Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

What do people consider a good salary?

93 replies

user1471267414 · 04/08/2023 07:33

I am on 60k plus a 20k bonus and hoping to negotiate a pay rise. What do people think is a good salary?

OP posts:
Hyperion100 · 04/08/2023 11:20

I'm in London, have a standard 3 bed semi with mortgage, 1 car, no kids.

100k is what I'd consider "good"
150k is high
200k is another planet

limons · 04/08/2023 11:21

@Charlotteowensdodgydad I'm sure there is a lot of politics in the NHS, I've never worked there, but I don't think it's fair to scoff at someone for calling themselves senior at £50k, not that salary says very much by itself, but setting the bar of senior at director level £100k+ is not accurate, and is likely a confusion between senior management and senior leadership.

limons · 04/08/2023 11:22

(@Charlotteowensdodgydad not that you were, I was taking generally there, I know you're a different poster!)

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Employment advice
USaYwHatNow · 04/08/2023 11:24

I work for the NHS and earn £43k which I've worked bloody hard for so I'm pretty pleased and consider that a 'good' salary.

My husband is in a different industry and his base salary is £48k which when I found out I cried happy tears about because that's life changing for us especially with allowances which will mean he's earning up to 60k

cocksstrideintheevening · 04/08/2023 11:30

Literally the same post a couple of weeks ago, have a look. Usual people not believing anything over a salary of 20k bullshit

AmberGer · 04/08/2023 11:38

Answers are only relevant to an individuals circumstances. In mn terms my salary and dh's is negligible, we'd be classed as low earners.
But to us, we have extremely low outgoings and live a very comfortable life.

shelbaby · 04/08/2023 13:48

It's all relative some folk think 6 figures is nothing.

Ive come from a working class family where my mum and dad worked low paid jobs. Bearing that in mind minimum wage annual salary is about £18k, so I wld consider £30k and up a gd salary, £40k and above is very gd and so on.

I earn more than that myself but have also earned way less with higher bills and still had a decent lifestyle.

TheWayoftheLeaf · 04/08/2023 14:00

I'd say anything over £40k for a professional role is 'good'. Anything in the 30s is OK. Anything over 60 is great.

That's for 40 hours a week ish though. If you're on 80 hours a week it obviously changes.

Weefreetiffany · 04/08/2023 14:25

Do you mean you get 20k of bonus, or that your bonus is 20k? Because if so you’ll be paying 45-60% of that in tax and probably only take home 9k of it. Check what it means for you.

in London 80k is good, but probably need 100k for a household to live comfortably. After 100k you lose a lot of benefits and pay more tax so are not really getting more for your money as your expenditure goes up. So you need 150k to off set the tax/benefits thing that affects the 100-130k bracket. Double this in central west/NW London.

Outside of London, in an area with good infrastructure where you don’t need to travel by train or for more than 15 minutes by car for work then 60-70k.

Screamingabdabz · 04/08/2023 14:26

BumpyaDaisyevna · 04/08/2023 08:05

£20k more than you actually earn 👍

Absolutely spot on! 😂

VariationsonaTheme · 04/08/2023 14:27

Enough to pay the bills and have some left over for fun. The amount needed for that obviously depends on where you’re living and your housing situation.

fullbloom87 · 04/08/2023 14:41

Depends what you do. If you tap on a keyboard all day and send a few emails it's excellent pay.
If you're working night shifts with terminally ill patients then it's rubbish.
Having said that life isn't fair and unfortunately it's often those that have the easiest jobs that get paid the most.

fullbloom87 · 04/08/2023 14:44

bunchofboys · 04/08/2023 10:23

£200k. I don't earn that by the way but i think that is what i would now need to earn to continue the lifestyle I have had over the last 15 years.

There was a woman on here last week whose income including UC top up was equivalent to what someone on £80k would take home.

Cost of living is so high now, that is what i think you need to earn to have the same lifestyle as someone earning £80k 5 years ago if you have anything other than a sub £100k mortgage.

That women was mis reporting her wages. UC would never top up an income to that amount. Unless she had 15 kids before 2017.

MontyDontysLinenTrousers · 04/08/2023 14:49

CatsOnTheChair · 04/08/2023 07:50

I think 60k is a pretty good salary.
The 20% bonus makes it 80k, which is definitely good - that's more than our household income and we are very comfortable.
However, what you actually need to know is salaries for equivalent jobs and responsibilities. If those are 90k, plus 30k bonus you need to negotiate hard. If simular jobs are 50k and no bonus, I'd suggest you keep quiet.

120% of £60k isn’t £80k, it’s £72k.

Didiplanthis · 04/08/2023 15:02

I had a good salary...in a job that made me bloody miserable. I'm about to start a new job working double the hours for half the salary... to me, a good salary is very very much dependent on the job. My past job could have paid be double and it would not have been worth it.

Leftlegwest · 04/08/2023 15:18

'Good' to one person isn't good to another. I earn about £55k. I would like to be earning about £70k for working full time. I don't particularly want the responsibility for a role that commands more than that!

Dotcheck · 04/08/2023 15:20

piglet81 · 04/08/2023 07:52

One meeeellion pounds.

Ha. ha. Ha.

Lysianthus · 04/08/2023 15:24

@limons There were two - and one was a covid bonus (quite late but meant they could give a non-pensionable lump sum).

Upsizer · 04/08/2023 17:10

limons · 04/08/2023 10:32

This isn’t senior in the NHS! It is Band 7, so over 1/3 of NHS staff are earning this or more.

Have you worked that out because band 7 is 2/3s of the way up the scale or because the stats demonstrate 1/3 of people are on £50k+? There will be more people in the lower bands. If it's similar to the civil service salaries of £50k are G7-6 which is classed as senior management, SCS (next level up) is director level which I assume the NHS £100k+ salaries are? Seems a bit nit picky to tell someone they're not senior, I would expect someone on £50k in much of the public sector to have a fair bit of responsibility. You don't have to be at director level to be senior.

I did a bit of work recently calculating this for a large trust. It might be that other trusts are different but of 10k staff 30% were B7 or above.

It’s management level I agree, but not senior!

Lifeomars · 04/08/2023 17:13

£730 million plus whatever the current wage for being PM is

Upsizer · 04/08/2023 17:13

(It’s probably right across the Board: average pay is 38k in provider trusts and 48k in commissioner organisations)

vdbfamily · 04/08/2023 17:42

Lysianthus · 04/08/2023 09:04

@vdbfamily did you not get the June bonus?

Ha... forgot that was a bonus! Saw it as a backdated pay rise. NHS does give bonuses, not quite twenty grand ones though sadly

vdbfamily · 04/08/2023 17:52

Upsizer · 04/08/2023 10:12

This isn’t senior in the NHS! It is Band 7, so over 1/3 of NHS staff are earning this or more.

Senior salaries are Band 9 and up, which starts at 100k.

(pension contributions add 50% to the salary benefits)

Show quote history

I actually earn just under £52. 000 as an 8a ( 34 hours) and whilst that may not be senior in NHS, I am the most senior of my profession on site managing several teams over 3 different hospital sites so have a fair bit of responsibility for that salary.

Upsizer · 04/08/2023 18:19

8a will certainly have a lot of responsibility - it was just the idea that the NHS is being run by staff on 50k that objected to tbh. It’s still a really good salary in the NHS and not for much responsibility in the scheme of things.

Lysianthus · 04/08/2023 19:49

Lysianthus · 04/08/2023 09:04

@vdbfamily did you not get the June bonus?

I'd have loved a City bonus. Tbh, the irony of the government giving NHS bonuses and then taking 40% tax back was not lost on me. It took us into a higher tax bracket! Jeez. I'm not ungrateful but it stung a bit.