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.

NHS pensions is a 23% employer contribution.

For comparison I’m a teacher of 22 years - further ed and manager responsibilities of a team of 8. Im on £19 an hour but again generous leave, sick and pension

pay for teachers and nurses may not seem high but we do have perks - no statutory benefits for us

Completely irrelevant.

Self employed tradesmen like cleaners or plumbers do not get a pension, or sick pay, or holiday pay, or any of the other benefits of being an employee with the UK's largest employer.

Carers are always excluded from people's sympathy. No sick pay, days off, holidays, night shift premium etc.

That actually a lot higher than I thought. So need to add 20% on to nurses pay to compare against statutory pension jobs (statutory employer contribution is 3%), plus sick pay and extra holidays.

This is an aggressive jump to assume OP was pulling other traded people down don't you think? I think OP was merely saying what's the point .. People could work else where! When you take into account parking to get to work which is astronomical alone for the NHS staff. A few of the admin staff have left where I work and it was to do with 30mins lunch, parking and the rubbish money.

I think people forget there's a lot of risk to nursing if you make a mistake sorry won't cut it you will likely loose your pin. I would never did it.

I did nursing, I also qualified as a swimming teacher and got 15 pounds an hour for less responsibility. I'm still a swimming teacher.

Ffs, op, you earn just over what I pay my cleaner please, please, go on strike. Why should your Labour be the only thing that doesn't go up in price? I'm old now, and I've seen seeing one of my surgery nurses for six months (a wound that refuses to heal) they are nice and helpful. I don't also want them to be underpaid.

to save more old people, And others, strike now. There are over 46 thousand vacancies in the NHs. how many will die if you don't take action?

My handyman wouldnt get out of bed for less than 400 pounds a day. His day starts at 8 am and finishes at 1pm, latest at 2 pm

Agency nurses versus employed nurses
similar to agency pay rates for social workers, etc all get paid more but don't have the job protection/sick pay/holidays etc so to the person who mentioned agency cleaners/care workers/self employed workers who have to cover sick/holiday/NI/pension etc - it's really NOT comparable

Yep ---

"Vaccine001 · Today 19:38
Carers are always excluded from people's sympathy. No sick pay, days off, holidays, night shift premium etc." They don't count only nurses/teachers.

I am 34 years qualified as a Staff Nurse and on £16.12p per hour. I work in a specialised area, I could probably earn more per hour going to work in the private sector, but it's not the same, I'm probably old school, I know just looking at a patient they are not well. My window cleaner charges £13 to clean my windows, it's a bungalow, takes him 10 minutes. In saying that, that's his trade and I like him, maybe when I retire I will join him.

@NearlChristmas @Vaccine001 genuine question why have you not left and applied as a HCA? What is stopping you? Nursing hones get away with unsociable hours simply because people are willing yo fill the role. There's money in the pot because when shifts aren't filled in the NHS they surge the wards (pay more).

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

That is either an absolute lie or you are terrible at your job.

To be fair a comparison with a self employed person isn’t comparing like with like as they are not getting paid holidays and pensions. Nurses (and public sector workers in general) do get generous pensions.

This. I don’t disagree with pay rises for nurses but we have to be honest about how we pay for them and what it will cost.

@Rippled I also was a qualified nurse for 40 years and earned £15 per hour at the end of my career.
Was I a terrible nurse? Or did I just want to do the job I trained for and stay a bedside nurse looking after patients.
Patients deserve to be nursed by experienced nurses - or don’t you believe that?

Quite frankly, I wish all you moaning nurses and teachers would either shut up or quit for all those better jobs you think are begging to take you.

Either way, the public sector would be forced to reform massively, which I think would be in everyone's interests.

We are have to work weekends /nights etc. Bank holidays and christmas.
We pay into our pensions.
If you go sick, depending on the trust - yes you get sick pay but you're constantly called to come to back work and made to feel bad for being ill.
We pay £120 to NMC
We mostly work without our proper breaks due the understaffing and patient ratio.
We mostly do between 5-15 hours unpaid work every week to get our the paperwork completed.

I pay my cleaner £20 per hour, but she’s self employed. It’s social hours, though, and low stress. In my (not expensive) area, shop jobs are being advertised at £13 per hour (low stress, not self-employed but definitely hard work). I don’t know why nurses stay in their roles tbh.

@Rippled and when I came out of retirement to give Covid vaccines I was paid £12.70 per hour.
You owe the poster upthread an apology for calling them a liar.

My DH earns just under 100k a year. Generous sick and holiday pay. Has around 600k in his pension fund which he hasn’t paid a penny into personally. Highest qualification- GCSE!!!

Me- been a nurse for 24 years. Deal with sad, distressing and challenging situations daily. I earn just over £20 an hour- I’m not in the nhs oension scheme so no employer contributions . Reasonable sick and holiday pay. My job has made me ill (stress) many times 🙁

Window cleaner charges £60 for 45 mins. Gardener £20. Cleaner £15.

There is a reason why, despite the ‘good’ benefits etc the NHS is struggling so badly to recruit and retain staff- the working conditions are appalling and have the potential to break you.

Also please remember most nurses now do the job of a junior Doctor, is it ok to pay people a few pounds more than they would get in a low stress low skill job? You decide!!

Either way, the public sector would be forced to reform massively, which I think would be in everyone's interests.

Oddly enough, the public sector hasn’t reformed despite the complete inability to attract or retain physics / maths teachers. Instead, we’ve accepted frankly shit education for a huge number of kids. Not all - there’s still lots of excellent dedicated teachers. But huge numbers are receiving sub-standard teaching.

The exact same thing is happening in nursing, and it is depressing.

Public sector reform will not happen by staff leaving. All that will happen is public sector collapse. And those still working in it seem to care enough to make one last stand. I didn’t - I moved to private ages ago.

The bureaucracies we have are so big and stuck in their ways that I think they have to collapse - because I don't think they can reform. That isn't just the NHS, btw. It's all bloated and broken. In the 80s, our school pretty much had an old lady with a typewriter doing all the admin, now their are entire "teams" doing it.

So looking at the pay nurses have stated, is the actual problem that there isn’t increased pay for experience past a certain point? taking into account all the benefits, £27k starting salary is pretty good. £35k for 5-8 years experience, also not bad. £35k for 15-20 years experience, awful. Maybe there should be further technical bands instead of needing to go up in responsibility that pay more for good performance and more years of experience.