to ask if most people openly share salaries with friends (and families?) in the UK?

[polka6]

I know it often comes up on MN how much people earn etc, are people in the UK anywhere near as open in real life? what about with close friends - do you share when you have a promotion etc? Is it more standard to do that with family?

Personally, I more or less share the details with parents and friends in the same line of work (who earn similar or previous have done or will do in the future) but not so much with friends not in the same career circles and probably downplay it whereas the general consensus on MN seems to be people inflate the figures?

Also I earn more than the majority of my friends and there is one in particular who seems to have a mild gripe at my salary when her own 'key worker' role is paid minimum wage and its just uncomfortable. I deflect from mine and point out that yes, she should be paid more for her valued work.

I'm fairly open with my friends - for some I know exact amounts, others I have a reasonable ballpark. I've given exact amounts to some at times - I don't go around shouting "I earn XX" but it comes up in conversation now and then.
Close family (i.e. my siblings and parents) I'm very open with, they are great with financial advice and not judgemental so it would feel really weird to be secretive about.

Same here.
People think my job is easy, just sitting in front a computer all day.
I agree that a lot of more important professions should be paid more but it’s not my fault. Why resent me?

Oddly I know what acquaintances e.g. friends spouses, friends of friends, earn because they are work in the same way I do but we work in different industries. The main things we discuss is ensuring we don't come a cropper with the taxman and stop people from doing anything stupid.

One of my siblings knows what I earn and I know what he earns. Plus we know what some of our young adult nieces and nephews earn in similar fields. We are always trying to work out ways for them to earn more.

My family don't. But lots of my friends do. We often discuss stuff like pensions and investments which naturally leads to income discussion. But we all have broadly similar household incomes. I don't discuss it with people I don't know well.

I have friend who constantly boasts about her husband's income and it drives me nuts. So I don't discuss finances with her.

But you have no idea how much of the sale price was a deposit and how much was mortgage?

I will tell if asked. I probably wouldn't ask anyone else but mostly just because I don't really care. My friend is OBSESSED with other people's salaries so I know an awful lot through her gossiping, it's actually really annoying.

Exactly! Plus my mortgage was arranged based on my salary at the time, by the time I'd actually moved into the house 5 months later I'd changed jobs and salary had honestly up fifty percent, and has now 3 years later nearly doubled to what it was when mortgage was agreed.

House price is no reflection at all of salary - what about where one partner buys the home then the other moves in? Or vice versa after a separation? Or just people who've lived in the same house for years and will have often increased salary fairly significantly over that time?

I profoundly disagree with the idea that it is vulgar to talk about salaries. It isn’t. The concept of vulgarity comes from the concept of work, and goes back to the idea that those who work and get paid for that work and need that salary to live are very non U. Talking about salaries is important. Unless you’re landed gentry with inherited money and no need to work, everyone should talk about salaries.

There will often be good reasons why someone receives a higher bonus or is on higher pay as productivity varies significantly in most roles. IME where one person receives a higher bonus for performing well, the rest of the team will sometimes not say well done they will rant and bitch very significantly. I would strongly advise not discussing pay or bonus. If you need to benchmark you can ask HR some very specific questions around pay which you are absolutely entitled to.

I used to work in the public sector and everyone knew exactly what everyone else earned—the jobs were all graded and on a scale. It seemed fair.

When I moved to the private sector I was initially surprised at how cagey everyone was about disclosing their salary. I soon learned that that it was was "every man for himself" and someone doing the same job as me might be earning twice as much!

In hindsight I prefer the first system. although it doesn't exactly encourage people to excel, but I was never pushy enough to wrangle a good salary for myself in private sector.

I forgot my main point — I think this whole culture of "salary secrecy" is a tactic invented by employers so they can pay everyone as little as possible.

We got our mortgage 12 years ago and it was small because we bought a very cheap house. My annual salary is now twice the total amount remaining on my mortgage and we have no plans to move so not indicative at all of salary.

It is which is why I enjoyed working with international teams in the UK.

Some of them had no problems talking about salary and perks. 😀

I think colleagues knowing each other's salaries can be very positive. Transparency in that regard is valuable.

But friends and family? I can't see anything particularly positive about sharing it (in most cases) and there's definitely a possible downside if it changes the way people see you, or if they feel resentful.

Disagree. People shouldn’t be on wildly different salaries for the same job so colleagues absolutely should discuss it.

See I disagree with this to an extent. Whilst you can be the same grade or have the same job title as a college, this doesn't make all things equal.

Its still possible that one will be given projects which have greater responsibility and profitability to a company and one employee may have significantly more valuable skill sets and experience that makes them worth paying more.

For example, someone who has worked at a company for a number of years and has been a solid and reliable employee may be paid more and this is reasonable. An employee might go above and beyond regularly by choice, whereas another has to leave at 5pm on the dot or doesnt want extra responsibility.

Its much more complex than just saying you should all get the exact same wage on the same grade. There should be a range within grade to reward those who do take on more. Otherwise what is the incentive to do so apart from a perhaps limited opportunity for promotion?

That isn't true.

Some of these "good" reasons are:

1. Not having children


2. Sexism


3. Ableism


4. Racism


5. Religious discrimination

Management then pretend that it is because you don't have as much experience as someone else, when in fact you have more experience as you have discussed with your peers.

I don't but I work for the NHS so you can go online and see the salary bands there.

See I think this entire mentality is a problem. Nobody should be being incentivised to work beyond their contracted hours or rewarded for doing so. Work life balance should be valued more highly. If someone is doing over and above their job role they need a new title and job description (and salary, of course) to match their duties, basically an official promotion, rather than creating disparity within the same job role and resentment between employees because the scope of the role is undefined and the pay isn’t set. I think the public sector system is much better in that sense.

On the point of someone having been with the company for longer, yes they will have benefited from annual pay rises which is well and good but new hires should come in on the same salary imo.

See that would be fine but it does get a reaction from certain quarters.

Its not always that straightforward either.

I know people who take real exception to someone being well paid. What should the well paid person do? Take a pay cut because it pleases someone else who they don't work with. Or just get on with their job and avoid the conflict it can produce?

Why would you talk about it, if it causes friction.

I think one of the big issues here though is that the gap between the lowest and highest paid is MUCH wider in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. Hence it doesn't cause the same level of conflict to begin with.

Thats an entirely different issue than one about crassness. Its about a lack of value to certain occupations and an unwillingness to pay better wages (this doesn't just mean employers btw. Its people who want cheap burgers too for example).

I discuss salaries with close friends and family, it doesn’t bother me at all to share as I work in the NHS where everyone knows what everyone earns, so salary secrecy has never been a thing for me anyway.

How does that work in a competitive employment market like IT where people have a wide range of skills and experience?

If an employer doesn't offer a good salary, then don't fill jobs. Or it loses the good staff it has. Current employers often don't want to salary match precisely because they think it will encourage others to try the same trick.

Reality of the sector is that you don't tend to expand your skills nor have inflationary level pay rises to match the rise in demand for people with certain skills.

In this sense, you HAVE to move jobs regularly, which is risky but also rewarding.

Market forces and all that.

The mentality might be wrong, but thats how the system works in much of the private sector. You have to be mad or shit to take an IT job in the public sector (and this is also why IT work ends up getting outsourced because the public sector model just can't compete and get the staff it needs for this service).

Entrenchment and the beaucracy in public sector doesn't work for the much more fast moving technology sector and thats part of the problem.

I don't tell anyone what I earn, how much savings I have, what my house is worth, or what my pension will be. If I did I'd have rellies and others with their hands out bothering me. I live a frugal life so it would be hard for people to guess whether I am well off or not.

I agree the public sector does a lot wrong - I used to work at the BBC where bureaucracy and entrenchment prevented innovation and did often lose staff. In the case of journalism though, the BBC paid a LOT more than much of the private media sector, especially when it came to digital roles. So moving from the BBC to, for example, a job as an online editor at newspaper or magazine would likely have meant a 5-10k pay cut. I actually moved to tech because salaries in the media are so terrible overall.

I think what needs to happen in a lot of cases is simply higher base salaries. The company I’m with now (private sector) is introducing banding similar to a public sector model and a new senior band before leadership level to progress people and recognise those that do go above and beyond in their role without simply paying them more than colleagues but keeping them in the same job. I personally think this is the right model - I know I personally wouldn’t feel incentivised by a dog eat dog culture where you’re basically fighting to outdo your colleagues. I’d prefer higher base salaries. transparency, fairness and being able to leave on time even if that meant salary progression was slower overall.

My immediate family and partner know, and some close friends probably have a very good idea how much I earn.

I found it frustrating with a previous employer that it was all kept so hush hush. There was definitely discrimination going on but hard to prove when you can't really be sure what other people earn.