29.5k earnings who are you and how?!

[AtSea1979]

BBC reports today say the average salary in the UK is £29,500.

I earn 12k but i’m part time (otherwise 18k). I live in the north. I can only dream about earning nearly 30k. I’ve thought about retraining but I wouldn’t know where to start as the job market seems so difficult.

AIBU to think the majority of people earn much less and it’s just the minority fat cats pulled that figure up?

No pay progression is quite common in some public sector jobs. Government arms length bodies and the like might have flat pay structures because they are very limited and specific to a particular area. So they can't have across the board payscales because there isn't the same natural turnover of staff that you get in the likes of the civil service.

Not 50% of the population on less than 29.5K, no. it will be a far larger percentage than that. That's why the median average is not helpful.

Depends what you want to know. If you want to know the average salary, it's very helpful. £29500 is the average salary.

If you want to know what most people earn, it's not helpful at all.

There seems to be an awful lot of confusion in the post.

I am surprised at how many people don't know the difference between mean, mode and median.

I am also surprised at people not knowing what constitutes as full time (usually 37.5 hours per week with unpaid breaks)

There also seems to be lack of knowledge in the difference between National Minimum Wage £8.21 and Foundation Living Wage £9- or £10.55 in London. It's also different in Ireland EUR9.80.

A person working full time on NMW will earn £16k.
of course a lot of people will earn this, cleaners, shop workers, waiting staff etc. Dependant on the area they will probably earn more, recruiting and retaining staff at NMW is near on impossible.

I had a decent role in Insurance 15 years ago and earned about £34k in London. These days those roles pay £50k or so.
I now freelance and work around my kids but earn £200-£450 per day if I'm going to a client, or £30-45 per hour working from home.
I'm no fat cat, but I do have a Masters which I studied for while working full time in Insurance, and then switched career once I had kids

I'm also public sector and we've moved everyone up from the lower bands as NMW has caught up, so the lowest salaries are about £18-19k minimum.

I wish local companies did this but they just can’t afford to. 10 years ago I earned 30% above minimum wage for a fairly simple job, now I do about 5x as much for just 10% above minimum wage. I’ve even seen some companies on Indeed advertising for qualified accounts assistants with several years experience for minimum wage.

What is the average household income because Im sure I've read that average household disposal income is 28k a yr?

I earn a bit more than that but am older than the average worker! Would also like to see the mode, and this broken down by age, sex, location, education.

So much confusion about what different averages are...

Median is just the middle value @Jux @Lifecraft. Half the dataset will be above this and half will be below.

c. £40k salary working full time in finance industry, in the north. Late 30's, been there 15+ years and progressed up the ranks from NMW to middle management. DH is in a very similar position but has professional qualifications which I don't.

@whothedaddy A person working full time on NMW will earn £16k.
of course a lot of people will earn this, cleaners, shop workers, waiting staff etc. Dependant on the area they will probably earn more, recruiting and retaining staff at NMW is near on impossible. what do you mean they will probably earn more? Where are all these employers queuing up to pay more than minimum wage for basic level jobs?

All the people who can’t possibly live in London on less than £200k, how much do you think the checkout operators or baristas or street sweepers earn? Obviously it’s perfectly possible to live in London on an ordinary wage, because millions of people have to do it, in order to facilitate your lifestyles.

The thing is that the nature of our social circles is such that what we earn may seem normal to us and those around us are likely to earn the same.

I think the average salary is a mean figure so would be pulled up by the very high salaries.

Similar threads to this come up on MN all the time and it’s the same points that are made about how an average is calculated.

Fully qualified teacher in Scotland (after NQT year) now earns 27K a year, top of the scale after 5 years earns 40K unpromoted.

I would definitely be looking to study if I didn't already have a degree and earned less than that. You'd still be substantially better off while repaying your student loan (and if you weren't you wouldn't have to pay it off).

gingersausage

The company I work for is a big FM recruiter in the Uk for entry level jobs. We can not recruit and retain staff across most parts of the UK by offering NMW. minimum pay tends to be £8.51 up, working towards NLW- we do struggle to get our clients to agree to the wage uplifts though and end up swallowing the cost out of the measly profit. The industry we operate in is a race to the bottom, no-one wants to pay for anything but want gold plated service. You can't get the service without recruiting quality staff. I'm sure a lot of industries really struggle with this balancing act, such as childcare.

No-one has really answered the how part of this.

Taking risks and education- with a bit of being in the right place at the right time.

My partner earns a lot because he has taken big risks- The sacrifice also being that he works overseas a lot.
I earn my salary because I fitted in a professional qualification the equivalent to a Masters degree alongside raising a child and working full time. At one point I was working 7 days a week- the weekend paid for the childcare for the mon-fri job. I needed the Mon-Fri job as they were sponsoring me to get my qualification which would lead me to a job earning enough to support my daughter (I was a single mum at the time). I have personally fgrafted and sacrificed and spent many days up until 3am studying for my alarm to go off just 3 hours later. It was a killer.

I don't know anyone on less and everyone in the team I manage on a minimum of £10k more.

Haven't RTFT but would be interested to know if that's average pro rata or take home pay. Most of the women I know are in professional jobs and salaried at that level or above but because they work part time or term time only don't actually take home anywhere near that figure.
My salary is £30k (I work in a School in a Pastoral/Safeguarding role) but I work 4 days a week term time only so I only take home £21k.

Barbara - the conditions aren't good either. We used to be a team of 50, now we are 6 and they can't recruit anyone, they've tried a few times. The work coming in has decreased but we also work harder and harder. Most of the remaining 6 are coming up to retirement age or have passed it, so they don't want to try and find another job now. We are being exploited obviously, we all know that. We aren't kept in line with other civil servants because we are temps (for 17 years) and our agency don't care about breaching Agency Worker Regulations.

I work 30 hours, others work 37, at £8.50 an hour. I haven't left because I like working 30 hours, I don't want to work more because 30 feels like too much as it is.

Plenty of people are exploited for all kinds of reasons. Other office work in my city all pays about this amount.

I'm on 20k and I'm an apprentice. Most of my friends earn between 28k-50k. We're mid-20s.

The highest amounts are earned by my friends in finance, followed by those who started working at 18 out of school (so they've been there 6 yrs) and they're in marketing or advertising. Then comes the teachers (£35k, private schools) and then the receptionists and building managers at around £25-30.

Most friends on grad schemes are 30-40k.

We're in C London

Surrey, most of my friends are quite open about their salaries: most are on a household income of at least £80k. Many people round here have £60k+ jobs. Some on £150k.

and we are the poor ones because I only work part time for £20k!!

Salary is 35k, but I’m 30 hours so equivalent is 30k.
I’m a social worker in a city down south

My Husband earns around 50K a year as a gas engineer in London, he does overtime and private jobs! I however work 25 hours a week as a pre school teacher and earn 10K a year!! I wish I could earn 29K!!

The majority of high salaries seem to be in the south (25k - 30k for a receptionist???). But then when you consider the cost of housing in the southeast and London it doesn't seem as high. In the north the vast majority of salaries are well below 29k, but you can buy a house for 60k.

2 adults 2 disabled children, neither parent"work"but are 24 hour carers

between the 4 of us we get just under 31k a year between dla and the benefits that come after/with it and carers allowance each

i get full rent paid and full CT

im south wales