Nurses’ pay compared with other jobs

[Pinkapron]

Would anyone be prepared to share what they pay tradespeople in their homes, eg cleaners, gardeners, plumbers, electricians etc, per hour please?
I am a staff nurse, 32 years qualified, with post graduate qualifications, and earn £16.84 per hour.

"I am a staff nurse, 32 years qualified, with post graduate qualifications, and earn £16.84 per hour"

Surely the question should be why nurses should be paid 20% less than they were 12 years ago. Most people would agree that the last 3 years are considerably harder work compared to the norm.

I have a theory that if this kind of comparison were looked into, then people would have a better understanding of what it means to be a poorly paid , but very qualified and experienced nurse.

I don't employ a gardener or a cleaner but I've haven't found a plumber or electrician in the last 5 years who would work for less than £200 a day or if it's a short job they usually charge £50 - £60 per hour. They are usually self employed so all their overheads come out of that although obviously the customer pays for materials.

Completely agree. Staff nurses should be paid more than that. Trades people are on good money which they deserve too.

Hi; for cleaner we pay £15 an hour

Cleaners in our town are £16 or £16:50 an hour. My friend gets paid £16 for an hours ironing. I’m thinking of doing ironing as an extra job (I’m a TA).

My cleaner is paid £15.00

The electrician I paid £90 for about an hour’s work.

I’m paid about £27 an hour and have a very unstressful job.

Nurses are woefully underpaid.

Bit random to compare an hourly rate for a self-employed service provider to a wage of someone employed full time.

We pay our cleaned £14 an hour. We recently paid a carpenter £350 for a day. It’s not going to be a like for like comparison, though. Most cleaners and trades are self employed, so whilst their hourly pay of day rate might be higher than that of somebody employed, they aren’t getting paid holiday, sick pay, maternity, pension, other benefits, or the guarantee of having a full day or week or month of work and pay to rely on.

I totally agree with your premise op, working life in modern Britain and rates of pay are a farce.

I pay my cleaner £15. She is self employed, gets no sick pay, holiday pay or pension.

My friend is a nurse (1 year post qualifying) and she gets £50 an hour working agency shifts…

Are you including holiday pay, sickness and pension in this?
I am self employed and earn approx £25 an hour but have to deal with sickness, holiday and pension myself.
Nurses are massively underpaid, but tradespeople are most likely self employed and not paid if they are sick or on holiday.

Probably not a helpful comparison as people working in trades are usually self employed so their hourly wage includes tax, overheads, training, insurance etc but nurses definitely need a massive payrise. Years of below average payrises just make the profession unappealing and unsustainable.

My mum is a nurse and earns 70k as a clinical nursing home manager.

It’s also:

Speech and language therapists
physiotherapists
occupational therapists etc

My husband is a time served joiner over 40 years experience. Gets paid £12 an hour. I don't work so we both live off that.

Our village handyman charges £15 an hour.

Another thread today has had a nurse trying to work out what a salary in the private sector would have to be, in order to make up for the loss of the NHS pension. Have a look. She’s on pro-rata of 45k now but it was worked out she’d have to be on about 75k to make it equivalent.

Is that NHS or private?

You earn more than that as you have a pension scheme that employers contribute to, a generous sickness scheme and annual leave. You need to take all of that into account and then compare your hourly rate.

What’s your annual salary because then it’ll be easier to compare? The salary scales I’ve seen in recent press seem
to indicate similar salaries to classroom teachers.

I pay my cleaner £14ph. She dosn't get sick pay, holiday pay and I don't make pension contributions for her. (I did pay her throughout Covid though).

This. You can't really compare hourly rates as it's not a good measure at all. Market forces also determine what trades can charge.

But nurses are poorly paid for sure.

My gardener works out about £30 per hour.

@cushioncovers

Private. My sister is also a nurse and earns 52k (again privately). They both left the NHS pretty sharpish after qualifying. They’ve never experienced burnout and enjoyed their careers. They’ve always recommended it to their cohort as they’ve kept in contact with a few nurses but a lot of nurses just cannot see the wood for the trees after a few years in the NHS.