What is happening to starting salaries in this country?!

[user8636283901]

My starting salary in 2009 - so mid-GFC - was £30,000.

That was 16 years ago! And in one of the worlds worst global recessions since the Great Depression of the '30s.

I was casually looking at starting salaries in similar fields to mine and it seems like they're barely moved, all the while the cost of living is miles ahead of where it was 16 years ago.

Why are wages so low in this country?! Why haven't they moved up?!

Wages have gone up...but only at the top level. My dad (a lawyer) was opining about salaries and how when he started a partner was paid 4x his starting salary (or maybe it was 10x, I can't remember but whatever it was it was a small number).. He now pays himself 40x a starting salary. He is a staunch labour voter and doesn't see a problem with this. He is always complaining about how he doesn't have enough money.

That Conveyancing Paralegal job doesn’t know what it’s asking for.

It says

• Good standard of education essential (minimum of three GCSE's grade C or above to include English and Maths.
• *LPC graduate/post graduate legal qualification desired
• Master's (required)

For £22.4k pa.

It also asks for

• Experience of telephone work. Experience of working in a client care environment.
• Strong administration and numeracy skills

While describing the job as ‘entry level’.

Those requirements seem inconsistent to me. 3 GCSEs and a Master’s are essential. Experience of working… and administration skills… for an entry level job?

My understanding, as this is my dhs area of expertise that this ‘realignment’ is due to QE, we are easing back into financial reality. When the economy melted down across the world, and we were working to avoid financial collapse drastic measure were taken, and we have been literally on life support ever since. It has taken 18 years and counting. We were warned it would be painful. They have managed it well, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

He doesn't see any problem with the fact that the top tier (CEOs, directors, partners etc) are paid disproportionately enormous salaries?

But other countries don't have this problem? Salaries in the States and Australia are far higher in comparison.

So many companies are actually in breach (unknowingly - no excuse!) of NMW regs. Because the technicality in the way it’s calculated for the purpose of compliance, means company’s should be accounting for salary sacrifice (but they don’t) and additional hours (which in corporate roles T&A is barely tracked). Hence someone working a couple of unpaid hours each week could be quite significantly underpaid.
Martin Lewis has just started a campaign on this, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I suspect this could be the single biggest push on wages we’ll see in a generation. Someone regularly working excess unpaid hours and paid up to about £50k a year can be at risk of a NMW breach.
It’s interesting stuff!

My boss was saying this the other way round. We don’t need a graduate for all our roles but we now have to pay £22k for an inexperienced person without a degree we may as well just employ graduates

The growth at the top has stagnated, too. Consultancy fees have more or less stagnated. If you want to see growth, look at the construction sector - someone is benefiting, judging by how much it costs to get a plumber or an electrician to come anywhere near your house.

Using a degree to sift applications is too easy. Unfortunately, it means very little in terms of talent and ability.

Great thread - this is a subject I frequently complain about especially now I’m looking for a new job and I feel it’s not discussed enough in the media or by our governments.

I’m looking for roles paying 50K-60K and they’re like jobs that carry huge responsibility like director, senior manager etc with a huge list of experience required.

My current job is not particularly senior and I don’t get paid that much less than that especially as I’m only only working 4 days a week and get to work remotely which saves a tonne of money so the alternatives don’t seem that appealing. I’m better of staying put for now.

My cousin works in the US and was on about $120,000 a few years ago (at age 35) , she came over to the UK branch a while ago and was shocked to find out her colleagues were on so much less. Even when you factored in health insurance costs she was still far better off.

Depends how part time you are though. I'm also in a leadership public sector HR role and reasonably happy with the salary, but im full time. A single parent working pt is never going to be rolling in it.

I did a Civil Service frontline job in 1992 which is still the same job title now.
1992 - £14.5 K. 2025 - £46k
Rent - share of a 2 bed flat in local area has gone from 250 to 950.
Prices to buy same 2 bed terrace changed from 75k to 550k.

Also. I had no student debt. The job is massively harder. Understaffed. Punishing fixed shift rosters. Exacting standards and targets. it’s very hard to get ahead now.

Young people can do all the ‘right things’ and work incredibly hard to be no better off than minimum wage part time workers in social housing topped up with benefits Work just isn’t working for too many people.

I can tell you now, if a director role is advertised at £50-60k then a) it isn’t a true director role b) run a mile because that company over titles and underpays.
If you periodically check back, you’ll likely see it get reposted time and time again.

I’m sorry but that is so ridiculous it’s almost funny. And since when was a masters required for paralegal. Companies here are doing the most they can to exploit people. The UK is in a bad way. And topping up wages from UC isn’t helping on the long term.

Yes definitely- I haven’t bothered applying for those jobs at all.

It makes no sense to me to get that pay for that level of responsibility. With the freelance work I do on top of my current fairly low responsibilities role I earn that.

I also don’t meet the essential criteria in some of these 50K roles anyway because they are wanting so much for so little.

That's interesting, I worked in a place about 10 years ago where the warehouse and factory workers who were hourly paid got overtime pay but office staff on salaried pay were just expected to stay late for no overtime, these jobs nowadays would probably not pay much more than minimum wage so could be the sort of thing that would be in breach. I doubt the practices would have changed.

Whoda thunk that printing money would ever be something we could get away with? Not like that's ever worked before at any time in history.....

This is what I want to know too. Why the UK and not the U.S.?

I guess various European countries have low pay but they seem to have cheaper housing and public transport and better healthcare etc

In the UK we seem to have the worst of both worlds.

Cos politics? I mean, if we were dealt a similar hand as other countries in the 2008 crash, and with covid, surely the main difference in how it was handled was the policies and decisions of the elected dear leaders at the time?

You’re spot on.
They haven’t changed, and as this becomes more widely understood it will have to.

I recently got a new job internally within the company I’ve worked at for decades.
I noticed they have advertised my old role at a lower salary , and all others jobs were lower too for anyone coming in from external.

But if wages keep rising so will the cost of living.

@Viviennemary But the cost of living has already kept rising and very sharply while wages have mainly stagnated.

Except for NMW which has risen quite a bit from what I understand? And many people on that /lower incomes are topped up by UC.

What happens to the many of us who don’t get top ups? We’re already dealing with this.

That's scary. KPMG is top flight. I would have expected it to be a lot higher.

I graduated in 1985 and my starting salary at a small systems house in London was £8,500. That's just shy of £33k in today's money, and is what I would recruit a new graduate for today. So no monetary difference.

The difference is my degree is from an inner city polytechnic. Today I could choose from graduates from higher rated universities.

And yet, whenever the public sector gets any kind of rise (barely in line with inflation, not even fully funded) everyone loses their minds.

Salaries are not high enough across the board.
The rich are getting substantially richer.
Nobody is brave enough to do anything about it.