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?

Obviously i know what my husband earns and i know what work colleagues earn but that only accounts for 1 family member and 2 friends! No idea how much my BILs, SIL, or any friends outside my ow workplace work. Bizarrely my Dsis as no idea how much her DH earns!

I earn double that, mid level sales, professional. About a third is bonus. DP is a top 1% earner, profession linked to academia. We both started in the 18k jobs ( lower for me actually), if you keep moving up in some professions and are willing to train as you go along it is possible.

Maybe the circle I'm in (STEM grads, London & SE) but all my friends started on 25-35k and are now in 30s-60s with one on 6 figures (we are late 20s).

30k is very achievable with a good degree in the SE.

I'm aware we're lucky, although we both pay masses in tax personally I think that's the way it should be and am happy with that. Dp has been approached by those' wealth' manager types with their dodgy schemes and told them to do one. Some colleagues think DP is a fool, others have the same moral compass and pay their share.

I’ve found that you can’t earn a lot of money without pulling in a lot of support at home, so employing a nanny, cleaner, ironing lady, gardener etc. After a hefty tax bill, there’s really not much left

If you worked ft (and overtime) on nmw a cleaner, ironing lady and gardener would be a luxury....so how come they're a neccessity for higher earners....?

in the north I think a lot of people earn less than that, it is crazy to me that you can earn 30k doing a bog standard admin job in the south. Any job paying 30k here (Yorkshire) want you to have a specific degree for that job and 10 years experience!

I do a weirdly specific admin job and earn 21k! I feel like ive been done over a bit reading this thread! but I suppose it evens out when I consider my mortgage is probably tiny in comparison to what It would be in the south..

@Skinnychip

I can only say that I think this can be true, my Dsis and DH earn about £200k+ between them but are only able to do with a nanny and cleaner and same for many of her friends and neighbours
They both are expected to travel round the world to Europe and US frequently, attend functions, work long hours etc.

I'm London based working in corporate communications and earn double that, part of the reason I don't think we'll ever leave London or the south east is that my job opportunities just don't exist elsewhere on a salary like that (and I'm relatively junior!).

My colleagues all spend £4-6k a year on their train tickets, so it isn’t all win win.

People in poorly paid jobs would have the same travel costs though. If I had an annual train ticket it would cost me about £2500 and I'd need about another £1000 or so a year in petrol costs to get me to the station each day. That would be out of my £18k salary if I worked full time.

I’ve just worked out that I have to earn £55k gross just to pay my nanny and the employers pension, employers NI etc.

Then if I add in the gardener, cleaning lady, ironing lady and train ticket, I need to earn £75k gross just to cover those costs. And that’s before I pay for housing, bills, car, food...

I sometimes feel done over in that my job has so much responsibility, but for not much salary in my own opinion. If I let something go wrong it could be catastrophic either financially or professionally for not just myself but for my colleagues and service users. All for £32k

the average wage calculated by adding all FT salaries together and then diving is the mean average and is 29.5k this can be skewed by a few on very high salaries
the median is all FT salaries in order from largest to smallest the median being the middle one this is about 28.9K so not that different to mean average
if you earn 28.9K it means 50% of Ft time workers earn more than you and 50% of FT workers earn less
obviously there are regional variations the average in London is closer to 35K and the average in North is closer to 25K
in 2018 the median ie middle weekly salary in London was £671 or 34.8K per year this is the highest
The lowest is North East at 512 per week or 26.6K per year
so the median varies by about 8K from highest to lowest paying areas
however 28K in Newcastle may go further than 35K in London when rent etc is factored in
the median is more useful than mean as it is unaffected by a few really high or low figures
The mode is a different type of average which means the most common the mode is quite a narrow range within about 5k of median
if you earn the minimum wage FT ie 37.5 hours you have 16K
only 15 % of people pay higher rate tax ( more than 50K with personal allowance)
so of the full time working population 85% of people earn between 16K and 50K

Front of house earn more than that in my company. It's entirely possible.

I don't think anyone is arguing that it's not possible, because clearly it is.

It's just that the regional variation is so huge. £30k is a very responsible professional level salary in many parts of the UK, but a fairly junior level job elsewhere.

I'm in the North West. I put my career on hold for YEARS whilst bringing up my children. A couple of years ago I was on 9k part time (17k full time), I did a uni course from my local college at night (to complement existing qualifications, not uni level) and now earn 37k. I do count myself very lucky as that is quite a good wage around these parts but god did I graft my arse off to get it.

I used to earn over 30 in London but I'm on 25 (in my 30s) in Devon. Wages are really low where I live and I think that has something to do with it

£18k was my first wage on graduating and that was almost 25 years ago. Nearly everyone I know on a full time job is on more than that.

DH started after Uni on a lower salary than me but now earns an awful lot more than the average.

I'm freelance, earn between £25 and £30 per hour so if I was putting in 35 hours a week that'd be something like £45k a year.

I'm NHS band 4 and earn 5 thousand less than that full time. My partner does earn £30K but only after 15 years in local government. Northern area. I don't feel poor by any stretch.

I'm always surprised that people earn less than 30k, I thought 32k was a normal starter wage in most industries? Higher education in a skilled subject is always a good start to getting a better job

I work 30 hours for 13k, dh 40 hours for 23k
So I’m well off the average

My colleagues all spend £4-6k a year on their train tickets, so it isn’t all win win what percentage of their salary is that though?

On the other hand friends in retail not earning much more than minimum wage. Unless you go into management/senior roles they are poorly paid where they work.

I'm always surprised that people earn less than 30k, I thought 32k was a normal starter wage in most industries? Higher education in a skilled subject is always a good start to getting a better job

Even after reading the thread where plenty of people have posted to say that they earn less, even with qualifications and experience?

We don't have a cleaner, ironing lady or gardener and we live in zone 3 London with two city salaries. We do have nursery fees of £2k/month though!

Weird that people don't believe the average salary is £29.5k. You're only basing your experience based on people you surround yourself with, who run in similar circles.

Most of our friends are similar mid level London city workers- not poor but not obscenely rich. Although one mum from our NCT is definitely outside our usual group of friends- lives in a £6m detaches house in a london village 😆. We feel like we are poor compared to her but know we are actually very fortunate to be where we are.

Lots of nurses, teachers, physiotherapists, speech therapists etc earn less than that despite having good degrees. I obviously mix in different circles to many people here because I think of 30k as being a decent salary!