To ask for ‘normal average’ salaries?

[Mamacita191]

After seeing loads of posts recently about what people earn, I feel like it’s a completely different world to what I am living in. I live in the midlands and a good salary is 30-40k which is what most people comfortably sit at. I certain rarely see jobs advertised for £60k or more (even 6 figures which I’ve read is what some people make!). Even the jobs that people advise to go into such as lawyers and accountants in a good firm etc don’t make 3 figures as I’ve read on here.

Is it just me who thinks 30-40k is a normal salary that a lot of people sit comfortably at? Am I missing out on something?

@julieca

Some places still have very high accommodation prices outside of London. There is no equivalent of London weighting though. Average household incomes IMO tell you the real truth of how much money people have. And no, it is not as much as some well-off people think. Most people are not on the breadline scrambling to buy a loaf of bread, but neither can they just spend money without thinking about it.

I agree - I live in an expensive part of the Midlands where the average house purchase price is around £370k. The average rental is about £1,400pcm.

I live alone and earn £40K pa which is OK for me but I still have to be careful as there isn't another salary coming into my household.
However I bought my house at the right time - I would certainly struggle to buy a house in this area now and rental would be a big chunk of my monthly income.

@eeyore228

Wages surely differ across the country because the cost of living does too? Higher wages where we are (near London) come with higher rent. DH and I lived up north where our rent was a quarter of his wage. Now he pays more than half of his wage on rent alone. Wages may sound great but the cost of living is way higher. It’s costs me £28 a day to get to work!

absolutely and also depends on housing situation in a owned versus rent situation and if owned, when you bought. I am SE and our mortgage is under £400 on very modest sized home, granted, but one which would rent for over £1k. We bought a decade ago on £45k combined income with minimal deposit but then salaries have increased and though we have upped spending we haven't completely met our income like some because we came from modest backgrounds and feel we have plenty, and instead overpaid. If you needed to rent here, a huge chunk of salary would go on rent. It's why even higher earners can feel poor.

@Xenia

That was the point I was trying to make. Women often limit their aspirations because their family thinks £30k is a high salary etc. One job in Wales got no women when the pay was £50k as they thought they were not good enough but at £35k suddenly women started applying for it.

to be fair, men too if their family thinks £30k is a high salary. My husband could earn so much more in his sector but is happy with his £40k which is more than he expected, much more than his parents and he feels flush with. Had he come from more privileged background he might not feel that way. I am also from working class background but earn more perhaps because income is one of the ways we are shown we are doing well in my role and it's less about the money more about wanting to have that 'praise'. That said, I am less inclined to complain about rates than some of my colleagues including female colleagues actually where their families are monied so they think even the six figures they manage aren't good enough six figures.

Where I am in the south west all high end admin jobs pay £18000a £21000
Shops jobs minimum wage - maximum £10 an hr
A good wage here would be £30000
The average wage is always pushed up by those that earn six figures
There are many many min wage jobs

Graduate positions start at 30k (lots of different roles) where I work - London so naturally everyone one else is on more. But yes it’s does cost me £42 per day plus parking to get to work. I could not afford to live near the office.

@Thulian

If a young person chooses a career etc with the mindset that it's a "huge" salary they will (1) continue to be paid less than their peers even if their role could be paid more; and (2) they won't be as selective about which careers they go into. I've mentored juniors before who took a job without even negotiating the salary because they were earning more than their parents earned, when that's not really relevant.

I can see your point but on the other hand, if you consider yourself well-paid on £30K, you might actually be happier than someone who's always chasing a higher salary.

My friend who earns 140K would be devastated to find herself on my 40K, but for me it feels generous, because I didn't grow up with an expectation of a very high salary. I still feel excited about being able to buy what I like in the supermarket, for example. So I kind of feel in an odd way it's an advantage not to grow up expecting a lot - for your happiness if not for your actual wealth.

Plenty of people are high earners but maintain a simple lifestyle. Thé being ‘happy with your lot’ narrative prevents many women from getting the money they deserve- for work they’re already doing/capable of. It’s not all about the stress of the exec lifestyle.

A more insidious by-product is female ambition being viewed differently. ‘He is assertive, she is agressive’. Many women fear that asking for more is wrong and greedy and so undersell themselves. By normalising negotiation and high salaries we’re encouraging women to go after the money if it’s what they want.

I totally agree @TractorAndHeadphones - I lead large teams and ratio of men vs women pushing me for salary increases (and actually more career opportunities) is easily 10:1. High salaries are out there, but as others have said, you have to know where they exist and plot your path accordingly, right from the start, if that is what you want. As to the original question - “normal” I think very much depends on who you associate with and quickly becomes skewed.

@Newmumatlast one of my DH's colleague on 100K says he can't afford to buy in London (and he wants to live in London). So he is hoping to get a partner on 100k so that he can buy soon. DH is on less but owns a London flat (albeit in zone 3) which we bought in 2019 cos he has a wife. Our friend on 35k owns a 2 bed house with garden cos his parents bought it for him. DH's mum has never earned more than 16k but the house she lives in is worth more than what guy on 100k can afford to pay for simply because she bought in 1997.

If you have no help from parents with deposits/lived rent free with parents for a while, you need to earn 6 figures or close to it to afford to buy something decent in London before you are 35.

I’m on £18k full time and DH is on around £30k. We’re not the wealthiest but think we’re doing alright.

9K total household income lastyear and no help either , going to be less this year.. would love to see jobs offering more but they just arent there

@MibsXX is that full time or part time?

One ful time but pay got more than halved, school bus driver council cut the funds to the bus company, a small one, the company desperatley trying to keep everyone in some sort of a job in the hopes things will eventually pick up after covid settles down, and mine is part time small shop, boss pays a LOT less than minimum wage and the more hours i work the less per hour i get paid, discussed with DWP last year who told me i should be grateful to have a job still, stick it out and keep records and sort it out later again when covid settles

I been looking for something else but there simply isnt anything going where we are

my shop doesnt adhere to welsh rules re face masks the customers are mostly a nasty bunch full of threats and the like I caught covid there twice now, lost 7 weeks wages no sick pay no help really really hate it

sorry ignore me just buried my aunt today and my mums funeral is this friday, couldnt see either of them before they passed because of my risky job.. am not in a good place right now

[quote onlychildhamster]@Newmumatlast one of my DH's colleague on 100K says he can't afford to buy in London (and he wants to live in London). So he is hoping to get a partner on 100k so that he can buy soon. DH is on less but owns a London flat (albeit in zone 3) which we bought in 2019 cos he has a wife. Our friend on 35k owns a 2 bed house with garden cos his parents bought it for him. DH's mum has never earned more than 16k but the house she lives in is worth more than what guy on 100k can afford to pay for simply because she bought in 1997.

If you have no help from parents with deposits/lived rent free with parents for a while, you need to earn 6 figures or close to it to afford to buy something decent in London before you are 35.[/quote]
I think that's right in London. I have 2 friends who bought there. One on her own but started with a flat and worked so got lucky with equity increases. Other not on 6 figures but healthy 5 figures and similar for partner. Not central london.

24k here partner on 27k we are fine. We get by. Hate my job though so I think I’m going to take a 5k pay drop to do something I enjoy.

I have observed over a long time that some parts of the country, like the SW -- and I would guess much of the North too, just don't have any understanding of the nature of work that isn't practical and paid by the hour. I grew up in rural Cornwall before the Internet existed, and work opportunities were limited by what was physically close by if you weren't educated, and especially if you couldn't drive.

My father was in the navy, a pilot, my mum was a nurse and we didn't choose where we lived; the navy sent us there. But the work that was available locally, until the Internet, was physical... picking daffs, lifting spuds or scraping icecreams, pulling pints and changing beds. NOBODY, including young me, knew about bond trading or investment banking or thought they might like to write code. My teachers in a highly academic school suggested I should aim for the law and the bar, but I had never seen that in real life. So I chose journalism, discovered marketing and ended up in finance. Nobody I met ever told me that there was a world called investment banking where billions of pounds were raised, bought and sold. I found myself with experience holding my own in that world, and no sob stories here, I have done okay, but with the limited knowledge that most teachers have of the world outside teaching, how does anyone expect the bright child from an uneducated family to aspire to more than average. I ask this in all seriousness....

I was thinking the same 😂

For the record, I ended up in finance because I went to NYC thanks to marriage and got a job on a financial trade magazine to pay the rent. I read it to learn about the subject, and was entranced and delighted by how my savings and your insurance premiums were made to work. And also, horrified by the scandals and thrilled by the excitement and the sheer daredevil nerve that high finance requires.

Fiction makes money sound dull, because most people don't understand it......... it's exhilarating to make things, whole industries, happen.

Tech role, i work until i hit my personal tax allowance, usually about 8 to 10 weeks. Then take a break until the next tax year.

Partner earns £45k ish.

I used to earn £100k plus, but had no life outside work, for about 20 years. That’s what it took for me to reach that level. Destroyed my health.

Now, we feel like we do ok, better balance, but due to not having a role that gives private medical, i’ve been 10 months waiting to see a cardiologist.

Amazing how much it costs to actually work. Car, taxes, fuel, food, clothing, etc. I’m actually better off now, but only because of what we did before, so we only have food and leccy/water and council tax as overheads.

We are very lucky…. financially. If i could go back and do a 9 to 5, for £35-40k have a life, kids, a social life, my health.

@MibsXX

sorry ignore me just buried my aunt today and my mums funeral is this friday, couldnt see either of them before they passed because of my risky job.. am not in a good place right now

I'm so sorry for your losses.

Most of these salaries can’t be average , most people I know are lucky to get £16/19000 and they are the lucky ones

I think anything below £40k is not great (I'm in London)

but with the limited knowledge that most teachers have of the world outside teaching, how does anyone expect the bright child from an uneducated family to aspire to more than average

this 100%. Perhaps it is different in London, but grow up somewhere rural and the teachers, went to school, went to uni and went back to school.......and outside obvious professions really have no clue about other jobs. At my highly academic school if you were bright you did medicine or law, and if you were less bright you did teaching, nursing, physio or accountancy. In the 1990s.