My payslip as a doctor in Feb 2021 during COVID

[Juniordoc]

See attached image. Yes this is for full-time work with weekends and nights in the currently stretched working conditions that the NHS provides.

This does not include the expenses and sacrifices of a six year medical degree. On top of that, we have to pay out of pocket for our own GMC membership, medical defence union, postgrad exams and revision courses, conferences and courses.

Please get behind us and support the strikes. We are burnout, exhausted and struggling to live

Totally agree with you! The way some people are demonising doctors are already making young people think twice about entering the medical profession. Of those who do embark on what is a challenging career in every way, we hope they do stay as we want the best doctors to treat us here in the UK so please value the talent we have in the country or they will leave.

However, in lots of circumstances, especially if you have a family. People on lower wages are not really 'taking home' a lower amount when you add tax credits etc.
I have just put a 'lower wage' of almost half the £58k being discussed into 'entitled to' calculator for a couple with 3 schools age children where there with no childcare and a rent of say £800 per month. There is a very generous extra £450 or so provided per week in 'extra benefits'.
To provide a similar take home pay that couple would need to earn around 70k instead of 30k. Therefore, a salary of 58k really isn't as much as you think when you have to pay for everything and are not entitled to these extra benefits. So yes the salary of a doctor on 58k in this country really does not feel great compared to jobs earning a lower wage but with much less responsibility, student debt and years of training. Tax credits/Universal credit have really distorted what people in the economy really earn. Therefore, I don't blame a doctor on 58k thinking it's just not worth it when they could effectively take home more with these extra benefits if they earn half their salary! This country needs a complete overhaul of the tax/universal credit system so people are encouraged to take on jobs with more responsibilities/pay without thinking it's not worth it!

Leave the OP alone. I am not sure it achieves anything. Give it a rest. Your anger shouldn't be directed at one individual.

Requesting for OPs payslips is perfectly valid. The poster requesting this info is not directing anger at the OP or anyone. OP is trying to make a case for potentially causing patient deaths based on a payslip from 2021. The strike is taking place now , so why not provide the payslip from now/most recent. The OP and their colleagues are holding innocent peoples lives at ransom and should be ashamed of themselves. If the job don't pay enough, move to a job that does. It's not patients fault that you didn't research the job you were getting into.

@xbp I am a solicitor…and I know huge numbers of solicitors at a wide variety of firms and companies. I’ve worked in top 10 and top 50 firms and not one person that I came across had a three month holiday in the summer.

The top 50 firm that I worked for had many solicitors that were educated at Oxbridge or Russell Group. The starting salary for trainees at that firm is £28,500 and NQ’s earn £50,000. That is outside London and the rates in the London office are slightly higher but not megabucks.

Blimey, I hold a strange kind of admiration for people that double-down on a dick view like this.

Please, do enlighten us as to who cares for your relatives when all of these people fuck off to a better paying job.

Because I’ll hold my hands up - no way could I do the training, do the job and then, on top of it, put up with shitty posts like yours.

NQ lawyers in some London firms are paying 'megabucks' (£150K) and not 'slightly higher' like you say.

My first wage as a nurse was £175. I just looked at it and cried!

You can potentially be earning over 100k in another few years.

It's not enough, no, but negotiating for 35% doesn't seem fair either. When the RCN ( nursing union) commenced negotiations it started at 19%. We got 5%.

@OneMorePiece did you actually read my post? I wasn’t talking about a U.S. firm. There are not enough jobs for every Oxbridge and Russell Group law graduate to train and work for US firms. The firm that I was referring to pays £32k for a trainee and £65k for a NQ in London.

To be fair, I think judging a junior doctor's worth from the perspective of their salary alone is a mistake. It's the value they add to the NHS as a whole. Without them, the whole system will collapse as they make a significant contribution to the care of patients which shouldn't be underestimated. There are lots of other high paying careers these doctors could have undertaken given they are academically very able but they chose this path. All they're expecting is a working environment that is safe for their patients and themselves and a pay that rewards them appropriately.

Yes, solicitors qualify within 6 years (including 3 years of law at uni) so even a NQ solicitor at the London firm you speak of is on 65K. That is significantly more than what an F1 earns in London within the NHS. The trainee solicitor also earns in the 2 years prior to qualifying whereas the doctor is still at medical school and still incurring debt studying. Anyway, I don't think it's fair to make these comparisons as they're completely different jobs. I was merely pointing out that you weren't giving the full picture of the potential of some NQ in London to earn well over £100K not just in US firms but in UK firm London offices too.

Agree with PPs - medical school places are still competitive, people still want to do it. But the attrition rate in junior doctors is really high. We break them. And they really are leaving for Aus/NZ/Middle East

I am a consultant in Australia and I think this is a good point.

By definition high school students competing for medical school places are ambitious and have already studied subjects that others have warned will be challenging or difficult. They genuinely feel like the warnings don’t apply to them, they are used to being exceptional.

Australian junior doctors also work hard, but the pay and working conditions are better.

Also, the public don’t seem to feel the need to inform them that they, “pay their salary” like in the UK, I wonder why? Australia’s public system is also free at the point of use, and the private system is also supported by the government as well. The Australian taxpayer also pays for its junior doctors, yet it doesn’t feel the need to tell them this, all the time.

@OneMorePiece well if you actually read my earlier posts you will see that I was responding to a previous poster who suggested that all solicitors earn over £100k and have three month holidays, which is utter bullshit. I also shared the average salaries as published by the Law Society. Some solicitors in some firms earn a lot of money, but plenty more do not. Funnily enough, I’ve had a couple of friends give up law because they couldn’t stand the stupid hours for relatively low pay and their DH’s were earning a lot of money…in medicine!!!

I recently saw an advert for a qualified solicitor working for Transport for London. The salary scale was lower than for Tube drivers…plus the solicitors don’t get overtime!

Also @OneMorePiece, many solicitors take a minimum of seven years to qualify as they do a non-law degree. Lots more have to paralegal first as there’s a shortage of training contract places, which means it often takes them 8 or 9 years to qualify.

probably under the repayment threshold!

I am fully aware of the route to becoming a solicitor and the demands of the job and the scarcity of training contracts. Still I don't think medicine is any easier especially for the youngsters starting now. £100k in debt before you even start earning to pay it off and that's without the interest. Steve Barclay should be conducting serious negotiations to end this crisis.

My family supports the strike and full pay restoration. Don't lose hope.

OP, I totally support you.

I've been an NHS midwife. That was a few years ago and it was bad then, it's even worse now, and I know how hard you all work. No time for a drink or to go to the loo on many shifts. I went into midwifery all starry eyed, without the excuse of youth even. It didn't last long. I saw the enthusiastic medical students and newly-qualified doctors start in maternity, only to be reduced to a shell after a short period of time on the wards.

To people here saying you're putting lives at risk - quite possibly, but what will things be like in ten years' time if this isn't sorted now? Far more lives will be lost then.

I absolutely support you. Pay and conditions are terrible and I am terrified that there will be no doctors or nurses left in the next decade. I would strongly discourage my children from going into medicine (and teaching from my own experience). What a sad state of affairs in such an affluent country.

I would expect someone just out of uni to be living in a flat share and not living a flashy life. That’s normal.

You were earning almost 34 k in your first year out of uni. That is a good salary, and more than the base rate in the screenshot you posted, so obviously most doctors at each of those stages are earning more than that with whatever extras are added. Salary progression looks good.

However, I’m totally with you on the CONDITIONS being unacceptable. I think you should focus on that, rather than whinging about the salary. There comes a point in a job where no amount of money would be worth it.

Junior doctors salary in OP is on a par with starting vets salary with similar levels of debt. Vets have none of the pension benefits other than statutory legal minimum contributions. Earning potential for a vet maxes out at 60-70k after 10years+ , plus the suicide rate is 4x national average.

I’d like to know what OPs salary is now as this is 2 year old.

I think the salary for an f1 is reasonable considering the lack of experience. Most people have spent some time in hospital and seen f1 work their very reliant on nurses and other drs at this point in their career which is fine as their learning and their salary reflects that, As they gain experience their wages will increase like in a lot of jobs. You can't walk into a job and expect to be paid the same as people who have worked there 10 years thats not how the world works. As for working conditions they have come a long way from how they use to be years ago and I'm really struggling to understand how your saying so many f1 are burnt out after working only 8 months in a job doing 40hr weeks. Welcome to the real world its not uni anymore

I wasn’t talking about FY1s. I was talking about junior doctors as a whole.