To ask your salary, profession, location and years of experience

[Nosey77]

I know I am being really nosey and it's not very British to talk money. I was inspired by another thread where people are asking questions to all sorts of careers.

I was just wondering if people could take part and say what they do, how much they earn and where they are. Also, could you also provide advice on how to enter the profession and whether you recommend it. Thought this might be more u self than just go ogling as I get real life opinions and have found the other thread really insightful

Please let's not make anyone feel bad for what they are. I'll start

Retail assistant, 3 year, Leeds, £6.50ph. Whilst I actually enjoy it, I'm looking to leave. No advice needed - just hand in tour CVs

jcscot

priceless!

Scientist in a large chemical company. Don't work in lab any more, manage the people who do.
£36k PT salary (plus dental care, healthcare, life insurance, pension, generous sick pay, maternity pay etc etc)
Excellent exam results at school followed by Sandwich degree (earnt £12k pa during my sandwich year), doctorate (stipend of £6k pa) and post-doc (earnt £16k pa in my post-doc). Only applied for jobs in pharma/biotech industry after first postdoc (you don't want too many postdocs if you want to go into industry). Over 10 years industry experience. Job pretty much 9-5.

DH is a software engineer. £45k FT salary. Degree, masters and doctorate in astrophysics. Looked at postdoc salaries in astronomy (a pittance!) and got a graduate entry software job with large firm. Could earn more if went into management.

drinkscabinet
I had 14 years post-doc experience (4 different jobs) before I went into industry into quite a senior job. The breadth of experience made all the difference, as did the amount of management experience!
That definitely wasn't 'too many' although I would agree that 30 years as a post-doc might be a barrier.....

I know the figures are huge but the law, and especially city law firms, are a mug's game. The people that thrive in that environment are a particular type of character. If you haven't thought of being a city lawyer until you saw the salaries here it isn't for you. Honestly.

I had to scroll back to read jcscot's post. Back bone of the country with free humour

Zombie - work in a school where noone else will and you get nicely financially compensated :). At my previous school I had an average teacher salary. You can't do it just for the money though, you have to really want to.

Retail management.
£14.98 per hour.
I have been in retail for 17 years and worked my way up from part time assistant to the job I do currently.
My hours change weekly and fit around the kids and I work opposite shifts to DP.
If I could start over again I would have done something more vocational at uni and tried to get a job with Mon - Fri regular type hours.
It has been easy to get into this position through sheer hard graft and training within work but I wouldn't recommend it due to the anti social shifts.

I live in North East. Have 15 years post qualified experience and am 18 months away from my PhD. Have worked the last 20 years and I'm job hunting. The largest salary I've ever earned was 24k on a temp basis!

DH is in finance management. Fully qualified accountant, MBA, over 20+ years experience. He's stuck on 45k and has been actively looking for 3 years . If we lived in London I'd be earning 80 an hour. DH would be on 80k plus prob a 6 figure salary.

So basically I should have become a lawyer, engineer, accountant and not live in the north east

If you actually save lives and teach our future generation you do it for the love of the job .

Oh and don't live in the jobless North East!

NHS manager, £44k if full time. 15 years experience, post graduate degree.

I work in mental health! I wouldn't study the same route again. It's been pointless.

Afterthought - that's really good then! Our Assistant Principals are on these wages, your school must be really rubbish and SLT must know it to compensate with this salary. Never heard a school do this before. I suppose if you can deal with it, then it's a great bonus.

I'm a trainee lawyer, soon to qualify.

I have a BA, after which I worked in sales for 5 years before going to law school to do the conversion course and LPC.

It took me a few years to get a training contract post-law school and then it didn't start for 2 years, so I've got about 6 years' experience in litigation but only 16 months (so far, 2 to go) of those are my training contract (and I've had 15 months of maternity leave too).

I'm in the NW and currently on £21k. NQ salaries here are £26-30k, so not exactly excessive considering the time it takes to get qualified (3 years first degree, 1 year conversion, 1 year LPC and 18 months' on-the-job training - my employer allowed me the maximum 6 month training deduction due to previous experience).

I've not got an NQ job yet but hope to sort one soon!

My hours aren't hideous like those in the City. If I'd gone into it straight from uni in my 20s, then maybe that would've been for me. But I didn't and it's not, so I'll never earn the big bucks, but that's OK, as long as we are comfortable. :-)

Ghoul, on city law it depends as you say on personality type. I bound out of bed every day really happy to practise law it is like being paid a fortune to solve crossword puzzles all day - wonderful stuff. Obviously some do not like it as in many jobs. 30 years into it I love it more than ever and hope to do 30 more.

My parents always said if you can pick work you will enjoy that is the best thing. Obviously if it pays well and is intellectually stimulating so much the better too. If it is as much fun doing your work as your hobbies that is absolutely great and I am lucky that that is so. My father found that with psychiatry too and worked full time almost until he died.

"Also, could you also provide advice on how to enter the profession and whether you recommend it" - I recommend law. most people cannot pass the exams well enough so I suppose we cannot recommend it for everyone and some who are bright don't have the right personality to get jobs, stick with it and work hard enough but if you have all that yes go for it.

Part time (2 days a week) senior metering engineer oil & gas industry

£30,000pa

Husband is a Driller in Africa offshore, 28 days away 28 days home

£140,000pa

My job is easy, no stress.

my husbands job is very stressful

wow, it costs £30-£40 for me to talk to a vet for 10 minutes. That implies £150/hr. Where does all that money go?

Trout - cost of equipment, lab tests, vet nurses, etc. not cheap industry by any means. Simple diagnostic tests or x Ray machines cost money to run and maintain.

Oh plus CPD - my mate who's a top vet ends up paying for her own CPD am awful lot because it's so expensive and practice can't afford it, but it's crucial to the job of a vet to attend conferences and trAining and keep up to date

Primary school teacher with slt responsibility
About £35k
Have been teaching for 5 years.

Infant NQT (from september)
Will start on £23K which is a bit higher than expected due to living in Surrey nearish London.
Did my undergrad degree and then a years unpaid SCHITT course. 3rd generation teacher so I think I have an idea of what I'm going in to! :D Have really enjoyed the training year as the children are so rewarding to work with. Looking forward to finally being able to afford my own rent! (Thanks Mum!)

Ah. hello L

Trainee butcher / fishmonger for a well known supermarket
less than 10k
2 years
wouldn't recommend

Thank you HumanSatsuma and Beaufort Belle.

In all seriousness, I did have a decent job before I met my husband - I worked in the oil industry for a year, and then in the drinks trade (was with Oddbins for a while before doing some freelance stuff). I don't recommend being an Army wife as a career . There is a lot of movement or, if you stay put while the serving person moves around, then there's a lot of separation. My husband and I haven't actually lived together (other than every other weekend and leave periods) for the past eight years. In recent years operational tours have been more frequent than most families would like and they've not been of the less risky, peacekeeping variety either

While the Forces say all the right things with regard to career maintenance for spouses, the reality is that something has to give and it's usually the spouse that does the giving. The more capable and ambitious the serving partner, the more difficult it is one the family as the jobs given to A-streamers are demanding and stressful. The pay is good but way below what similar responsibility would get you on civvie street. The Forces expect families to put their energies into supporting the Service, which leaves little room for spouses' careers. Saying that, there can be a cracking social life and wives do support each other when needed, so it's not all doom and gloom.

At times, it feels like living in the fifties, and that can chafe at me sometimes but I focus on the children and on maintaining stability for them. We're about to move back into quarters again as we can no longer sustain fortnightly commuting and part-time family life.

I know my husband values me and doesn't take me or the family for granted and that helps - we support each other. Unfortunately, the rate of attrition for Forces marriages is high and divorce is depressingly common.

Not a "career" path I'd recommend, honestly.

jcscot moving makes it very difficult to build up networks, childcare etc to support career progression for yourself. My DH has moved several times with work and it has rather trashed several fledgling careers of mine! ( now in my eleventh house with him).
I have been struck by the lack of posts of scientific areas.

I currently work as a nurse, earn very little as very part time, satisfying job, used to be in management in a food factory, was not interesting but good pay, have been a research and development chemist, earnt same as nurse, science teacher, ditto!

headofthehive I have been thinking the same thing. Partly why I posted myself, I don't normally contribute to these things!

Consultant Ecologist (self-employed)

Around 25k but only work seasonally, so I don't work for 5 months in wintertime! I could do more hours for more money but I like actually having free time in the summer.
Degree required, I also have a MSc and PhD but decided research was not for me, plus 5 years experience, a love of wildlife and willingness to handle snakes/bats/dormice etc.

Hard not to feel sad when a nice site is going to be destroyed and this is the major disadvantage plus some clients can be absolutely horrid.

I love it now I'm my own boss but hated it in a large engineering consultancy.
Hours are very irregular and weather dependent - I'm dossing about in my pj's now but spent most of the night staring at a building with a bat detector waiting for bats to show. They didn't. Dull for me but will make a happy client!

Also an Army wife - sometimes feel like it's my (non-paying) career too!