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?

@ButterflyBun I studied Law as a single parent at uni but my background meant I had no idea how to manage money beyond counting the copper jar when you need milk! I messed up my finances in the first 2 years and had a total MH breakdown meaning I had to leave or lose my child as I couldn't afford the accommodation and food,nursery and the other costs associated with having a child.
I only stayed in touch with a few on my course but we have nothing in common now but know a few high earners in other fields from uni however the wealthiest woman (I've known since we were in care together) she made her money in sales, starting with a double glazing company and moving onto cars then estate (she's only just had her first child at 40)the next wealthiest set up on her own and went through hell before it worked out for her then it nearly fell apart after her kids were born. It can be done without the early start but luck and ruthlessness plays a huge part.

Butterflybun where I live in London people can generally only buy with the help of parents & many of them have been helped to move up the ladder again by parents. They have good jobs but not on crazy money. And actually I think now it's more important how your parents can help you as opposed to how well you study & go onto earn.

So if you take my road you have the older residents like M who was a nurse & bought for a couple of thousand in the 40s & has a ok pension plus a rental flat in London she lets out. Then you have people who are in their 40s plus who have good household incomes say 100k (1 parent p/t) who massively benefited from the rise in houseprices & cheap mortgages so have 600k plus equity. I know some people who made almost a million pounds in 2 yrs. Then you have my neighbours a young family on about 200k who moved here for the schools & pay 2.5k to rent & 3k in childcare, no family to help with money or childcare. They are saving like mad to stay in the area but need a hefty deposit. So I do understand the I earn x but can't afford this posts.

It’s definitely hard work QueenOfPain, but that doesn’t counteract what I’m saying about how once you have experience nursing can be a very well paid job. Lots of jobs are incredibly hard work! Of course at the start when you’re on the lowest salary you’ll be on as a nurse it isn’t loads and can feel not enough for the stress and workload but if you stick it out it’s financially worth it. Whereas many carers and HCAs are working just as hard but with much less pay and no hope of progression.

CherryPavlova

I mean studying for a masters on top of two jobs or doing a second job in addition to your full time work to broaden your c.v.

Yep. I did voluntary work, 4-16 hours per week on top of my full time job for several years (ten!), and for my masters worked eighty hours per week not including time spent on academic work for ten months solid during placement. So many people said they couldn’t do it when it meant working seven days per week, usually 9am-midnight on weekdays, but I decided I was going to and did it, and the reward has been immeasurable.

@Dongdingdong

That’s a pretty one dimensional understanding of all of the different roles of nurses and the different settings we all work in.

I’m a nurse, and I earn around £46k but I work in a dual role in a not for profit based in an A&E department; seeing, treating and discharging or making speciality referrals for people with primary care problems or lower acuity problems that have attended A&E and don’t need to see an A&E doctor (but might still need admission). The organisation I work for also runs the county out of hours GP service, and the other part of my role is to take charge of this service when it is operational. Within the A&E side of my role I also do shifts running the DVT service, as well as ED clinical assessment which is phone triage of patients that 111 have advised to attend A&E within the hour.

Museum curator in London on 27k here

@Dongdingdong starting salary for a newly qualified RN is around 24.5k moving up to around £29k at top band 5 but then if you are promoted to band six it goes to between 30k-37k annually basic full time then at band 7 which is my banding (specialist nurse) the range is from £37.5k to 43,772 plus enhanced unsocial payments which for nights and Saturdays are time and a third and Sunday's or bank holidays are time and two thirds. So if move up ranks as a nurse can end up very well paid.

Midwife in London (Well due to start my first role after qualifying next month) and starting on £29k plus extra for unsociable hours. After 9 months I can move to band 6 so will be going up.

My last job though aged 25 with no qualifications apart from GCSEs was £28k plus £6k bonus, Monday to Friday 9-5. Team manager in a call centre......but I hated the job with a passion. I wanted to retrain to do something I loved. Let's face it....I will probably be working till I can't anymore. I may as well enjoy what I do.

I also have a lot of friends who went to private school whose parents are now paying for the grandchildren to attend as the fees are so high

I am a clinical specialist in corporate world. My international job pays just shy of £100K.

" isabellerossignol Thu 22-Aug-19 11:01:11
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."

It can be hard to compare situations. I am surprised if you went to a grammar school you did not have freedom to go to the library - did your parents lock you up at weekends for religious reasons so you would not mix with people with different view points or may be you were in the middle of the country side? You could certainly get a bus, walk or cycle to Newcastle central library and there was a small local library in walking distance of my house where you could order books from the bigger libraries.

My parents encouraged us to pick jobs we would find intellectually interesting. I don't think they would have put us off teaching as my mother was a teacher so I am not sure my family really resulted in my being a lawyer. The schools careers office suggested librarian or probation officer. I used to liek Crown Court on the TV so saw lawyerson that - most children my age would have seen that on TV. It is just interesting working out why each ofu s end up where we do. However accept some families do not allow children to watch TV .

I would say a core influence fo rme was reading book after book after book from all ages and times so I had a kind of internet in a sense at my finger tips. I read about the poor, slaves, the rich, all sorts in all times of history. That is probably more than anything else what gave me my window on the world.

The majority of people (ie more than 50%) earn less than that as the top end earners (CEO’s, Sportsman etc) earn way more and lift the average up.

You only need what you need anyway. I’ve seen people still on trains at 9pm commuting back from London. What sort of a life is leaving the house at 6 and getting home at 10.

It can be hard to compare situations. I am surprised if you went to a grammar school you did not have freedom to go to the library - did your parents lock you up at weekends for religious reasons so you would not mix with people with different view points or may be you were in the middle of the country side?

You can be surprised if you like, but I can assure you it's true. I had a very religious upbringing. I went to school and church. My parents were fairly liberal compared with some of the girls I was at school with, but no, I didn't have the freedom that you are referring to. It was not an option for me to pack up at 18 and go to university to study law (which was something that I did actually quite fancy doing) because my father didn't allow it.

I earn 40k plus bonus of up to 25%.

I dont have any qualifications above a level. I work in contact centres. I actually love it, though people dont. I started in the ohoens on 18k and quickly got promoted to 28k. It seemed to take ages to get more after that.

I have worked in various departments for one employer making my very valuable to them. As a result someone who left, asked me to join them 6 months after they left.

To get me to leave they had to offer way above what I was on. Which is how I got this wage.

Within contact centres I have learned lots of roles. Continous Improvement, complaints within a regulatory environment, technical complaints, work planning and dispatch etc. I have done endless courses on people management. Taken the bits I like from each one. Every team I have led in the last 8 years had improved and exceeded their targets. Those things have impacted my job scope more than anything else I have a range of skills and experience that is difficult to come across.

Is this just a self bragging thread?

I’m in the SW, work FT and earn £55k before bonus. As to the how, a combination of luck and hard work. I am lucky to be academically bright, and I’ve always worked very hard at school, university and beyond.

I didn’t earn particularly well during my 20s, as I did a PhD (£12k annual stipend) and then worked for a number of years in an interesting but underpaid field. However, I was then able to capitalise on the combination of academic qualifications and niche experience to move sideways into a more lucrative area. In a sense, the years of low-ish salary were an investment for earning better later, but it was still a combination of luck and judgement that led me into a field where that was possible.

My parents have always been supportive, but didn’t go to university or have professional jobs themselves, so didn’t have much ‘insider knowledge’ to impart.

Is this just a self bragging thread?

I think this attitude can be damaging to career and pay progression especially for women.

By being conditioned to to see discussing wages and how people got to earn decently or well, as bragging and something negative you are also isolating people.

It also increases people feeling imposter syndrome

What is wrong about saying what you earn and how you got there?

It was threads like these that encouraged me to develope my skills and see where other opportunities could lay for me.

Companies love the 'talking about wages is bragging' culture. Because it enables them to pay the lowest wages they can get away with. Which again, badly impacts women.

If more people were open about wages, people would be able to career plan better, know what they will earn if they put work in for a promotion and know if they are being paid the going rate for their work and not being tske the piss out of.

My old company tried to discipline people who talked wages. Until it was pointed out they couldnt legally do that. It was peoples personal information and they could share it if they wished. The reason being it kept wages lower and made people less inclined to ask for a pay rise.

Isabelle, thanks for the answer. I certainly know in some UK communities such as the hassidic jews and plenty of others even if girls have a legal freeomd at 18 to leave home, get a student loan etc the psychological effect of having to lose your whole family and having been brought up not to countenance that can certainly limit the abilities of girls to do what they want to do. let us all hope we can ensure our daughters don't feel similarly limited)

let us all hope we can ensure our daughters don't feel similarly limited

Absolutely. My own daughter is being encouraged to pursue whatever she wants to pursue.

Thanks for answering so comprehensively before I got back to the thread Ilikethisone. Agree with every word you say.

I refuse to feel guilty or like I’m ‘bragging’ for talking about my career and professional achievements/education to another woman who has asked what sort of jobs she would be looking at to earn £29k.

Growing up I only ever assumed I’d earn NMW at the very most, despite being bright, as it was what everyone else around me was on. I always had the mentality I was lucky to get a job stacking shelves cos that was drilled into me. And assumed nobody would ever want to pay me more than the bare legal minimum. My self esteem was fine, I just had no examples of anyone earning more or having a career.

I remember thinking £18k was unimaginable riches and being utterly shocked at a contact getting a new job on £30k, it felt as out of reach as a lottery win.

Threads like these show people what avenues to consider exploring if they want to boost their income. You don’t know what to work towards without seeing examples. I was 24 before I realised that as someone who really enjoyed helping others I could go study to be a social worker. Before that I’d assumed it was a job you could only fall into if you’d been in similar caring roles since school, and as I left school and worked in retail and had been rejected for a few office jobs I genuinely assumed I was stuck in retail forever. An ex said I should look into social work and if he hadn’t I’m not sure how long it’d have taken me to figure out I could achieve more than working in a supermarket.

I went to a school in a rough area where achieving 5 GCSE grade Cs was seen as the pinnacle of achievement, and stuff like going to uni or having a career was never mentioned let alone encouraged. As a bright kid who loved animals I was advised to go into working in a kennels. And with two parents who worked hard but never went to university or had careers, I had no role models to look to for how I’d secure a job earning more than NMW or choose a ‘career’. It was the most common outcome that you’d leave school, maybe go to sixth form, and then get a job in a shoe shop!

Threads like these are important and it says a lot about people’s attitudes that anyone could consider women talking about their careers and salaries as bragging.

@lifecraft that was kind of my point so few people earn what the footballer does ( whether 1 million 15 Million or 100 million) that though it skews the mean it doesn't make a huge huge difference as so many people earn around the median which is why the median is not that far below the mean and I agree with you the median is a much better measure but for full time workers there is not a lot of difference

if you add in part time workers of course the variables will be bigger but then you are really comparing apples with pears.

only 1 in 1500 people earn over 100K

Seriously. We know that one of the things that holds people from more disadvantaged backgrounds back is simply not knowing - not knowing what is possible, what qualifications might be needed or might help, what salaries might be available with the right experience and focus. What is this thread, but an opportunity for people who don't necessarily know people who make £29k or above to see what's possible and a whole range of options to earn that wage or above? And I'd be more than happy to advise anybody by PM who was interested in getting into organisational psychology (which is what I do) or specialist HR.

No, it is absolutely not bragging

Women earning what some people earn here should be celebrated and praised (as should the lower earners too!)

Good on you for earning 100k+ I wish that I did!

Money wasn't discussed much at home. The main lessons were "always talk to the bank before the bank has to speak to you," (Dad) and "always make sure you have a running away fund" (Mum). Both sound advice, but there's a whole load of other stuff on top of it.

I never knew what my father earned till he died and I had to pass on his P45 to HMRC. In my extended family, the only jobs I learned most about were farming, teaching and academia. I didn’t know what jobs were high or low paid, no one really spoke about that to me. I grew up in tied housing, so I didn't hear much about mortgages or anything, either, and my parents never had money to help out much. I now work in IT on an above-average salary, but it wasn't a straight path and not where I ever expected to end up. It is mostly just luck that I learned I need to ask for payrise and so on. I don't think I'm that unusual in receiving little financial education. I came out of school with the idea that if you worked hard, you would get good exam results, then good jobs, and your hard work would be recognised and you'd be rewarded with payrise and promotions, which has mostly turns out to be bollocks, you have to ask for it. But it probably took me 15 years before I understood that and even as a graduate trainee, no one really explained anything to me about career management - I think they still wouldn't have, had it not been for our women's network at work - I have a lot to thank them for, they do quite a good job on trying to fill in these gaps in our education. I suspect not everyone is so lucky.

I think people should be praised too. And also it's worth noting that it's never too late to improve your situation. I spent my 20s in particular absolutely miserable as despite being bright, well educated, reliable and keen to progress I found every door shut to me. I had an ok job, but it was just ok. I begged for training, the opportunity to progress etc and was met with 'who do you think you are?'. I worked longer and longer hours trying to prove myself but I had no option for professional study because I couldn't afford it. Actually, that's a trap that people fall into too. Professional exams cost thousands and if you're in a low paid job you can't afford to pay for them upfront, and you aren't earning enough to get a career development loan because they are geared at people who already have a decent income. I spent my 20s desperately job hunting to try to move to a better job, with training etc, but was knocked back constantly because...I hadn't undertaken any training in my existing job. Then you get to your 30s and people start saying you're too old to be a trainee, they want a recent graduate. I ended up having a complete breakdown and struggling with self harm and suicide attempts because all I wanted was to prove myself and all I was hearing was that I wasn't worth anyone's time.

I've banged my head against a brick wall for 20 years and I have now got an entry level job in the field I want to work in. It's too late for a high flying career because I'm unlikely to have enough years left to reach what I had hoped for, and some of my contemporaries are planning for retirement when I'm trying to find enough money to pay for exams. If I thought about it too much, I'd be back to having another breakdown. So I don't think about it.

It is not always possible to improve your situation, mainly due to financial constraints, but the one thing that it never is is too late.