To think a salary equivalent to £40k p.a. Is not sufficient for...

[CruCru]

...the sort of hours that banking interns seem to put in (according to the Times). It sounds hellish.

It is also completely unreasonable to expect interns to work for free - it means only those with wealthy parents can afford to get this sort of experience.

'Diddums' to you too. FYI - I do not get paid overtime, and I would not be going home at 3am if all I was doing was surfing the net. I don't stay in work to 'show face', I stay at work because I am working and not snoozing or cyber loafing. In case you're wondering why I'm on the net now, it is because I have been sent abroad.

But the point still stands - I'm not actually much better off than some other people earning less, because of the debt. I sometimes wonder if I hadn't gone to uni, had started working younger and not taken out loans etc. I might have been leading the sort of life that I am dreaming of, like my brother. I sometimes think young people are misguided in thinking that they 'have' to go to uni and then have to 'succeed' in a high flying job.

On the other hand, I have no intention of quitting any time soon. The thought of getting paid a lot more on qualification is too tempting. However I give it only 5 more years before I burn out. There aren't many women who make it to the top in my career anyway.

I am a senior city solicitor (currently on mat leave) and I am very familiar with this culture. Similar to the poster above, I was state school / Oxbridge educated - these internships are very hard to get and as someone suggested would still be hard to get if they were unpaid.

£40k p.a. Is a lot of money vs eg national average. However as someone pointed out, it is pro rated over a 6 week internship.

However...

... Generally speaking, bankers and lawyers don't get paid six figure salaries to do 9-5 low stress jobs (as the poster above has pointed out). These jobs are INCREDIBLY stressful, you are essentially expected to be on call 24/7 and there is no real respect for work life balance. People who don't work in the city often cannot comprehend that you can't just go home at 8pm (or 9 or 10 or even sometimes after an all-nighter). You go home when the deal is done and not before. There may be some 'face time' in some organisations (not mine - when I am quiet or done for the day I get the hell out) but I would say the main reason people work 40 hour stints without a break is because the client wants the deal done. They are paying top top rates for a Rolls Royce service.

I acknowledge that £40k pro rated is an awful lot of money for a student to earn in the holidays (and I fully agree that eg nurses and doctors also work crazy hours for a lot less money) but do not underestimate the enormous pressure these jobs entail.

People make their own choices however and generally know what they are signing up to.

xoaozhu I'm not talking about you, you're not an intern

Also - someone said above this culture would come to an end if senior partners would agree to get something out by lunch time vs first thing in the morning. This is an exaggeration but the sentiment is there.

This is the issue however. The top eg five law firms / banks have to differentiate their service and they will NEVER agree to provide something at eg lunchtime if a competitor will deliver it in the morning (or preferably overnight). This has been exacerbated by the financial crisis where firms have to justify their charge out rates.

Rant over...!

A junior doctor starting their first job earns a basic salary of £22,636 according to this website:

www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/doctors/pay-for-doctors/

Bear in mind that the monthly pay will vary depending on the amount of on-call the doctor is required to do e.g. Working evenings, weekends and nights.

They get a banding supplement accordingly- either 50% or 40% of their basic salary. Seemingly not bad at all, although this is after 5/6 years of study and a mountain of debt...but definitely not the figures that sensationalist newspapers like the Daily Mail like to write about!

timeforgin - I'm not sure I did quite realise what I was signing up for actually, although obviously not totally clueless. I really, really thought that I would be better off as £40k sounded like such a lot. I was naive and really hadn't processed the debt repayments, cost of living in London etc etc. I just though, 'well, £40k is a fortune'. Plus I never thought in a million years I'd marry this young.

I look back and laugh at myself for hoping that I was going to buy a Mulberry handbag with my first paycheck. Yeah rrright!

Gosh. My dh would love that sort of stress for £40k.

As it happens he is a retail manager of sorts, working sometimes up to 60 hours a week, over 7 days a week, never has 2 days off in a row at all, often starts at 7.30am and often working till 10pm. Last week he had the privilege of cleaning a human shit off his shop step as a customer who has been causing problems decided that would be the way to get back at the company. This was after said customer and others verbally abusing him and so on.

The salary for all this?

£15k.

But to be honest, dh is just happy to have a job.

'This has been exacerbated by the financial crisis where firms have to justify their charge out rates.'

Plus cut costs by making redundancies or not keeping on trainees on on qualification - thus more work to go round fewer lawyers.

Several different issues going on here.

I know plenty of people who work close to 100-hour weeks simply in order to make ends meet because they are on NMW. No one seems to bat an eyelid at that.

So it's not about the hours. Therefore, it must be about the profession. Despite the 'love to loathe' niche of City bankers, it clearly remains a prestigious role. Money talks I suppose and wealth is self-perpetuating

A salary of £40,000 puts you well above 75% of the rest of the country. A few thousand more would put you in the top 10%.

I fail to see why a bankers job is more important than say a nurses or police officers job just shows you money does make the world go round

Fairylea - your husband's job sounds tough and that is a pretty low salary. But, does he get paid overtime? Does he have student debt? And do you have to live in an expensive place?

I take your point though - at least I have a job. I should really be more grateful. I just wanted to point out that not everyone who earns £40kpa is rolling in it...

40k is tons! is that what interns get really? Its higher than my dh wage - a senior doctor who often does a 96 hour week.

He doesn't get overtime. As a manager it is expected that he will do whatever needs doing to fulfil the role.

And yes he does have a student loan. He has a degree, a first in sociology.

We are lucky in that I used to have a very good job a long time ago (I am older) and when I lived in London I was a senior marketing manager, so I was able to put down half the equity for our home, which is now in Norfolk and dh works and I am a sahm. It suits us fine. We manage. Its not ideal, ideal would be a bit more money but I didn't want to work anymore and dh did, and there aren't many jobs about up here but we wanted to move out of London.

I'm not playing a violin and implying life is awful for us, it's not at all. But the discrepancy in wages does make me smile. I don't think stress levels are accurately reflected by salaries at all.

I didn't say it was more important - I don't think anyone was insinuating that at any point.

I think nurses are grossly underpaid for the work they do.

Many people I know work in vastly underpaid jobs, including those which are v high stress.

My point was solely that it should not be underestimated how stressful these jobs are, and how oppressive the culture can be. Also as the poster above points out, living in central London also leaves you with a lot less of a disposable income than one might expect especially when you are junior.

I of course do not doubt that there are other less 'glamorous' (though it always makes me laugh to hear this description - it is never used by any lawyers or bankers I know) more poorly paid and stressful jobs out there than an internship at Goldman (and we all make our own choices) but that was not the point of this thread.

I wasnt actually saying it to anybody in particular just saying it IYSWIM

Interns get that?! I work for longer, have debt and things needing to pay for and get 12k a year.

Another thing - my parents just retired at 55. We never talked about money but I don't think he was on more than £40k, and my mum was on NMW working part time. However my dad was on a final salary pension scheme - something that many baby boomers have benefited from but which workers my age can only dream of.

Interns are PRO RATA ie were it a year it would be 40k. It's often 12wks to 6mths so it's a proportion of that total amount.

IF your young intelligent able to pass exams why wouldn't you do this job? It's interesting. It's cutting edge and its often right on the historical pulse. Decisions mean something. It off sets the monotonous days certainly.

But you deal with the devil at your own risk.

I think it's fine. What you are working for is the potential to earn a lot more.

Er £40 K is tons. YABU. I agree the hours are unreasonable, but the pay is amazing for an intern.

£40K is a lot. Agree about not being able to work for free though!

I'm against interns working for free because it means only those rich enough to do so and with mummy and daddy to rent them somewhere in London and support them can do it. That's not the best way to get the most talented young people! Just the richest! You at least need to pay a salary comparable to entry level office work for example, but make sure they see the potential to earn much more after the internship

£40k is a lot of money! I'd do it!

People who earn that much put in the hours for it. I worked in a city law firm but left as I couldn't cope with the lack of control I had over my life. I lived in fear of being asked to do something that would involve staying late or working the weekend. Lots of people I know still do it for the money. Good luck to them but they work hard for teir money and I think they earn it!

Ps, 40k is nothing in London when a 3 bed terrace house in zone 3 costs £800k!

They don't actually get £40K though, as its pro-rated they get about £4K as they only do about six weeks (the summer interns where I worked did anyway).

As someone else pointed out, a lot of the stress is to do with the client. It's all very deadline driven particularly in M&A.
As a similar example to show it doesn't just happen in banking though, my DH, an architect, has been working 12-15 hour days the last couple of weeks because a client who had parked a project suddenly decided they wanted it by the original deadline after all and DH's management, as they do in this climate, didn't push back but rather took it. I've had similar long days and a couple of all nightets in previous jobs (in finance - you won't find too many senior people in the office at 3am on a Sunday - the long hours are, sadly, part of the culture for juniors and for the most part they do it because its the way to get ahead )