To ask how much you earn?

[sunshineq]

I'm a student midwife, so live off student loans and grants. Live alone with 3 year old DS. Hey about 20k per year and really struggling. When I qualify it won't be much more, potentially even worse off.

Love midwifery but wish it had higher earning potential. I considered law but decided against it.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I could do with my degree or routes I could take for higher earning potential? I'd even consider self employment or starting up a business.

I'm surprised the low earning potential wasn't a factor in choosing which degree to go for, it's quite well known how poorly public service staff are paid

I knew this. I wasn't anticipating being a single parent, other finances I've had to take on and the huge increase in the cost of living.

You could use your knowledge and become private doula. You are obviously knowledgeable of how to help with the right positions to speed up the labour etc. I think you might be a great help and women are willing to pay to have proper care of someone who knows what's going on and can advocate for them.

So you're fine limiting your earning potential when with someone else?

Always strive for the best, then you're not stuck if shit changes

Band 6 Mental Health nurse, 4 days a week, London. £40k pa.

So you currently have nearly £2k pm for you and one small child and you don't pay council tax, national insurance, income tax, commuting costs and most of our childcare is paid for and you're struggling?

Could you move somewhere cheaper? I'm assuming that your rent must be very high, otherwise it sounds quite manageable.

It could well be that once you're no longer a student, you'll be entitled to UC towards your rent and childcare costs, so you might not be that much worse off, especially if you can live somewhere cheaper and possibly look at work subsidised childcare.

Please be really wary of the recommendations for a legal career. The average salaries touted are hugely inflated by the vast salaries paid by US firms and the London market. In the regions pay is MUCH lower. Many qualified solicitors are on less than £50k.

I once worked with an NQ solicitor who had career changed from nursing, she left because she could earn more as a nurse. I also worked with a chap who left law for teaching, returned to law in order to keep his qualifications current and then went back to teaching because it was less stress!

I think retraining is likely to be a false economy. Why not look into how to make midwifery pay better, things like bank or locum shifts, training up trainee midwives, private work, additional qualifications, linked work, medico-legal reporting etc.

I just want to say I'm not necessarily recommending that OP go into law or that London salaries are indicative of everywhere else. I just answered the thread question and then her follow-up questions on my personal situation - considering that she already mentioned looking at law.

I live in Ohio and I earn $96K, but I'm not a midwife. The average midwife salary in Ohio is $113K.

OP, you will get more UC when you graduate as grants/loans are taken £1::£1 whereas wages won't be.
Once you're more experienced, your earning potential will rise. You could go into school nursing or HV as PP have said or achieve band 6 within 2 years.

Holy Moly!
Are you in healthcare, Steff13?

@alphapie So you're fine limiting your earning potential when with someone else? Always strive for the best, then you're not stuck if shit changes

This is pretty rude. Everyone makes decisions based on their own circumstances. Also being a midwife is a totally reasonable ambition and choice of career. We need them. It's ridiculous that essential job roles aren't valued.

And as for the person who said they couldn't live on 2k a month without their husband's salary, that's definitely enough to live on for a single person. Especially in Scotland. Maybe you have childcare you didn't mention in which case that would be more difficult.

OP, it's a bit irrelevant what others earn. You don't really sound dedicated to midwifery. Why did you apply in the first place? Self-employment would be a big change, most of us in the public sector went down this route for the security.

If anyone was like you, there would be no nurses, midwives etc.

OP - remember that you will start on a B5 and will earn enhancements which will take you beyond the starting salary. You will receive guaranteed annual increments and will qualify for paid parental leave, special leave, sick leave and very decent annual leave - all of which are great to have if you need them. You will have plenty of opportunities to move into B6 and 7 roles either in midwifery or a related field, and could look at bank work or private midwifery/doula work as others have said. You’re starting off in a professional role so you’ll be on a starting salary, it won’t stay at that level. I don’t know anything about benefits, but have you looked into them in more detail for when you’ve qualified?

If your son is 3 now. Surely in another year he will be 4 and at school. You should only have to pay for wrap around care on days you have a shift. Also NHS often offer overtime. You will build up good pension. You would get more UC next year.

I earn nearly 55 grand as a classroom teacher. I am on a high band as I've been working a long time. I worked a long time in the UK and now I work in ROI. I have no management responsibilities but I don't massively want any. My final salary will be around 70 grand when I retire. Without extra responsibilities, that's fine with me.

I have a law degree and thrived academically, but found myself drawn to the public sector. I’ve since come to realise that I am not the right winger I thought I was!

I ended up joining the NHS Graduate Management Training Programme, in a field where I could utilise the skills and knowledge I’d gained through my degree. It’s a really highly regarded programme and highly competitive, but it was quite common for clinicians to apply. In fact, when I’ve interviewed candidates, I’ve found that the clinicians often shine. My very good friend, who I met through the scheme, was a midwife in her early career (about a year post qualification) when she left to join the schem. Her pay was protected (including an average of her unsocial hours payments) during her two years on the programme. Lots of people on the programme also had young children and managed well.

She (and I) are now senior managers within the NHS and the trajectory is often quite steep. In my day it wasn’t uncommon at all for graduates to go straight into 8A roles after the two year scheme was up and work their way up from there. Ambition is the limit really.

Sure, I’ll never reach the salary that my degree could have afforded me, but it’s still multiples of the average UK salary and I‘ve still got progression available (when I want it). “Why do you work in the NHS when you have a first class law degree?” is a question I’ve been asked every time I’ve changed role. But I can answer it with absolute conviction. I love the fact that I’m doing something socially useful, that I have a great work/life balance (I personally work part-time) and my job satisfaction is through the roof. I use my legal knowledge every day (and have built on it considerably) so I’ve found a brilliant balance between my academic interest and my socialist tendencies, that gives me a pretty comfortable existence.

I’d recommend having a look into it. Or other options in the NHS. There are loads.

What about doing a pgce and get into lecturing in a uni in healthcare ?

Pay is much better in the US. Was a thread on this a while back. See average nurse salary below.

I worked as bid manager at a medium sized niche law firm for about a year and hated it. Loads of bitchy women and partners who would waltz up to your desk at 16:55 and say they needed you to help with a bid - when you said you'd look in the morning the reply was always "oh, I was thinking we could look at it now."

Now working in construction and find builders to be much better workmates. Earn around £40k for mainly driving trucks and trying to decide whether to go the crane or site manager route, both of which will add another £10k at least.

Not lawyer money but more than enough for me and I deal with zero corporate bullshit. Mainly just have to get building materials from a to b and supervise people who mostly know what they're doing. Today I was just cruising around the Worcs countryside with the windows down and Spotify on. Makes me chuckle when I read all the hyperbole about leering builders from people who have zero idea of what the industry is like.

Absolutely 😆can't be arsed!

I earn £52k. I'm a nurse lecturer. You can definitely go down that route.