I know I'm being U to ask, but I'm curious...

[Payrise]

I've recently left a job after 8 years.

In those 8 years my pay rose just less than £2000, due to company wide pay rises but sometimes I'd get a little extra (ie the company got 2% but I got 5). I was rewarded in other ways - I was supported through a professional qualification - but not through promotion. This was working for a massive, national company that you would have heard of.

I'm just curious to know how much your pay has increased if you been there a similar length of time, or even less.

I've been where I am a few years, earn just above min wage. We get a pay rise when min wage catches up. So maybe every two or three years, there's not a set amount we are above, they decide when it's within a few pennies to up it by 20p or so and then we wait until min wage catches up. We do have more responsibility than min wage staff.

Is the £2000 before or after deductions?

I have been with the same company for almost three years, but I have worked in the sector for almost nine years. My income has significantly increased in those years, but in my industry (actuary) there is a very certain expectation about wages and experience level.

I would probably think a £2000 raise was a joke, it isn’t even hugely significant if someone is on £20k a year.

I was on about £20,000 when I started and when I left I was on about £22,000.

Due to the professional qualification, I've left for a job paying a lot more. It's made me realise how undervalued (and underpaid!) I was, so I was just wondering if this was normal, or was I a mug to stay there for so long?

I work for HE and we go up a payscale point every year for the first 5 years. It's about £800 annually whether we do anything useful or not

They are paying for a professional qualification for me and I can apply to jump up a whole band after that and thats a much bigger jump, £3000-£10000 depending on what you can negotiate

Depends on your industry to some extent, some sectors are well known for having very low pay levels with strict banding that means your salary goes up very little.

Not sure that using an actuary salary is a particularly good comparison Simon . I work in retail & I did increase my salary by moving to a different retailer but annual increases are very low.

I started my job almost exactly 8 years ago too - my salary, with inflation and annual increments has gone up by around £15k
Saying that I'm at the top of my salary scale now so it wouldn't increase so much in the coming years

I only get a pay rise if I ask for one and the boss is so tight it turns into a saga that drags on for weeks , very unprofessional.

In my experience staying anywhere too long isn't conducive to pay rises. It's changing jobs and challenging what you are worth.

When you say 'supported' through a professional qualification what exactly do you mean, and was the work involved in this something that required time and effort that might have affected your performance if you had been promoted?

I worked in one job for 8 years. My salary increased by £4K in the first 2 years then nothing. No pay rise in 6 years was a huge factor in me moving on.

20k in the last 8 years but I’ve had two promotions in that time. If I’d stayed in the same role it would be about 8k I think.

I'm a solicitor. No pay increase in the 2 years I've been with my firm.

They paid for it but I've been doing it very much in my own time.

I work in the construction industry, in HO. Or I did.

There's very little opportunity for promotion. Generally, when people are promoted they've just been given the role. There's no chance for anyone else to apply. You don't even know there's been a position available until you're told it's been filled by so - and - so.

I'm in the charity sector so not known for its amazing pay but I've gone up a pay grade point annually for the past 6 years and we've had organisation-wide pay rises every year, usually about 2%. So my pay has probably gone up by £8-10,000.

About 2000 gross in seven years. Most years there is no pay rise.

I worked for the same
Company for over a decade. Started on around 25k, I went part time after my DD was born and was on 28 k when I left ( that's after pro ration) so around 45k full time.
Pretty standard in my old industry

The best time to negotiate your salary is when you start a new job as pay increases are usually minimal.

Over three years, especially since you gained qualifications, 10% over three years seems pretty low for some in the earlier stages of a career ladder.

In general, company pay rises tend to undervalue employees. You will (again, in general) make more money if you chop and change jobs every few years. Did you ask for a pay rise/promotion while you were there?

Sorry - just realised it’s over 8 years not 3. That’s actually really bad OP*. Thank goodness you left. The qualification thing isn’t a bonus to be added in to your idea of how they pay you. One of the reasons to go with a company who will sponsor a qualification is because you expect a significant pay rise on its completion. It isn’t a reason for feeling like you’re being grabby leaving if they aren’t paying you your worth at the end of it.

In 7 years my salary has gone up by 12%. In that time my role has increased hugely. I have been covering for my line manager who walked out a couple of years ago and wasnt replaced.

I am trying to get the salary of a member of staff increased. He isnt on a huge salary but the hoops I am being forced to jump through are ridiculous. You would think I was asking for him to be paid in sackloads of uncut diamonds.

The problem is that the person I am having to deal with is an overpaid jumped up twerp who is a complete waste of office space. He cant see that junior team members will move on if they dont get paid properly. Of course since he performs no useful function himself he cant see that other people are useful and would be sorely missed if they left.

Senior managers are short sighted. They dont see that retaining good staff is important for the company as a whole. They dont see that replacing a good team member with a number of years of experience will be expensive, disruptive and time-consuming. All they see is that the person started as a trainee so must be replaced by a trainee.

I've never stayed in a job for that long, I've worked for the same organisation now for ten years but have had secondments, sideways moves and promotions so my salary has increased over 100% and that's in the public sector world of pay freezes, salary banding and no flexibility to give individuals raises. I'm not sure I'd expect huge raises for not doing anything different

My pay has increased by 21k in 6.5 years. Company has gone public in this time also so staff got discounted shares, save as you earn and free shares. I have £9k of free shares maturing next year. The culture is yearly pay rises of £2-3k pretty much no matter how you do. Totally different from other places I've worked where I got zip all each year. DW says I should leave but I'm no plans to ever leave at present. DW has a career - I have a 'job' and am happy enough with that.

My prev job I went from ~ £26k/annum to £39k/annum in 6 yrs (top of pay scale).
But... I had 12 yrs of previous experience & jumped jobs & payscales so fast riser due to those skills.

New job I went from £31k to £38k in 6 weeks (not really, they rejigged payscales so I just surfed on that). Will barely rise £800/yr for first 3 yrs, then finally get some moves more like £2k/annum after that up to a ceiling of £43k unless I move band... if I stay that long, anyway.

I work in the private sector. My salary hasn't increased by much at all in the last 14 years.

I joined my company six years ago this week. I started on £18k, am now on £36k. Will hopefully rise to £40k in the next two years.