What does "pretty senior" mean?

[PrettySenior]

A lot of posters, when saying something about their jobs, mention they're "pretty senior." I keep wondering what they mean by that.

Is it Executive level? Director? What about for example someone who manages ten admin staff? Is it about salary so maybe £100k+? Is it about how much autonomy they have?

If you consider yourself "pretty senior" what do you do?

Ha ha, yes, you see it a lot here. I consider myself "pretty senior" because I earn a lot of money, have high autonomy, am close to the CEO in the org chart wherever I work and I sometimes have a fancy job title. No idea what other people mean by it though.

When someone says it i would say head of department at least.
Director more likely.
If it was executive or c suite i would drop the 'pretty'.

I'm not senior, pretty or otherwise.

I'm "pretty senior" as I'm an NHS consultant who happens to be old enough to have finally arrived at the final pay point on the consultant salary scale. And I train junior doctors!

In professional services we have several grades so "pretty senior" is a high grade but not the highest.

Practice staff include unqualified trainees, qualified staff who move from a supervisor role, to an assistant manager then manager. Above manager you have senior manager or assistant director. Thus is not really senior staff.

Then you have directors and salaried partners. This is "pretty senior".

At the top you have equity partners but even then there is hierarchy. I would say an equity partner is senior. My teams partner answers to a bigger group partner answers to our business stream partner answers to the head of advisory and the advisory executive board who answers to the leadership team who ultimately answer to the managing partner (like our CEO) and senior partner (like our chairman)

It just means they want you to take them seriously or be impressed.

I’m a first year partner in Big 4. “Pretty senior” because most people in the organisation would consider that to be as high as you can go, but not “senior” because there is in fact still quite a hierarchy within the partnership.

So I am at the bottom level of a very senior role.

For me it means I've been in the same field for over 30 years, have a great deal of knowledge and experience, manage my own time and workload (mostly, I do have 2 people above me).
I do not need to be supervised. I can train other people.

I think it depends on your circles and your life stage.

When I was starting out I thought I'd have made it if I got to assistant manager, now oli have a plot called Director, but I'm the lowliest of all the directors.

For me it means you manage a large team/large percentage of the staff in the company if not a large org and crucially hold a budget. Salary is industry dependent at least the top 25% in the org

I don’t know if I think I’m pretty senior!

I’ve been an NHS consultant for a couple of years, had a clinical lead role previously but not doing that anymore and the youngest on our specialist team. Not got a management role at present and find it frustratingly difficult to effect change! I guess it depends on context.

I've always assumed it to mean someone who is slim, has good skin tone, perhaps greying blond or white hair and, if I say it myself, is rather attractive with natural poise and a debonair flair.

I'll look for a photo of myself so you can see what I mean.

It may take a little time as I've not used Photoshop before...

For context - I'm not from England, we are osuth Asain

In our culture, the the word most often used by many older people to describe their adult childs job is "oh its a very good job" - then asked what do they do. This repsosne is often "I don't know but its a good job."

The other statements are "they are a manager.....not sure what the do but its a good company."

"pretty senior" to me is CEO's right hand person

In private sector, on the Senior Management Team or operational board? I'd say job titles above manager. Head of/director, but not board.

Similar to @QueenofTheBorg I’m on the leadership team and report into the CEO (company has 1000+ employees) and earn a high salary.

Very senior is the CEO.

Ok thank you - I guess the answer is about what I expected. It's more about level than salary. I'm very impressed with some of your jobs!

I earn a pretty high salary myself (£105k) but am not "pretty senior." The level above me pays about £10k more and is starting to be what I'd consider "pretty senior" but I don't want it as it would be far more work and stress and I'm fundamentally quite lazy.

It’s funny, we have a job title in our organisation which is “Senior xxx”. However that job is several ranks down from the management level and does not entail any line management responsibility. The “senior” bit just signifies that the person is more experienced than the people who have same job title without the “senior” in front of it.

I ran a small specialist library on campus at a very prestigious University, the pay was not that good and I did not have any control over any huge budgets. But it was a lovely job and well respected by the academic staff and students and was my own little kingdom for a few years.

At the Bar they have a hilarious expression “Senior Junior”.

It means a barrister who has many years’ experience but is not a KC.

In court, the KCs are called “Senior Counsel” and all others are “Junior Counsel”.

Just waiting for the usual people to come on this thread and say "everyone on MN lies about what they earn/how senior they are" 😄

Am I the only person who read the title and thought it was some ghastly Americanism for an attractive woman over State Pension Age?

That’s a “Cute Senior”!

It depends on your industry really but the factors that make me consider myself senior are:

Team of 40
PA managing my diary and inbox
A lot of autonomy
Sign off responsibilities for budgets and things

This is a bit difficult to articulate but I think for me there's also something about whether it's me on the line for something really important - i.e. is it me who is ultimately responsible for things going well or badly in my patch or is it my boss

When I was the level below, I would have described myself as "fairly senior" I think

Rather than people exaggerating their position, could it also be an example of women using fluffy additional language to minimiise their role, as they have been conditioned by society not to brag and not to be proud of career success. I would say an NHS consultant with many years service, who trains junior doctors, is 'senior' not 'pretty senior'.

I would say it’s responsibility for either a lot of risk, a lot of money or a lot of people or a combination.

There are 9 grades in my organisation, for example, and I’m at the 5th one. Obviously the org is much more bulbous at the lower grades. I have a team of 15, a budget of £250,000ish and some fairly hefty legal/reputational risks. Squarely middle management, but I do have ‘senior’ in my job title.

Pretty senior - you can keep your sandwiches in the executive fridge
Very senior - you get your own shelf.