Depressed about salary

[Porcupinesky]

I’m feeling pretty down at the stories today around the national average wage now being £35k.

I only earn just above this amount. I had been offered a better paid role about 4 months ago but found out I was pregnant so turned it down, as I get a good maternity package in this role (25 weeks full pay) so it made better financial sense to stay. I’m waiting for a promotion but the company is tightening finances so I’m uncertain when this can be processed. I’ll probably get a small payrise in April before I start mat leave.

Is anyone else feeling this way? It’s what I think about most of the day. Luckily DH earns a decent salary and pays more bills but it’s a real knock to my self worth as I thought I would achieve more in life.

It's well known that salaries in the UK have been stagnating for a long time, long before the cost of living crisis. Salaries in the UK are pretty crap compared to other countries.

Also, everyone saying that £35k is an amazing salary should have to state where they live and what year they bought their house.

Dh earns £50,000 for a job that squeezes the life out of him, its senior professional job and he should be on far more or ideally be under far less pressure in the job he is currently in. I am encouraging him to look elsewhere as we can afford for him to earn less but he keeps hoping the workload will ease off.

The OP should be careful what they wish for as jobs paying over the average salary seem to want blood for it.

I mean is that what you tell your kids, if you have them? That they should just throw their hands up and quit if something is hard?

Genuinely, if my comment touches a nerve and that pushes you or someone else reading to go out there and demand what they’re worth in negotiations, I’ll consider my work here done.

Can we have this as a pinned comment on MN please

Gosh I am so sorry to hear you have felt this way, I appreciate the societal setup does not make things easy and people only have so much capacity. You should be really proud of how you’re doing, and your kids will soon become less dependent on you. Sending you hugs 🤗 if that’s ok xx

@Eigen At this point I think every single thread about money should force every commenter to state their age, location and year of first property purchase. Things have changed so much, and vary so much with geography. Would save a lot of time!

You have plenty of earning potential ahead of you at your age. You don’t even need to work harder /longer, just be more mercenary about work. Most companies don’t reward loyalty unfortunately- the best way to get a meaningful bump in pay is to switch companies. Rule of thumb from a recruiter friend is to expect minimum 20-30% rise for switching companies. You did the right thing to stick with better maternity benefits, but regardless of promotion potential I would be looking for other opportunities and using the promised promotion (however imminent) as leverage in future salary negotiations.

YANBU. I get it

Your salary is not your worth. Some of the jobs I respect the most have the lowest salaries and some of the jobs I respect the least have the highest. The important question is if your work is fulfilling for you and is what you want to be doing. If your depressed because your career feels stagnated, do something about that. (But, don't let your employer take the p, you deserve for them to pay you properly for what you do).

It's true that the modal average is probably quite different from the median, which is often used by people creating these stats. I think most people are under 30k, and I can see why they would think above 30k is really good when they are used to struggling by on 25k and under.

However, even salaries above 30k can't get you much these days, can it? 35k isn't actually a lot for an individual. It's the equivalent of a couple of people on around minimum, wage and renting somewhere decent at that price would be a real struggle in a lot of towns &cities where there is plentiful work.

Just wanted to add, i dont think you are being unreasonable but perhaps shouldnt have turned down the job due to pregnancy. A woman in my team started the job about 6/7 months pregnant, she has been off for almost a year now and was still entitled to the 6 month full pay when she started. This could have been something you spoke about with the employer before turning it down. Apologies if you have already mentioned this somewhere in the thread.

For those saying that 35k is loads, it is now not at all unusual for people to have to spend £750 EACH to rent a 2 bedroom flat. That isn't necessarily a swanky place, just somewhere within reasonable distance from where they work. And bills would be on top of that.

I've hard of people paying £1000 in London per month for a room in a 4 - 5 bedroom shared house. £1000!!!!

And if they pay a student loan still or not.

That’s a small mortgage going out each month if you’re on 50/60k+. I had 1100 going out a month before I cleared mine.

For the OP I can appreciate you might be thinking you should be ‘doing better’ ie earning more, you are young though and still earning above the average, plus you are not based in the south east. It seems you are being strategic with your situation and have an idea for where to go next once your mat leave comes to an end so I would try not to feel too bad about things. Easier said than done I know, but maybe your salary will jump up if you move to another company, also depends on the sector you’re working in too, some are just better paid than others rightly or wrongly 🤷🏻‍♀️

And Inclusion and Diversity Managers.

Must admit I was surprised at Rishi using the £35k figure as the benchmark for the NI savings that have just come in effect but that’s what it is

Salary is absolutely no reflection on what you are worth to you, your family and friends.

@Stepbystepfan hope you are doing ok. Just remember you are priceless to your children

Around two thirds of people earn less than the average wage, if that makes you feel better?
Also, what's the average outside London/SE.
Don't the answer, but the median wage outside of London is probably waaaay less than your salary.
Do agree with PP that what matters is whether you can manage and are happy with your career etc. And congrats on the baby too.

Not to mention thousands on nursery fees....

I think it's easy to overlook advantages that we are used to. Talking to a lifelong friend, I said that, if in my thirties, I had family who could have lent me £5k with no questions asked, I could have taken advantage of some job offers that carried more risk than I could afford.
My friend told me that they could have borrowed the money at any time from parents but hadn't, so there was no advantage. They then remembered a contribution to their first house deposit, a car that was paid for and a new kitchen.
Having said that, governments of all stripes have betrayed workers. Had it kept up with inflation, the personal allowance would be about £20k and higher rate tax would kick in above £150k. The minimum wage was always going to become the maximum wage for many jobs - it should be no lower than £25k.
The big beneficiaries have been big business (particularly those without a High Street presence) and and the losers, those obliged to spend their hard earned cash in the UK with 20% VAT.
The country gets the weasels it votes for.

Think about the people sleeping in shop doorways tonight and then you'll hopefully be more grateful for what you DO have

I earn around this amount and feel the same way, except I live in London... fortunately, my DH is much more successful than I am. I'm not sure where I've gone wrong tbh, I am good at what I do but fail to get promotions or better roles at other companies.

Don't get hung up by people on here who earn/husbands earn £200k.
Most of us are around the average I'm sure.

We can be grateful that we’re not homeless and also advocate for ourselves and others to be paid what we’re worth. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

If you really want to be altruistic, you can increase your salary so you pay more tax into the public purse.

Do you have a mentor in your industry? Sounds like their advice could be useful.

I don’t get how it went from commonly being considered £27k a year or two ago to £35k now. Have we really all had a 30% pay rise over the past few years? If so then junior doctors asking for 35% isn’t that ludicrous is it