Aibu to worry when jobs that sound so important have such a low salary?

[merrigorownd]

I'm currently job hunting, so get a few mailshots, and have an alert set up for analytical jobs in the civil service. I'm often surprised at how low the salaries are for job titles that sound strategically important for the running of our country. This is just a random example.

The range shown is for someone based in Darlington, but I clicked through to the detail and the London range was only £3k higher. I know the cost of living is lower in Darlington than in London, and that £50k is relatively a high wage in that area, but if I was a Darlington-based economist with the required level of competence to lead a team of 15 people in advising Government ministers on national policy, I think I might be well aware of my ability to earn much more with a different employer.

We’ll yes, but the civil service still work shorter hours and with more holidays than the private sector, so the overall package is better.

at least that’s the theory….

YANBU. Salaries seem to be going down rather than up.

I was looking for a WFH remote job recently and came across a job requiring lots of experience and an MBA. The salary was £28k in the South East. I was amazed because that was lower than starting salaries when I finished my MBA 20 odd years ago.

Well, it’s the public sector - jobs don’t pay as well as the commercial sector quite often but people join for other reasons - a belief in public service or the ability to do important work which makes an impact on large numbers of people 🤷‍♀️

YANBU it worries me a lot too. I struggle to believe that “the best” candidates are applying when they could easily get 2-3 times as much in similar roles in private sector.

It's also terrifying when you realise how many Treasury grade 7s are so early in their career. Sure they're talented, but they also have so little life experience to bring to a role.

Yanbu but it's the public sector. Junior doctors earn a lot less than that for the first years of their career, even with significant responsibility over life and limb.

It’s the bens, pensions are still a lot better in the public sector, more flexible working practices etc etc. My brother was paid more highly in the private sector but chose the public sector as the pension was better and it was less stressful. Reasonable choice.

Several issues with the civil service which pays about 50% of the going rate for my role.

The first is, noone worth their salt in a professional field wants to work for the civil service. It's full of red tape, processes designed to do nothing but cover arses and ridiculous hierarchical attitudes that ultimately means nothing of value gets done. If you have a problem in a project that needs escalation it can take a week for it to feed up the chain through official channels and a week to come back down again. In the private sector I can pick up the phone to whoever makes the decision and solve it in an hour.

Every person I know who's moved from private sector to public has given it up in 12-18 months because it's where you go to die and plod along while nodding away at a bunch of idiots. Yes the pension etc might be tempting but the complete death of your career, ambitions and ability to think for yourself and create solutions isn't quite worth it.

Back to the questions raised in the OP, these roles pay lowly because they're shopping for talent below the midpoint - the mediocre - because that's the only people they can attract due to culture, processes and the way they do things.

Civil Service wages are lagging behind. Average wage rises are 6% . In the CS it is 1-2% after years of low or no pay rise . Except MPs of course .

YANBU
Historically public sector has paid less than private markets but this was offset by good conditions, pensions and so on. Now that's not the case and wages have further even further Vs cost of living.

There are significant vacancy & capability gaps across public organisations for this reason. Happily for the Tories, though, it means we can pay £££ above the odds for their contractor and consultancy buddies to fill those gaps. Costing us more than offering a realistic wage in the first place.

I have no idea now nurses manage to work in any London hospital on a significantly less amount than this

Wow I thought the important job title was going to be intensive care nurse or similar.

My jaw dropped at this. I’ve been at my company (private sector) for a long time and I don’t think it’s ever gone over 3%

Maybe I should enter the civil service and at least get a good pension 😂

In practice what happens is those jobs are taken by very young, ambitious graduates who are maybe 4-8 years into their career and either use them as a stepping stone to promotion (where the salaries are better, although still low for the level of responsibility) or to a much better paying job in the private sector.

I don’t think it’s the kind of civil service job which attracts applicants because of the work/life balance and pension, although there are plenty of those too.

HMT is known to be a very young department which attracts a certain type.

@Jimboscott0115 wow, what an insult to all the civil servant on here.

I currently work in a much less important-sounding senior analytical role in the Higher Education sector, in London, helping to deliver projects. It's a skilled role, but I have no direct reports. I've seen my job title advertised in a variety of civil service departments, sometimes for less than this, sometimes for the same, and sometimes for more (if a market premium is added, and London weighting). It just seems very random.

I know of well over a dozen people who have taken the step into public sector/civil service work from private in a variety of roles and generally all pretty senior & every single one without fail has said the same thing and escaped when they could before they lost the will to achieve anything in their careers.

I've dealt with government on private/public collaboration projects and have seen it - the lack of innovative thinking, problem handling and the volume of people who's job is essentially only in existence because of 'processes' and red tape is unreal. Introductions were hilarious in meetings when half the people there were there because they were part of some sort of chain of command/governance but would add zero value to the project (or any project).

If anywhere is paying 40k for a role that can comfortably get 80k then it's clear they aren't looking for the best, or even the average - but the mediocre.

Job hunting at the moment and yes salaries are certainly going down not up. That said £50k is a bigish salary in that part of the country.

Public sector pay lags massively behind private sector in the professions/higher level. It’s one of the reasons there’s such a massive recruitment problem at the moment.

Senior nurses can and do earn more than this (see www.nurses.co.uk/careers-hub/nursing-pay-guide/) and deserve every penny and more. But we onviously need a thriving economy in order to be able to afford to pay the nurses more.

This.

I took a massive pay cut to work for the civil service because the job advert sounded awesome.

It was basically fiction: the ad was what someone wished the job was, not what it was. Colleagues were lazy and obsessed with career progression, no one cared if the actual job got done. Perhaps my department was just poor but I knew very quickly that I’d made an awful mistake, and left when I could.

If the money is low, it means you aren’t valued.

When you said "import" jobs I thought you meant the scandal that is how poorly paid nurses and nursery workers are. 99% of people would say their children and their health are the most important things in the world to them. Yet those who care for our children and us and our families when they are ill are paid less than supermarket staff.

"important"

It's also a complete myth that public sector workers get amazing holiday entitlements or work less hours. The pensions are good but not the old final salary schemes and you can't retire at 60 anymore...

Pay freezes, below inflation raises etc. mean that many Civil Service salaries are substantially lower than they should be. This has lead to recruitment and retentional issues. I know someone who has contractors working for her than are on double her salary.