Starting salary for a recent graduate - is it a good salary?

[lovelysummersky]

This is about my brother who recently graduated from university with a postgraduate's degree (master's).

He does have relevant work experience, lots of internships and summer jobs and speaks two languages fluently, but obviously no full-time work experience as he was a student until recently.

He got a job offer and the job is interesting, 38 hours per week, 24000 pounds (before tax). Would you consider this to be good, okay or low for someone who just graduated?

We don't live in London, but in another big city that's not super cheap either.

YABU - it's fine for a recent graduate
YANBU - it's too low

I'm just a bit worried with inflation and everything and it's not a cheap city.

It’s slightly below average but a perfectly normal graduate salary, as you could have found out yourself with a quick google. Median salary for 22-29 year olds in England is £26k.

What exactly are you ‘concerned’ about?

I'm looking for personal experiences as the average salaries on websites are often not accurate. At least my own is far from being accurate on every single website.

It starts in August, but they will send the contract out this week. So not sure how long he could postpone it...

Has he done due diligence on the company? Ie looked at accounts on companies house

I think that's about right for urban planning, especially as it's not based in central London.

If it was a City of London career then that would be different!

Format grad scheme… 20 years ago, it was a shed load more than one interview

Has he got MRTPI already or is the employer paying for this?

6 years ago, with just her bac, dd got a job with Apple on 24000€/pa, within 3 months she was up to 27k€.
At just 20, in Cork.

So, seems a bit low for a degree.

Disclaimer with 3 sets of professionnal qualifications I was never paid that much. STEM and finance. Am now retired on bugger all.

I don’t really understand. Is he unable to make decisins, ie does he need an appropriate adult to support him? What did you start on?

Sounds like good starting salary

Can he join the company pension, because his employer may add free contributions ?

There may be other perks like free parking, free drinks, share save, discount scheme etc

I think it's fine.
Although without putting in a shred of effort, DH and I got our first jobs after Uni and were on £19k and £17k respectively in 2006, and weren't living in London.
So I guess that's a reflection of the shite wages we've all got used to in the 20 years since!

Not sure if he should say no and wait or take the job and take the risk that a better one will be offered a week or so later

whys it your decision? I don’t get it?

£2 an hour above minimum wage. Less than I was on as a grad 25 years ago, but that was in tech.

But it's not about the wage for the first year or two. It's about actually getting started in a career in the industry he wants to be in.

Take the damn job.

If it's an interesting role in a field he wants to go into he should take it.

If he hears back about the roles he applied for last week and they offer him more/have other advantages and he's successfully offered them he can probably withdraw from the original role (or try to negotiate on salary).

I don't see why he would consider turning it down when he may not even get interviewed for other posts.

Starting salary isn't high but should be manageable outside London. If it doesn't have good increase prospects then he should take it and continue applying for other posts.

OP is not making the decision for him, he does not need support, OP is just canvassing some opinions!
it’s not an area I’m familiar with, but if there are additional exams to be taken and the employer is paying for those with time off for training then a lower starting salary would seem the norm. My ds is a part qualified charted accountant, started on about 23K two years ago and 18 months later was on 33k and this will then increase again as he completes his final exams. It was tough when he started as nearly all his salary was eaten up by rent, council tax and food.

My daughter graduated with a BA from Oxford and started workring about 3 years ago after graduating at the start of the pandemic. Big international company. She speaks 3 languages fluently. Her staying salary was £23.5k. After 3 years in the same sector she now on about £42k.

One of our DS has just graduated, it's really depends on the sector, but 24k doesn't seem unreasonable at all for zero work experience. This is the sort of salary that DS is also hoping for.

I will add, he should definitely just take it, regardless of salary.
He can bounce from one employer to another while he's young (which I did), getting a pay rise each time, and he'll be on a great salary by 30.

Hi OP, and kudos for doing this research. I would do the same. I don't know about the current graduate roles in this field, but I would advise him to negotiate hard at this stage - people seldom do and yet the point at which they are offered the job is when they are most powerful.

So - look at the market, and if this role falls lower, go back with a higher figure, and evidence of levels of pay elsewhere.
Benefits - especially pension and whether they will match employee contributions. That is money he will be paying before tax, and if they match it, it is free money.

Any other benefits - further training, for example.

Congratulations to him for getting a job offer in his chosen field so quickly.

Will there be opportunities for him to develop a side business in his field?

Honestly? It’s pretty poor. I would expect a skilled graduate-level job with a language requirement to be paying minimum £35-40k in London and minimum £30k outside London.

If it’s an ok job then I’d grab it.

It’s not the highest but it’s a lot more than NMW so it’s still a decent salary.

Many employers want actual experience though so I’d grab this one and get the experience before looking and applying for something better.

The best candidates will have lots of competing offers, so it's normal for candidates to sign, then drop out. That's why we (large multinational company) have backup candidates in the pipeline.
But then again, our graduate schemes are large and impersonal. There are zero repercussions for reneging, the central HR graduate team is hardly going to single you out among hundreds.

Even our own salaries vary, very competitive and highly paid service areas (like technology, which is mine). has double the starting salary of HR.

If your brother wants to work in urban planning (seeing as he has prior experience) fair enough. I don't think there are as many employers anyway?

Otherwise there are higher paid generalist jobs. Google tells me that an urban planner tops out at 40K. That's just below our tech analyst and 50-60K 5 years after graduation is very achievable. The industry ebbs and flows though

Curious about why the language fluency was a requirement- is it in Wales?

1. has he attempted to negotiate?
2. what does the rest of the offer look like? Contract terms like annual leave, sick pay, bonus eligibility, pension contributions, perks?
3. does he want to work in urban planning? Does this offer the right training and progression?
4. how's the commute? Does he like the vibe? If he's only had one interview he could ask to visit the office and meet some of the other team members.
5. are the other pending applications equivalent or better in terms of prospects and reward?

is it a small company? That’s pretty late to apply for grad jobs if he’s going for the higher paying big graduate schemes. Ours and equivalent companies all start theirs before Christmas for the following years intake, and have multiple rounds of interviews and assessment centres over the next couple of months. We knows who our new grads were going to be a couple of months ago. I would say if it’s not a big grad scheme and a smaller company then £24k isn’t bad.

My graduate job was 22,000 back in 2017 (I know a lot has changed in 6 years!). However my friends varied from around 18-22k back then, it was rubbish!