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?

I was earning just under 36k when I left teaching last year. That was Upper Pay Scale 2 and I'd been teaching 32 years.

Doesn't surprise me at all. If we are just looking at full time workers, then even on minimum wage (8,31) the lowest salary is over 17k. People who are claiming to be on low teens salaries must be part time or need to report their employers. I work in recruitment- Health and Social care and employ a lot of office and support staff across the country. Basic admin staff or resourcers start on around 19-21k. More in London and Manchester. An office manager would expect 35-40 k plus bonus.

Anyone I know who works full time is going to be at or over the 30k mark

*@Lifecraft I was responding to you saying: Nooooooo. That's not how average works! I've said it so many times on this thread. 1 footballer earning £300K a week, 1040 people earning £14500. so 1041 people and their average salary is £29500. But 99.9% of them are earning below the average.

You’re talking about ‘mean’ as if it’s the only way of calculating the average. It’s not. Median is another. Mode is another.

Besides your calculations are way off. If you calculated the mean of the 1041 people you have data for, it would be 14,774. The median would be 14,500. The mode would be 14,500.

@ Swiftier...How are my calculations off?. 1 footballer earning £300K a week is £15.6m a year. Plus1040 people earning £14500 a year, add up the total and divide by 1041. I think it's your maths that's lacking.

Anyway, the point is, whilst average can mean various things, the default for average, as anyone with a maths background will tell you, is mean. Not median or mode, unless your told it's median or mode.

As far as I know, the £29500 is the mean, unless anyone can demonstrate otherwise.

Another social worker here, on 35k northwest. 29k is typically the starting salary for most social workers. It's one of the few areas where people can still get help to study; frustratingly though as most people are aware the job typically requires a lot of additional unpaid hours so it isn't the best deal, nor is it very family friendly. Any LA jobs that I've seen that don't require a specific qualification are badly paid now; skilled admin seem to be capped around 19k, skilled family workers around 21k in my area. The bandings for the jobs are very limited.

For someone asking about why people made the education choices they did; when I went to uni I was given the message from everyone that as long as you got a degree (in pretty much anything) that you'd be employable to a generic company for a grad scheme. Tales of people who had come out with an English degree and gone straight to work at the BBC, or a big insurance company, or a management programme etc. It wasn't until I got to uni that I found out most of the grad programmes were very specific and were only interested in those with STEM subjects.

When I retrained in social work I anticipated going on to do further qualifications to go into more therapeutic roles, as many of my older colleagues had done, but sadly the changes in fees has ruled that out now. Iv had to make peace with this job as I'm not qualified to do anything else, at least not without taking a 50% paycut or going into something equally stressful (eg managing children's homes)

@skybluee @lifecraft. The national mean is 29.5k the median is 28.4k for full-time workers
Regional differences exist but it depends how small the region is like the whole northeast is about 25k but there are pockets where it might only be 19k it just depends on how areas are sized Greater, London as a whole is 34k but there maybe small areas that are 45k

Earlier there was a poster who said they were on 18k with a post doc. Fuck me that was a massively shit career path to take... Why don’t people check out their future earning potentially before going down the path?

For me it was lack of advice in school/college and being surrounded by family who didn’t work at all, mainly for good reasons ie. disability, but all the same I had no one I was that close to that worked in even a semi-professional job. No one to put me on the right path or who could offer me work experience.

But not just that, I didn’t know that my salary wouldn’t rise with inflation (if it had I would be on at least 23k now and wouldn’t be struggling as much), or that it wouldn’t increase with good performance, extra training, more responsibility. Or even that I would be penalised for being female as I was I my apprenticeship.

Of course some of it will be my fault but I feel let down also. I want to change career but I’m not sure what I want to do

I'm curious those in social groups where you're all high earners did the career/money come before the social group or has the group come about as a result of the money/career choices?

isabell, asking about why people dont' check salaries. I did. I wanted to buy a desert island when I was a child/teenager so I asked my father how much they cost and wrote a chart - i still have it - of what money would be needed. I assumed you paid no tax and kept all your salary and could save it all (quite some misconceptions as a ten year old!!!) and the chart shows teacher and lawyer on a graph and how long it would take to buy the island (I did by the way buy it in Panama in my 40s and enjoyed it for ten years)......

Anyway I also cycled to the local library when I was in my teens to borrow a book called "What People Earn" (no internet in those days).

On this interesting quesions "I'm curious those in social groups where you're all high earners did the career/money come before the social group or has the group come about as a result of the money/career choices?" - I am not very sociable so I may not be the best example but I obviously mixed with fellow law students when I read law age 17 - 20. (I went to university a year young). My parents' advice (doctor - psychiatrist and teacher) was to pick work you enjoy and is intellectually challenging and is enough to live on reasonably well. I am sure the fact my parents both had professional jobs - consultant doctor and teacher - made it more likely we would go into that kind of job and my parents chose to pay school for us although in my own small private school in the NE most girls did not go to university and the only one on the Rich List married someone who was very rich.

With my children I similarly chose to pay school fees which for teenagers in academic fee paying schools means in a sense you buy a peer group who will all go to the hardest to get into universities. It makes my older son's choice after his degree of post man and now supermarket delivery driver all the braver - and good for him - genuinely I have no set agenda for the children. I am glad my daughters are London lawyers as that is fun and the pay is good and gives you lots of choices but there are lots of ways to be happy and lead a good life.

I'm curious those in social groups where you're all high earners did the career/money come before the social group or has the group come about as a result of the money/career choices?

Bit of both I think.

I don't have many/any childhood friends from primary school days, where you are more likely to have a diverse mix of people.

99% of my friends are from university, people I have met through work, or people I have met through my (expensive) sport. Which is all a bit self selecting in terms of socio-economic status!

I'm a nurse and earn £39,000 basic plus enhancements for unsocial. As a full
Time band 7 my salary will rise to just under 44,000 soon - whoever said nurses are underpaid 🙄

I'm in London doing mid level job earning 61.5k. Soon to go on mat leave so will be much less. Cost of living in London is ridiculous, I would say earning 30k up north is equivalent to earning 100k in London.

Xenia that's great that you did that, but also you had a father who was able to advise you. Loads of children don't have that. My parents encouraged me to do well at school for the sake of doing well at school. I was allowed to go to university, but only the nearest one, I wasn't allowed to move away from home. I didn't have the freedom to go cycling to the local library, if I had even had a bike. So I looked to teachers to advise me. Because that was the only access that I had to careers information. And I trusted them because I thought they were adults to be trusted.

I didn't have some deprived childhood, I went to a good grammar school, did well academically and went to university. But I did not have adults who could give me any advice, the only professionals in my family were teachers and all I knew was that I didn't want to be one of those. Which caused quite some shock because it was accepted in my family that teaching was the acceptable career for a female.

@TeacupDrama The national mean is 29.5k the median is 28.4k for full-time workers

I'm not surprised by the mean, but I'm staggered the median is that high.

I'm curious those in social groups where you're all high earners did the career/money come before the social group or has the group come about as a result of the money/career choices? We live in an area where a terraced house will cost at least £500k.

I haven’t worked since becoming a SAHM but 10 years ago I was on 45k (&10k bonus)
Restaurant manager central London

@lifecraft
" from the guardian The median annual income in the UK, according to the most recent Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, is £28,677 for full-time employees"

full article www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/12/salary-what-get-paid-talk-about-it-makes-brits-cringe

so few people earn over 100k it does not skew it that much
earlier someone did footballer earning 1 million and a 1000 people earning 14K the mean was 14985 but of course everyone was under it, however the ratio of people earning 1 million to those earning 14K is not 1 in 1000 but nearer to 1 in 1500+ so then the mean would only be £14,656 so 1 high salary only skews it a tiny bit
the number of people earning over 1 million is about 18,000 compared to about 23 million working fulltime and more than 9 million part time so about 1 in every 1300 so a difference of just over £1000 is about right for the difference between mean and median
when you are going the median the top 18000 earners only really knock off the bottom 18000 people on minimum wage so it doesn't skew that much only 5% earn more than 70K so if you disregard the top and bottom 5% you are looking at a spread for 90% of fulltime workers of between about 17k- 69K
37.5hours at minimum wage is 16K 40 hours at minimum wage is 17k, 35 hours is 14,9K

A PP said that they don't feel rich. The thing about "feeling rich" is that it's highly subjective and also a movable feast. If you typically have to budget week to week and have no savings, if you suddenly receive a lump sump of 3 months' income, or your income doubles, you may well feel rich. At least for a time. Then you get used to spending the extra money, and what you once considered a luxury or an extravagance begins to feel normal. You no longer feel rich.

What does "feeling rich" mean to you? Or feeling poor, for that matter?

I work in finance - you don't need any qualifications (unless doing a regulated activity such as mortgages or pensions investments although there are no qualification requirements to sit these exams so anyone can do them) and an average adviser will earn 35k a good adviser 50-100k employed. Self employed 200k is more accurate.

None of my friends earn less than 29k and we are far from being 'fat cats'!

I am Midlands based btw, I think if your research and find jobs that pay the kind of salary you want - then research entry routes to that career it shouldn't be too difficult.

Hard work required, yes but rocket science - no.

@puzzledobserver you will soon get people saying that they manage wine holidays and 2 cars on 25k and are comfortable and another bunch saying you can't survive in London on less than 75K and they feel skint on 60K
the above figures show that 50% of full time workers in London are on less than 35K ( the median for London)
only 5% earn more than 70K so although 70K is not rich rich it is going better than practically everyone and I would call it very comfortable
according to John McDonell 70K is rich and is what he means when he says rich should pay more tax

pjmask

Obviously it’s a matter of perspective, but nursing pays very well compared to many jobs. You can see nursing salaries online via agenda for change. A newly qualified nurse starts on band 5, then usually after a couple of years can move into band 6 with a specialism. Then many go on to band 7 roles which can be a sister role, or involve ward management or budget handling. At the top of band 7 you’d be on £44k currently!

Even remaining on a band 5 would see you earning £30k at the top of your banding. Plus I don’t know many jobs where every year you get a pay rise for the first 5-10 years of your career, even without promotion.

I work for the NHS and am always equally surprised to see complaints about nursing pay in the news.

I feel for the people who say their huge salaries only just about cover their cleaners, gardeners, laundry services, travel, personal chefs, butlers etc. How do the rest of us cope?
I work full-time and pay is £34k. I always thought I was well paid and have worked hard to get here.
I'm interested in the backgrounds of the people on huge salaries and if it is all down to education and hard work or, as I suspect, contacts, decent family opportunities and a financial safety blanket come in to play.
My parents and siblings only just about earn minimum wage. Growing up we were poor and further education was not seen as important. They now think I'm loaded.
One thing I've noticed in my career is the high earners tend to have parents who have helped and encouraged them, not always but certainly most of the time.
Also taking risks is all well and good if you can afford it. I've had people on work experience in their 20s who are able to pursue their dream careers and not worry about money because their families can support them.

earlier someone did footballer earning 1 million and a 1000 people earning 14K the mean was 14985 but of course everyone was under it, however the ratio of people earning 1 million to

I referenced a footballer earning £300k/week, so £15.6m a year, not £1m. You then need 1040 other people earning £14500 to balance that out give a mean of around £29500 for that group of 1041. people.

I'm a nurse and earn £39,000 basic plus enhancements for unsocial. As a full Time band 7 my salary will rise to just under 44,000 soon - whoever said nurses are underpaid

Wow @Hazza000 - I thought nurses earned around the £25k mark!

@gammastingray

Try doing the job for £24k, working weekends, evenings, nights and 3 x 13 hour shifts back to back, quick turnarounds from finishing nights 7am Monday morning and being back on a 7am start on Tuesday for a day shift. I think you’ll find with the new agenda for change pay thing that came in, there’s no yearly pay rise anymore, you’re on £24k for three years after qualifying, at which point you’d regularly be taking charge of the entire ward, holding keys, sorting everyone’s problems and probably attending daily bed meetings.

It’s thankless drudgery, especially on the wards, part of the reason I made the decision pretty early on as a student nurse that i’d never work on a ward once I qualified.

I'd consider 29k a low salary. My graduate starting salary well over 10 years ago was 24k so I've been on that or more now since about 18 months after I started full-time working.

My FTE is 77k; I earn 61k actual for 4 days. I'm not a "fat cat", I just have valuable skills and qualifications and I've worked hard, understood how to position myself in the market, changed employers to increase salary and mix of experience etc. I have certainly had help - my parents valued education and were supportive, they were in a position to help with my undergrad fees, etc, and I've worked with people and impressed them so that they subsequently referred/recommended me for jobs. No one gave me a job because I was someone's friend/daughter/whatever. Salaries are also highest in London, obviously.

DH is on 6 figures. He's not a fat cat either - he has technical qualifications and experience which command a high price in the market.