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.

OP, Have you googled some average salaries?
This is from the law society:
https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/career-advice/becoming-a-solicitor/how-much-do-solicitors-earn
The article is from 2022 but says this:
"In 2018 the average salary (median gross) for solicitors working full-time in private practice was £62,000 each year."

Which suggests that £62k is lower than average for someone in your position.

OP is unreasonable because 50k is a high salary for someone with entirely different experience, entirely different qualifications and in an entirely different field…?

I agree that the OP may have been unreasonable for expecting sensible answers to this question on a site where women who have not chosen to pursue higher paid careers (in the case of teachers, many of them on the grounds that never having to work during the school holidays would be handy once they had children) seem to begrudge women who have chosen to pursue higher paid careers wanting to get paid what they are actually worth and never waste an opportunity to moan about their lot in life in a way that would put the Four Yorkshiremen to shame.

I've been in my industry 20 years and earn less than you. The only way I can really earn more is to become a board level Director or start my own business. I work hard and it's not an easy job. YABU.

I’m at a regional law firm and think we’re now paying about £85k at 7pqe plus bonus (it’s difficult to get over 10% bonus). But this is one of the highest paying regional firms and there’s a lot of London work.

Some law firms work on quite fixed pay scales up to c. 8pqe. We’re quite hesitant about deviating too much from this scale in order to recruit people. There’s slight flex but I don’t think they would go way off the pay scale unless looking at very senior people- sometimes we call people “consultants” to get round this issue.

If you really want high pay could you manage a couple of days a week in London? A lot of London law firms now only require a couple of days in the office.

But your billing figures should give quite a good indication of how high your firm could go on pay. We’re expected to bill about 4 x salary.

biomed, medical sciences, chem, biology, zoology etc. Degrees
Research positions similar or more experience. for eg cancer. £35,000 - £40,000
With a Phd £ 50,000 if you’re very lucky.
So yes I think you are being completely ridiculous.

Yes, you may well have to do some moving around, to increase your pay.

Loyalty is punished.

You need you factor in London weighting pulling the average up too - so actually maybe 62k is about right.

I have a solicitor friend who qualified a lot earlier than you and is not on much more.

Well, I guess all the other posters on here who know the legal market (including me) are wrong about this and the op may as well give up because her current salary is the final word on what she’s worth.

Or perhaps it’s possible that she’s either being taken for granted where she is or capable of a step up in responsibility/calibre of employer.

There's no point people coming in here saying your being ridiculous that do careers that generally pay lower than solicitors but then again I actually can't see the point of this post. No you aren't being greedy to want to be paid what you feel is more aligned to your experience but you'll have to do something about it then.

And also £62k really isn't barely over £50k it's considerably more.

You’re paid quite a bit over £50k so I don’t understand why you’ve made that comment.

For what it’s worth, I am coming up to 8 years of PQE and I earn £64k. I’m live in a city that’s not London. I think this is pretty good money for the job I do and lifestyle I have - working 37 hours a week and hardly any overtime. Obviously my money is not going as far as it did last year with the cost of living increases so I wouldn’t mind a bit extra in my pocket to equalise that out. But given the work/life balance I’ve got, I think I’ve got a good deal in the main.

Interesting that you have such a different perspective on a very similar salary. What are your other terms and conditions like? Do you like your job?

And you think being capable doesn’t include the basic ability of changing jobs and recognising that you’re worth more?

Pp saying loyalty is punished js about right - if you get offered a higher salary elsewhere they might end up matching it to her you to stay which is infuriating.

If you want to move up you need to move out.
And do so every few years after gaining experience.

Loyalty will not pay unless you are at partner level.

A London based firm.will certainly pay more if you could.manage a few days commute into the office.

It's not always as simple as that, is it?

Especially for women of childbearing age, which the OP is, who frequently stay in the same job for too long because they're TTC or about to go on maternity leave or just come back from maternity leave and it's not a good time to move. We don't know the OP's personal circumstances.

These days once you've got tenure - just move - get your coins. Being a lifer isn't a thing anymore

10yrs pqe £72500, in house in the north though

I think many of the non-lawyers are taking issue with the OP's 'I studied hard, I deserve more' argument. There are many who have studied hard, have student loans to pay off and don't earn anywhere near what the OP does. That doesn't mean the OP is overpaid or unreasonable to expect more, but it does make it seem like she doesn't realise that among all graduate jobs it's not a bad salary (and that it's unlikely she'd be earning more if she had not gone to university at all).

I don't begrudge anyone the money they earn, as I would hope my posts made clear!

I don't know much about solicitors' salaries so cannot comment on that. But I do think the stream of comments the op is getting woukd indicate a likely reaction were they to air these thoughts in person. Of course they may well never do that - I don't know and they've not come back to say. But that's what I meant by context.

If they can earn more than currently, go for it.

It isn't for Birmingham. I thought about £80l and another lawyer says £85k.

@ouse
I think it’s a really important point about the hours. My firm pays around £95k at 8pqe outside London but it’s 50-60 hours per week, with some practice areas being much worse than others. If you can find a law job which pays reasonably and has reasonable hours I think you’re onto a good thing!

It's not really about what career it is. It's that £62k is so high that no one really ought to be that rich. If it were an unusually difficult and important job such as heart surgery it might be arguably acceptable to pay someone such a huge sum, but this isn't such a role.

Yes, absolutely. I’ve got two young children so I’m happy to bide my time with a fascinating job, a nice team, being able to work from home whenever I want and usually doing 9-5 without much more. You’ve probably guessed I don’t work in private practice at the moment. I couldn’t deal with the hours in a dual career household once we had kids. I think I’d be a bit fed up to be paid this money if I were working 60 hour weeks, to be fair.

Hahahahaha

The survey is from 2018, so £62k was the national average 5 years ago. The Greater London average then was £88k. The OP is in Birmingham, so would expect her to be more than the midlands average.

Tigofigo, if your friend is also in Birmingham on not much more than £62k now, perhaps they're also on less than average.