nurses are finding alternative careers and all the doctors are all leaving the country.

Our healthcare is in trouble.

And child benefit is non means tested and over double here too which helps

They also changed the system in Canada a few years ago so it's means tested and on a scale, but you have to earn loads (close to 200K as a household) before you aren't eligible for anything. The poorest families get significant assistance. We also finally have $10 a day daycare rolling out next year (this is decades in the making), and a pharmacare program coming to help with drug costs. I'd love to move back to the UK at some point as Canada is fairly boring, but right now it would be madness for us to do so.

I think Canadians pay more tax than us

Monthly salaries often, maybe and downwards pressure has increased recently, but it's hard to make a direct comparison.

Some French jobs still attract the magic 13th month's bonus and there are various other benefits, for example many employees can offset at least some of their fairly humdrum daily expenses (such as daily travel, refreshment if there's no staff restaurant) against tax.

Oz is very expensive. Food shopping is 😬

My husband works for a USA company but isn't in the US but in different locations around the world. He earns £125,000

He thought this year about returning to UK to do his job and got a interview then they told him salary was £64,000 so he never bothered.

So I agree salaries in UK are low compared to other places.

He is a assistant driller offshore.

I remember someone posting on MN about teaching salaries in Canada - the upshot of their high salaries is that it's vv hard to get a job. Obviously if you get a well paid job you hang on to it.

Our healthcare is in trouble.

massively so, why wouldn't young healthcare workers move abroad to get paid more & afford a house etc.

And remember to take the state pension into account. The pension in France is more than double that of the UK.