What’s a ‘good salary’ these days?

[Falalaalalalalaaaah]

inside and outside London?

When I was younger, I always thought 50k+ was a ‘good salary’, finally made it up there and I feel money slips through my fingers faster than when I earned half that.

dont get me wrong, high interest rates, inflation and cost of living, children and lifestyle inflation have all played a role. But it got me thinking, as the term ‘good salary’ is used quite loosely, what do people mean with that broadly? And what’s the difference inside and outside London.

disclaimer to say I’ve worked In London, but never lived in London.

Wages need to rise for everyone. There's no easy way to have these discussions as Brits we skirt around finance too much.

I don't blame anyone for earning £35k at all and people can absolutely be proud of working hard, but that also doesn't mean we shouldn't all be joining unions and fighting for better pay and working conditions.

its criminal wages are so low people require universal credit to survive, this is not okay and government must do more.

I usually try to stop myself from picking apart other people's spelling on social media but if you are going to write about low standards, you need to make sure you know the difference between except and accept.

So unnecessary.
Added nothing to the thread .

I live in the south east but not London. I earn about 40k and think it's a good salary.

I was typing quickly, I'm sorry it offended you I used the wrong words, my apologies!

Work in london, live in cambridge. Salary £80k, mortgage £500. I live comfortably with me, DH and 2 kids. Comfortable but not rich. I said good salary is £150k with today conditions.

Absolutely.

but aside from the living wage, I don’t know what the government can do to increase people’s earnings when they earn about the minimum wage that wouldn’t be inflationary.

i think they can put pressure on companies with a certain headcount to offer better family leave.

i do think here people are too loyal for their own good, and because of that companies pay as little as they can, keeps the cost down for them, great for shareholders, bigger bonuses for the execs meanwhile the little people don’t progress with proper remuneration. But I guess it’s supply and demand isn’t it, if there’s too few jobs on certain areas then companies will pay less because they can. People need to break with this company for life mentality.

You’ve got quite a low mortgage for your income (obviously don’t know what your husband earns).

I felt rate shock… big time, my monthly payments went up by £550 a month

Single parent on 26k
I'm reliant on food banks and just taken on a pt cleaning job,
I have 2 degrees live in SE.

75k is my living in dreamland idea.

I wouldn't correct someone on a different kind of thread. There are posts from women in terrible relationships or who are struggling with parenting which are very badly written in terms of spelling and grammar.
I would never correct them. That would be a really shitty thing to do to someone who needs support.

I can't see the problem with picking up poor spelling in a post by someone who thinks that 35k is a rubbish salary, presumably feels entitled to be paid much more but makes the sort of mistake that you would expect from a primary school pupil.

I agree with this. I live in London. Perhaps slightly higher because £33,000 is average, so "good" is maybe approximately £38,000 upwards.

It's still smug, rude and unnecessary on any thread @cariadlet

Actually, I'm paid a lot more than £35k people are allowed to make mistakes?

It's clear I've offended or upset you and for that I can only apologise it genuinely wasn't my intention to offend you.
There's nothing more I can do, other than to express I'm sorry...

I'm on £33k but mortgage free in a 2 bed flat, loads of disposable income and don't worry about putting the heating on or spending on the things we enjoy.

If you have lifestyle creep and always go for the bigger and better then you'll never feel like you have money because the mortgages gets bigger and the car gets more expensive etc.

The average UK salary is about £34k, so anyone earning £35k is not earning a "good" salary. I'd say outside London but in a city around £70k and above is a good salary. My son and his wife( v early 30s) have a joint income of around £150k, as do their close friends( some earn more), they are all various types of professionals, I think that is good for their age, but will increase as they continue up the career ladder.
Inside London a good salary must surely be over £100k.

I've only reached the 'shitty' wage of 35k ish in the last few years. I'm a single mum of two children, and it felt like we could just about breathe for the first time ever.
People should have a little look out of the window before writing some of the tone deaf nonsense I see posted here.
Most of us work hard on wages that MN would be ashamed of - if we're lucky.
I am highly educated and if you read my CV you'd think I was a high powered so-and-so. But I'm not.
We live in a small house - that I own - with a dated kitchen and bathroom that would make MN squeal in agony.
We need to have a proper think about what success looks like, and stop the lifestyle porn.

I think perhaps good and high aren’t the same thing because actually 35k is above average (by your own reference point) and someone could consider that good. Whereas I think 75k mark is a high salary.

i live in a city and im 55k and dh 58k both in finance. I’m not saying that they are good or high (actually I don’t feel they are high) but I dont know many other friends who are on comparable incomes

@MotherOfRatios but the vast majority of jobs pay no where near that amount.

I work in the public sector and obviously some of our conditions are better than the private sector but £70k is a:
Chief inspector in the police
Senior leader in a school on L20
Band 8 nurse with 5 years at that level
Deputy Director in the Environment Agency

How can you possibly think everyone should aim for that salary when there are so few jobs?

Salaries in the UK are crap, they have stagnated for years & allowing for inflation many are earning what they did 20 yrs ago or less. Plus there aren’t enough 100k jobs for everyone.

That was my point, it’s supply and demand and not everyone has that skill or ability to work at that level.

im in finance so private and that would be the top end of a snr manager role at a big big bank. Normally you need over a decade of experience for that role (more for that salary) and some big deliverables, and ability to work at high pressure. It’s not attainable for most, there’s also a fair amount of precariousness in those roles because they are the classic ‘mid management’ that’s quite easy to get rid of when the annual redundancy programme rolls around (tongue in cheek on the annual redundancy programme)

@MotherOfRatios - I didn't see your reply to my original post (I was typing while you posted it). Sorry!

My second post was unnecessarily harsh because I found the tone of @Wheelyfast's quote tweeting rather annoying and I wrongly took that out on you.

I wasn't offended by your spelling mistake per se. It irritated me because you're clearly a very high earner who seemed dismissive of a fairly average salary. I earn about 5k more than the 35k you seemed to look down on and I feel well paid. A basic spelling mistake by someone in that situation and with that apparent attitude irritated me more than it would have in other circumstances.

I shouldn't have been an inverted snob. As you said, we all make typos.

@Persista I agree there is some shitty comments regarding wages /lifestyles it's Mumsnet I take most of it as bollocks. It's a huge forum and it makes people feel a bit invincible so they just word vomit. I'm 'northern' where all the houses are cheap according to Mumsnet. Most things said on here would never actually be said in a real life conversation x

I work in community development and our salories are benchmarked at 24k. The ony people who can afford them are young entry level post graduates who've returned home or people who's partners have a job that subsidises the low pay. It's not really an entry level job, but the job satisfaction is quite high.

If a graduate can come straight out of university at 21 yrs old and be offered a certain starting salary, then in my mind earning any less than that is not what I'd personally consider a 'good' salary.

That'd be my benchmark but I can see there is already a wide range of expectations.

I think of 65k as a good salary and 150k a high earner.