To wonder about pay

[Beatendownbylife]

Just thinking about this recently. My nail technician earns £45 for an hour an a halfs work and is self employed. I appreciate she will have to pay for equipment but works out of her own house so doesn’t have to pay to rent a seat in a salon.

She openly stated that she took home more money last year than her brother who is a junior doctor and her mum who is a nurse.

Aibu to think society has really got it’s priorities wrong when nail technicians are getting paid more than someone who may potentially save a life.

The professions aren't really comparable though, are they?

She will have no pension contribution and no sick pay consideration though which makes a difference - £30 an hour is good pay though

I would argue the work of a doctor/ nurse is more important and therefore more deserving of the higher salary?

Well it's a pointless argument because one is a private business.

Footballers earn shitloads and society loves celebrities over scientists. It’s depressing what is deemed important by the world.

Right, but who sets the pay scale of health care professionals?

If she is self employed I suppose she has to cover sick leave and holiday pay. Also the taxes etc.

However I do agree with your overall point that some very essential professions are chronically underpaid. Goodness knows what's going to happen with the hiring issues in key sectors such as care, education and health.

Yes sorry i appreciate that this is reflective of all public sector workers

One rate is set by the government as the largest healthcare employer in the country. Those employees have employment rights, infrastructure to enable them to do their jobs, sick pay, paid holidays, excellent pension schemes and possibly other benefits I’m not aware of (probably some life assurance as part of pension, blue light discounts).

the other runs her own business with associated risks and costs and charges what individuals are willing to pay in a highly competitive market (in less than a quarter of a mile from my house there are at least 4 places I can get my nails done)

Lots of professions/ jobs earn more than a nurse / junior doctor though. I think that your average politician is horribly overpaid for the twaddle they come out with. Same with bankers etc. Loads of essential services jobs are not so far off minimum wage.

To be fair, i think public sector workers have good pensions because they pay a lot into them every month?

Plus she's not guaranteed a customer every 1.5 hours.

I’m a dental nurse in an independent practice. I saw the wage rates for one of the large corporate chains. Dental nurse £11:46 per hour. Cleaner £11:44 an hour! I’m not saying cleaners aren’t worth their weight in gold because they are but dental nurses have to train, qualify and then go on the GDC register which costs £114 pa. Then we have to do 10 hours a year CPD. It’s just not worth it for most dental nurses. Not worth the stress either.

£45 x 5 hours a day x 5 days a week x 52 weeks in a year = £58.5k.

That's not accounting for any days off, bank hols, sick days, pension contributions etc.
And assumes she can do 25 sets of nails per week, every week.

Also doesn't account for costs and insurance.

Cleaning can be pretty backbreaking work.

Nope, they’re on defined benefit schemes where your retirement income is guaranteed. You can’t buy a private pension like that any more. I’m not sure there are any private sector employers with open DB schemes. They are generally the equivalent of C30% of salary if you could buy them.

She doesn’t earn that much, that’s what she charges. She has to pay tax insurance etc and no paid holidays or sick pay or maternity leave.

Plus materials

We do, I pay £400 a month into my pension but my employer pays an awful lot more.

Yes but 58.5k compared to;

nurses - 28k for year 1
junior doctor - 32k for year 1
teachers - 30k for year 1
fire service - 27k for year 1
police - 28k for year 1
carers - 21k

Ha! DH is a Civil Servant. He pays 4.6% into his pension, his employer pays 27%.

The nail tech is being paid for her skill and experience in a market that is willing to pay for it, not just based on how long something takes. In the same way that a plumber or a gas engineer might fix your problem in 20 minutes, but you’re paying for them for the knowledge in how to address the issue you couldn’t do yourself - even if it seemed fast. And being self employed means you pay all your own overheads, put aside money for tax/pension/equipment/liability insurance etc. Its not as if she’s clearing £45 profit per 90 mins (and wholesale gel prices have gone up lately). I’m sure she is doing well, but it’s not all going in her pocket.

Even so, I think there are conversations to be had about how well or not well certain jobs are paid, but i don’t think it should be a race to the bottom of X shouldn’t be paid more than Y, more so that Y should be paid better!

I think dental nurse wages are ridiculous these days. They were never great but I was a dental nurse in 2001-2006 and was on £10 an hour. It's absolutely disgusting that the wages have barely increased since then.
I'm a hygienist now and when I qualified I was on £36 an hour. 15 years later I'm on £38 an hour. So while it's good money it's no where near as good as it was. If I wasn't so old I'd retrain and get out of dentistry.

Dropping like flies with the COL

You’d have a point if it was the same person deciding doctors salaries and nail technicians salaries but it’s not, so it’s not really comparable is it.