To think this is a rubbish salary increase over 10 years?

[flyingtartar]

I found a payslip from 10 years ago this morning and it revealed the depressing news that my net take home pay is just £600 more now than it was then. During that time I have been promoted 3 times and reached the top of my grade. I had me children before then so there have been no gaps in that period. Of course my tax and pension contributions have increased, but £600??!! I am in a public sector career and have little prospect of further promotion as the next step up is a big one that few make and I’m not sure I would even want to. I feel better off as there’s no childcare costs anymore and no useless ex to support, but it seems such a paltry amount of progress over a long period.

AIBU or do I need a shake?

It's probably useful to look at other salaries in your line of work too - are you earning roughly in line with others with the same kind of career progression? If so, it might just be tough and that's what you'll earn. If there are those on much higher salaries at a similar level then you're earning badly comparatively. It's not useful to know it's an extra £600 a month or X a year unless we also know that everyone else you know who got promoted went up by £30k immediately and now earns £70k or whatever.

I think a lot of posters are ignoring the fact is 600pm after 2 promotions. For those saying they haven't had pay rises in the past 10 years, have you also been promoted twice?

DH had increased by £50k p.a. But then he got made redundant. Now it’s £0

@user1471457751

I think a lot of posters are ignoring the fact is 600pm after 2 promotions. For those saying they haven't had pay rises in the past 10 years, have you also been promoted twice?

It's £600 net per month.

I don't understand why NHS staff always think they are so hard done by. I suspect it is because the majority of the nurses and allied healthcare professionals go into the NHS straight from education with no experience of working anywhere else.

The payscales are published. There is no secrecy. You know how much everyone is earning. The salary scales for each band in my Trust is:-
Band 5 £24,907 - £30,615
Band 6 £31,365 - £37,890
Band 7 £38,890 - £44,503
Band 8a £45,753 - £51,668

We're outside London so travel in a bit and the salaries are quite a bit higher with London weighting.

You'd be pretty lucky to get to the top of Band 8a (long service senior position). Most people don't get beyond Band 7 yet the monthly net pay between the bottom of Band 5 and the top of Band 8a is £1,504
(£3,219 - £1,715). This doesn't assume pension contributions so the figure will actually be lower.

I was born in the 70s and the subject of NHS pay has always been an issue. If a huge salary is important then don't train and work in healthcare!

I worked in private sector and now I work in the NHS. I have far better job security, annual leave, training opportunities and opportunities to progress than I ever had in private sector. The NHS is very pro-women and very pro-older women with opportunities to work part-time in management roles. Look at the women in management roles. There are a lot of them and far more than in private sector where flexibility and part-time working is very often frowned upon with lots of companies saying they are family friendly but are anything but!

Read some of the threads on here about non-existent private sector pay rises, male colleagues doing the same job and earning more, how people are treated when they come back from maternity leave or during redundancy processes. Read about the excessive workloads and overtime people are doing. Or how about trying to find a job and navigating the ads that don't state salary? Recruiters who don't even acknowledge a job application or make you jump through all sorts of hoops to not even tell you you're successful or offer you the job for £10k less than you were earning previously. It really isn't fun and I think you might decide that you're not actually too badly off.

Lots of deductions, but at least some of that is going into a very good pension.
NHS 8a isn't worth the extra pressure imo, nor are band 7 management positions (unless you are a very unusual person and love being kicked by both sides).

Moving jobs is the only way to get a decent pay rise. Each time I've moved jobs I've had at least a 30% pay rise. I'm not some high powered lawyer or anything either.

@Sparklybanana

Moving jobs is the only way to get a decent pay rise. Each time I've moved jobs I've had at least a 30% pay rise. I'm not some high powered lawyer or anything either.

Yes, but we're talking about NHS where salaries are fixed and you need to prove you meet the criteria to step up.

It's not like private sector where an accountant can earn anything between £20k and £150k and you can persuade a company to pay you more!

We live in a country where, adjusted for inflation, earnings have not increased in ten years. We also gave more people on precarious "zero hours" contracts, and "workers" who the employer says are not employees so don't get pensions, holiday, sickness pay.

Obviously incomes of the upper bands have increased hugely.

That's the government we voted for so I suppose it must be what we want.

To match inflation you should be earning £51,300. So you have dropped back slightly in real terms , despite the promotions

This is a useful tool to see how inflation has affected value over time
inflation.iamkate.com/

I disagree with the teachers who’ve suggested this is a good pay increase compared to teaching. I’m a teacher and 10 years ago I was on M2 which from memory was around £24k at the time. Like the OP in the last 10 years I’ve been promoted 3 times. My salary is now around £62k. Her pay increase does not seem to be particularly generous for a similar career trajectory. It sounds to me like the NHS starting salaries are better but pay progression is a lot worse. I still have a few years to go before I hit the top of my current range so my pay will increase each year and if I was promoted again to a DH role I’d start a new range again with another 6 years of pay progression as long as I hit my appraisal targets. Even without promotions I’d now be on U3, which is about £45k in Outer London.

@MadameMinimes

I disagree with the teachers who’ve suggested this is a good pay increase compared to teaching. I’m a teacher and 10 years ago I was on M2 which from memory was around £24k at the time. Like the OP in the last 10 years I’ve been promoted 3 times. My salary is now around £62k. Her pay increase does not seem to be particularly generous for a similar career trajectory. It sounds to me like the NHS starting salaries are better but pay progression is a lot worse. I still have a few years to go before I hit the top of my current range so my pay will increase each year and if I was promoted again to a DH role I’d start a new range again with another 6 years of pay progression as long as I hit my appraisal targets. Even without promotions I’d now be on U3, which is about £45k in Outer London.

Nobody in my primary is on £62k except the HT; what is your role? Most teachers will never earn this amount.

I’m on UPS3 now which is £41k. I was on UPS3 ten years ago which was probably a bit less. Unless I want to be an AHT/DH, there aren’t many promotions in primary.

To be fair, I’m in secondary. AHT in an Outer London secondary. I’ll hit the top of my pay range at L18, which is currently about 68k. DHs in secondary would be paid more than that and the HT is obviously on significantly more again. Pay in primaries is held down partly by the fact that they generally have fewer children but also because there are just more layers of leadership and opportunities for promotion in secondary.

I believe the public sector needs to start viewing their total remuneration as a total of the portfolio of benefits, often:

Salary
Employers' pension contributions,, significant into defined benefit schemes
Generous holiday - 35 days plus BHs plus Christmas closures for some academics
Better access to flexible working
Generous sick pay schemes
Unionised organisations offering greater protection re formal procedures

I think it also needs to be borne in mind that most nurses are paid overtime for additional shifts and whilst they have worked hard during covid they have been paid for a great deal of the extra. My staff however have had to thrown regular 45 hour weeks plus, on less than the op, throughout the pandemic and have been rewarded with a pay cut due to financial instability arising from covid.

@flyingtartar

My personal circumstances have meant this paltry increase hasn't been much of an issue, but if someone trying to get on the property ladder or have children in need of childcare had this...you can see why people struggle.

It’s not paltry.

Osirus- She is paid less in real terms now than she was 10 years ago, despite being promoted three times in the interim. Of course that is paltry. I am confident that the pay of the executives will not have decreased in real terms over the same period. Other people have had it shit but that isn’t right or fair either. We need to stop accepting shitty pay progression for all but the highest earners. Inflation will have eroded the OP’s standard of living.

Without knowing your salary thats difficult to judge. I've been in the same admin role for the last 13 years. My gross salary has increased by just under 10k in that time. Started on £16.5k and now it's £26.2k.

@MadameMinimes

Osirus- She is paid less in real terms now than she was 10 years ago, despite being promoted three times in the interim. Of course that is paltry. I am confident that the pay of the executives will not have decreased in real terms over the same period. Other people have had it shit but that isn’t right or fair either. We need to stop accepting shitty pay progression for all but the highest earners. Inflation will have eroded the OP’s standard of living.

But this is pretty much true for everyone in the middle. Minimum wage has risen (ever so slightly) and pay for execs is stratospheric.

Yes, the NHS payrises haven't necessarily been enough to keep up with inflation but how about no pay rise at all? DH hasn't had a payrise for five years. I see jobs advertised in my previous career that are paying the same as I was earning in 2008. I actually gave up on that career because I really was going backwards.

It's not right but there are hundreds of thousands of people in the same boat who are in fact much worse off with little to no job security and not in a cat in hell's chance of a payrise not even 1%.

I agree with the PP saying that you need to look at the total package of salary, pension, holiday, part-time and flexible working.

I've just crunched the numbers on that inflation calculator.

I should be paid €30,000 more than I currently am, based on how inflation should have increased the pay over time, for the max point of the scale back then (I am currently on that max point).

In fact, I am actually currently paid €12,000 less than where the starting point would be today. Not my current point at the top of the scale after annual increments - the starting point.

So I can buy less with my salary now than I could when I got promoted 14 years ago.

And even if you took inflation out of the equation, yes, I have got the increments as an increase, but the top point that I am at currently is still less than it was when I got promoted, and we will not get back that point for another 18 months. (Assuming that we don't have further wage cuts imposed on us again, which I fully expect to happen despite a new pay deal having just been agreed last month).

Wage stagnation is real & shit. Love the fact people say you should be grateful despite the fact you've had promotions.

Even if you look at the full package, holiday entitlement will be exactly the same, opportunities for flexible working/part time are likely to be the same in most public sector roles, perhaps a bit better in some, the pension is now significantly worse than it was 10 years ago.
This is not a woe is me post about working in the public sector. I am well paid for the job I do, I enjoy my work and have generous (if inflexible) holidays. I am perfectly happy with my pay and conditions. It infuriates me to see people saying that someone should be grateful to have a real terms pay cut after 3 promotions and 10 years though. That’s shit. The fact that companies in the private sector have got away with even shittier behaviour doesn’t make it any more acceptable. One of the reasons that I chose to go into the public sector is because, as an employer, the government should be setting the standard. They should be the ideal employer, setting an example to the private sector and taking responsibility for regulating the private sector in a way that holds them to account for depressing the wages of their employees whilst turning bigger and bigger profits. None of that is ok and nobody should have to be grateful for being fucked over but a bit less than others have been.

i think it's really rubbish. i appreciate that lots of people are in the same boat but that doesnt change the fact that the UK is a low-wage economy. the inflation calculator is very useful to show that. in my industry prior to the 2008 financial crisis it was expected that salary bands went up by inflation and sometimes plus that. austerity changed that but this was a political and not an economic project. why people are not more up in arms about it , i have no idea ..... i mean i can but it pisses me off.

@MadameMinimes agree

I think that is pretty poor considering you have been promoted in that time.

I have been with my employer for 10 years and have had the grand total of 3% payrise- I asked for one last year and was basically told that as I was part time and had taken two maternity leaves I wasn't entitled to one. I really need to grow a pair and look for a new job as often this is the only way to get a pay increase.