to ask if you think this salary is reasonable or am I being greedy?

[bkyegres]

I qualified as a solicitor in 2016, so I’m around 7 years pqe. I’m paid 62k in Bham, commercial rather than private client work. I’ve only just paid off my student loan last year and honestly I feel like the firm are taking the piss… all the studying and expense feels ridiculous to be seven years on and barely over 50k. Obviously I know what some other firms pay and I can look into it further with recruiters but I am starting to wonder if you have to join a new company for any decent pay these days?! I could have skipped uni and worked my way up to this salary by now so it all seems a bit pointless.

Agree. I really respect these jobs, but it's a career choice where you have an idea of earning potential (perhaps resentment has grown now that the jobs changed and much harder, which is fair). People choose to go into law, and other professions because they want to earn good money (and some probably enjoy it too).

Clearly there are others earning the more. It’s not a high salary that makes you greedy but your attitude and the extent you seek it out.

I wonder what the acceptable attitude and extent to which you seek out a high salary is? Questioning whether you’re being paid in line with your experience, location and profession appears to be unacceptable, so perhaps it’s simply being grateful for what you have, always comparing yourself to those who earn less and not more and waiting meekly for your employer to bestow favour on you? Surmising this as it’s hard to imagine how you could be less pushy than the op has been.

In other words, a sure fire way to ensure you don’t get paid your market worth. A gift to employers, though, so not all bad, I guess.

@JunkIsland I agree with you. It is as if pushing for reward is somehow 'unladylike'.

It used to be the case in some careers that salaries rose in line with time served. For most that is no longer the case.

Employers will pay as little as possible for as much as possible. They will also try to convince employees that they are practically unemployable and that the employer is doing them a favour by paying them at all.

Any market comparison done by the employer should be taken with a big pinch of salt. Comparison will always be worked in their favour.

Knew when I saw the opening post the whataboutery would be in full swing in the replies, didn't expect it to be in the first reply though, that's got to be a new record. The reply that people shouldn't be able to earn the dizzying heights of £62k p.a. was a doozy as well.

Say it loud for all to hear;

What. Someone. Gets. Paid. In. A. Field. Totally. Unrelated. To. Yours,. Is. Not. The. Reason. Your. Pay. Is. What. It. Is.

FWIW if some people on here want something extra to expend their energy on and unnecessarily seethe about; I just got my P60 the other day and I earned £65k this year, I don't even have a degree and have only been working for 15 years overall, so have at it.

@Emotionalstorm that's not true.

There are multiple titles which mean a promotion and payrise - a lot of titles will have banding now too.

Associate
Senior associate
Legal director
Salaried partner
Partner

Every single thread discussing what women earn has numerous posts with 'My DH earns' as if women simply exist to enable a man to earn a high salary. Then follows the 'all highly paid jobs are stressful/involve long hours/are based in London/are not family friendly' bollocks.

I have no problem at all with that - 15 years is one hell of a long time.

Is it greedy if everyone doing the same job as you is being paid more to want to be equalised? Sorry this js a total doormat attitude she's working for a law firm not Jesus.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is the problematic attitude that keeps women ‘in their place’. Apparently OP is ‘greedy’ because at 26, how dare she want to earn more than £62k, in law I might add. What a sad take on things.

Didn’t think you were. Otherwise you wouldn’t come out with an embarrassing statement like that.

She's not 26, she'll be in her early 30s. At 26 she couldn't be more than two years qualified.

And wear it like a badge on honour, sadly.

I work in the law and in HR so know a lot about earnings. I’m happy to advise you OP if you DM me.

For others on this thread I’d think you’d be astonished at what lawyers earn at the top of their game but can I say it doesn’t come without a lot of sacrifice and sadly as I’ve seen with Partners often shorter lives. It’s a very stressful job, huge impact on health and family lives. Totally dog eat dog too.

Well no, that’s not quite right. You can have a 4PQE senior associate earning more than a 7PQE associate in the very same firm and therefore more senior with more responsibility. PQE does not reflect how good someone is as a lawyer. It is very much about the promotions and your job titles

No idea what the going rate is, but yabu for thinking 62k is barely over 50k.

Sigh. I guess there is a difference between “Am I REASONABLE to want more” and “Is it GREEDY to want more”. Most people have answered the former, and quite rightly so given this is AIBU. I think I have focused, possibly erroneously, on the question about greed.

If it helps, I think a great many people who choose boring and/or stressful jobs that command an extremely high salary, are greedy. It’s why they chose the job in the first place. The OP’s post suggested that this is likely the case for her. And if you want to make a comparison with nursing and teaching, which require similar levels of qualification and hard work, the main difference is that some choose the satisfaction of helping society whereas others choose the satisfaction of a large salary, to put it crudely.

No doubt many of you will bristle with indignation at this, but it is the way I see things and sharing different perspectives is what AIBU is all about.

So, YANBU to want to be paid on a par with your peers (male and female) however that does not mean that you (and they) are not greedy.

But £62k isn't an "extremely high salary". Especially not when you take into account that almost half of the top slice of that will be deducted at source (40% on tax which pays for, among other things, teachers' and nurses' salaries, and 9% on student loan repayments), and that the OP will be getting a much less generous pension entitlement than teachers and nurses.

I also don't believe that everyone who goes into teaching in particular does so for altruistic reasons. In many cases I believe it's more like, "Oh, what can I do with an English degree?" and, "Well I want at least two children and so it makes sense to do a term time only job." There's a reason why most teachers are women until you get to senior management levels, when suddenly the women are mysteriously outnumbered by the men.

"Accountant" is not a protected term. Anyone can call themselves an accountant regardless of their qualifications (or lack of). But if you are qualified, you'll generally earn more.
Job adverts for accountants will often specify if they want a CCAB-qualified accountant.
A 7yr post-qualified accountant in Birmingham would expect to be on more than £62k.

😂

Even the caring professions need lawyers and accountants, and a lot of us would find nursing and teaching stressful and dull - you are sharing your views of these professions but thankfully not everyone feels the same way.

She’s not working for a law firm - she’s commercial- big difference in salary.

That’s not clear at all - she compares commercial to private client and in fact talks about other firms. She could very well be doing commercial in a law firm.

Exactly, TimesRwo - I though she's doing company/commercial at a law firm, hence my reference to billings. If in house, it's different, of course, but here are lots of in house benefits that you don't get at law firms, and it is an "eat what you kill" environment, as Curtain 1980 accurately sums up

Huh? She works in a law firm.

Completely irrelevant to my point anyway.