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?

We go onto a retirement pension income next August, of £47k which will be fine, but feels tight in my head at the moment.

I’m a teacher and earn around £40K. DP doesn’t have a degree but works in the energy sector and earns £36K base but does a fair bit of overtime. We are on the higher end of wages within our friendship group/close family

We are also in Scotland for context

It does not really matter what other people earn if you are happy with your own earnings. There will always be people with more salary.

@yippyyippy

DH earns 35k and I work part-time for about 8k! We have what I consider a nice comfortable lifestyle with 2 kids. I’m always a bit thrown by the threads where lots declare how tight it is to live on a 60k salary. I guess a lot of it is very subjective though..

I think some people ate great at money management and others really poor no matter what they earn. Hearing people whinge and struggle on £60,000 is laughable

@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?

You'll probably feel better if you ask for salary plus how much it costs to buy a starter flat and a starter house in a part of town that the poster isn't scared to walk in.

High salaries aren't all they're cracked up to be if they don't get you a better standard of living overall.

@TeacupDrama the stats in London are skewed by the fact that by a certain age, many of the people on middling salaries (50k and above) but not crazy would have moved out of London to the Home Counties as they can afford the commute fares to their jobs in London and desire a bigger house and garden, leaving the ethnic minorities (who on average still earn less than white people with the exception of Indian/Chinese), the young, the poor and the uber rich (whose money is derived from wealth rather than income). And even the ethnic minorities are increasingly moving to the commuter towns nowadays. But those people's income is still derived from London salaries, even though they are scattered all over the SE!

This shows it: www.uhy-uk.com/insights/stockbroker-belt-dominates-top-ten-towns-biggest-income-tax-bills None of the top ten towns for tax are in London but in places like Esher, Beaconsfield and Sevenoaks. These places are not really cheaper than London for housing as you can buy a terraced in London for £1 million or so but its just much smaller than whatever you can get in those towns.

I live in the South East in a naice place outside london and rent is astronomical. You couldn't be here on less than 50k you genuinely wouldn't be able to afford it. A two bed is 2k/month
Raising a family would take two incomes of over 40k I would say
I grew up here so I am used to it but it is shocking to compare wages and prices ... standard of living here is great but no better than places in the north or South West

@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?

Higher income jobs are not usually advertised in the same way as low and middle income jobs, that can create a situation where you don't often see those high income jobs advertised. This might be medical positions, doctors, high pay band nurses etc. will not be advertised on normal job sites, quite a few large companies only advertise through their own careers portals rather than on jobs site, especially larger firms with high wage positions.

Lawyers and accountants don't make six figures by default, they especially will not in entry level positions which are usually the ones you see advertised, but a good corporate accountant or experienced lawyer can get up into those figures later in their career.

It also what you depends by "normal", the average salary is £31,500 pa for full time employees, but that includes everyone from the school leaver in an entry level position to the company CEO approaching retirement, income comparisons need to be age appropriate. As an example it is around £18k for 18-21 year olds, it is just under £39k for people 40-49. On top of that you have to factor in regional differences.

The other thing is you might just not realise what they earn, I know people who are on £100k a year but you would not know it, they are putting half their income into their pension and the first sign you might get would be when they retired in their fifties.

My husband and I both earn six figures, I drive a seven year old car, my husband a twelve year old car, neither of us is bothered about cars. I don't wear much jewellery, my engagement ring, wedding ring, usually small earrings and occasionally a bracelet which was my nans. We don't wear expensive clothes, my husband does not have expensive watches etc. We do have a reasonably nice four bed house and both make high pension contributions, have savings and are massively overpaying our mortgage, but outwardly you would not really be able to tell if we earned £100k between us and spent it all every month, or the real situation where there is more.

I am from Newcastle. My doctor father (consultant there and with a private practice) earned pretty well as does my Yorkshire doctor sibling. Even lawyers up there can do well. These people in Newcastle Whinn solicitors did or do pretty well for example and I am talking about much better than many lawyers in London www.business-live.co.uk/professional-services/newcastle-law-firm-winn-holdings-16768358

NHS doctor consultant salaries are available on line as are salaries for trainee and newly qualified lawyers in many areas including Bristol which I think was mentioned above so is not a secret - basically the harder it is to do something and the fewer people can do it the higher the pay - it applies from surgeons to footballers, opera singers to top lawyers and these days HGV drivers - it was ever thus.

£30.5k here. Considered above average locally - life is cheaper here too. In my circle of friends I’m probably one of the top 3 earners. Acutely aware this is not a lot compared to other places!

I'm on 34K for 4 days per week. Was earning 52k (full time) 18 months ago. It's quite hard to deal with the drop to be honest.
I work in London but live in the shires. I haven't had to pay travel for past 18 months but am now having to commute so that's really eating in to the monthly pay packet. I do look for similar roles locally but £34k seems like a pipe dream outside London for the sort of work I do.

I'm a sahm but dh earns almost 60k. You wouldn't often see a job like his advertised widely though as it's quite niche. If I was still working I'd probably be on about 30k as was in the charity sector.

I think most people I know earn (at a guess!) between 30-45k

DH earns 30k full time and I earn 11k part time. We are in the SW and it's a comfortable household income for here. In London I think it would be a struggle for a family of 5 to live on 41k.

@Xenia

It does not really matter what other people earn if you are happy with your own earnings. There will always be people with more salary.

This is how I feel. I'm on £22k pro rata but what is important to me right now is flexible hours, an understanding boss and nice colleagues. Our household income has ranged from £45k to £60k in the last 5 years (SW) but when your mortgage on a 4 bed is £650pcm with only 15 years left on it, that feels like plenty!

I think you're right that lots of people done earn big money. Well apart from the comment that lawyers and accountants in the Midlands don't earn 6 figures that's not true. Are you coming at this from a 20 something perspective?

Salaries are lower in your 20s but rise a lot in your 30s in some professions.

In my late twenties (15 years ago) I was targeting £50k but that rose swiftly to 60k when I was early 30s at a big 4 firm not London. I wasn't a senior manager and felt I was being underpaid. Lawyers always seems to earn more than accountants but maybe they just dress and live better!

No one is going to tell you what they're on and jobs don't get advertised with a salary. You rely on recruiters to tell you what a reasonable salary expectation would be.

I have seen my role advertised at £45k, but I pay my assistant more than that. You'd very rarely see my role advertised at the level that I and my colleagues earn though as you can't enter the industry at that level.

I see what people earn all the time and I'm often surprised how much some accountants earn (usually an FD but still, BIG salaries).

Earnings are like anything else, only part of the story. There are plenty of people not 'earning' much, but their incomes are very high from other investments etc.

Of course it is all relevant to your outgoings. Between us dh and I earn around £48k but we don’t have much of a mortgage and our cars etc are paid for, we have more disposable money than many of our friends who earn more for they simply have higher outgoings like huge mortgages and new cars each. I used to work for the NHS and the surgeon in our department was married to another surgeon and between them they were on a joint income of something like £200k+ but they were perpetually skint. I used to have more money in my pocket then him, he was forever scrapping up money from others to pay the sandwich lady lol!

I did work for a national law firm in Nottingham, and the lawyers definitely didn’t make 6 figures. The departmental partners didn’t either!

They did OP. There aren’t that many national law firms in Nottingham and the actual partners (ie the equity partners) certainly do make six figures at most of them. Some, fairly high six figures too.

In my part of the UK I’m lucky to be on 22k.. full time.

It actually makes me feel a little sick that there are people who make 30k and that’s considered ‘average’ or even low in some parts of the country. I literally feel like a peasant on these threads 😂

@onlychildhamster, That could well be so but there are lots of people working in London for less than the median where are the hospital porters and catering staff living? the nursery assistants the retail workers from Oxford Street? while granted some are young in house shares many will have families of their own they aren't all commuting from Romford etc even housing benefit is limited to well below what some are quoting as London rents

I did work for a national law firm in Nottingham, and the lawyers definitely didn’t make 6 figures. The departmental partners didn’t either!

The lawyers I work with certainly make a LOT more than that. They may also have a capital account and equity share. It might not be their basic pay though.

IMO, YABU to think 30-40k is a 'normal' salary. To me and many others that's very high.

I grew up in a city where the average wage was tiny. Scraped along on £11-12k for years. I'm in an area now where the medium salary is £16k.

I'm earning £40k now and certainly don't think it's an average, normal wage. As others have highlighted in the thread £40k puts you above approx 80% of the population in terms of earnings. Does that sound 'normal' or 'average' to you?

I live in the Home Counties. Housing costs massively skew the cost of living, and so there is probably a disproportionately higher salaries. Those saying how they don’t understand about struggling on 60k salaries. 3 bed houses are at least 500k here (that’s terraced as well abs a postage stamp garden). So even with a 50k deposit you need to have a household income of 90k for the rest of the deposit.

It has created big problems with services: GPs, teachers etc as why would you live here when you can live an hour up the road, earn the same and house prices are significantly less. All the primary schools have vacancies because teachers can simply not afford to live here.

@XingMing

My DS was a chef (now at university) but does cheffing PT for a few hours. The rates for competent chefs (not frying or microwaving ready meals) have gone from £9-11 ph for a commis, to average £16 ph in the South West this summer, and more if you are good enough to work through an agency. And there is still a skills shortage. But hospitality isn't popular because of the hours and the conditions.

A head chef I know has been offered agency work at £28ph in the Midlands. It is about time skilled chefs were paid a decent wage, for years they have been under paid, often earning little more than unskilled staff they are supervising.