To think this is an unacceptable wage?

[Youthiswastedontheyoung]

I'm a qualified teacher with 21 years' experience who has just started supply so flexibility with a poorly husband and three kids of my own.
Just did a full day supply (8.30-3.30) and came out with £112 net.
Hubby thinks decent wage, I think piss-take!
Opinions please!

£1400 net for 2.5 days - even assuming no pension or student loan repayments - is about £42,500 per year. About the mean average for the UK. Obviously, if £1400 is also after loan or pension payments, then the annual wage equuvalent is higher.

But I don't think this is about the money, to be honest. I suspect you are angry at more than the financial aspect of the job (who can blame you) and the money is just the easy thing to focus on.

It is taking the piss but supply agencies do. I had 6 years' experience. Qualified English teacher and for one agency I signed up to the agent said I should be getting 183 a day at M6 . This was 5 years ago so would be more now. Anyway, I wasn't short of work but it wasn't worth 183 a day so I changed careers.

Are you in the UK?
Were you contacted via an agency or directly by the school, if an agency were you not told your daily rate before you accepted the contract?

If the school then all schools in your area are on the same rate for each scale. I'm not sure why you don't know this if you have been in education for 21 years. this is why more and more are leaving the industry.

Ah! But a supply teacher does have obligations outside hours e.g. all work set must be marked before you leave the school. Also, long-term supply means doing all the things a teacher normally does, e.g. attend meetings, set work, plan curricula, do break and lunch duties, and keep up with marking etc. and write reports. Also, if it's long term there are problems with sick pay (none, usually) and pension - this is something teacher unions have only just started to do something about. So out of that £112 OP needs to be contributing to her pension and also putting money aside for being unable to work. She's a qualified teacher with 21 years experience, so if in full-time/permanent employment, she would be getting more than £112 a day.
£16 per hour is not a good wage when it does not cover sick pay and pension.

Cost of living is high across the board and most people in the country don’t have a particularly high standard of living. Not enough money to go round.

I think they are quite comparable jobs. I am a professional Nanny with a degree and over 20 years experience. I earn £18ph in my contracted p/t job. When I do shifts as an emergency Nanny (comparable to supply) I can earn £20-25ph.

🤣🤣🤣

No security of tenure
no sick pay
no holiday pay
no pension
no employment rights eg around dismissal

Nothing like a HoD post then.

You can get £16ph doing admin jobs. You can get considerably more working in one of those bullshit jobs called ‘change management’ by producing spreadsheets and mind maps and spouting phrases like ‘drill down’ and ‘drains up review’. Look at the proliferation of NHS middle managers - they’re on £100k plus.

Why do we insist on paying the people who educate the nation’s children so poorly?!

There’s plenty of money, just extremely unfairly distributed.

The issue is that when the only pay progression available is becoming "a head of something", it takes experienced staff away from their posts. I am currently working as a senior clinician. I am at the very top of the pay grade for my level. If I go to management (which I have enough experience to do) I will no longer be in a patient-facing role. I didn't spend time, effort and money developing my expertise to end up pushing paper around. My expertise is more relevant when working with patient than it would be in a management role with more responsibility but less opportunity to use my clinical skills. I don't see how it is more beneficial for the service or the patients. In fact, the Trust is arguably better off hiring managers with business experience since so much about clinical management is reallocating funding and saving costs.

Well OP it would help if you post what you think a fair wage would be. Then we can tell you if you’re being realistic. If you do agency or supply then you aren’t going to get an increase due to progression in your career or a reflection of your experience

But in percentage terms it's nearly 50% above the minimum wage. How does it compare to your last teaching salary, bearing in mind supply doesn't include any long-term responsibility or leadership?
Many, many qualified professionals earn a similar amount. I agree that most of us deserve a pay rise, obviously you don't find that wage reasonable so it makes sense to see how you could find higher paying jobs.

Honestly I think YABU to have worked in the industry this long and not know that teachers are vastly underpaid/valued. I work in tech and we pay the graduate admin roles more than the highest salaries I've seen for teaching.

If you don't like it, vote with your feet - plenty are. Teachers salaries are never going to rival for-profit salaries, and as others have mentioned you are on almost double minimum wage (£20ph vs £11.44) - if you want more you'll need to go somewhere that generates more ££.

This. Surely with all that experience you understand teachers work huge amounts outside school hours.

Supply rates invariably don't take into account the level of experience the person has, it's a teacher on the seat without the additional responsibility and ongoing activities that their permanent colleagues have. This isn't a slight on them, have worked with some incredible Supply teachers and we couldn't function without them often. If you had progressed in a permanent role for the past 21 years no doubt you'd be on a better wage.

Unacceptable as there’s no pension, no holiday, no sick

DH gets £300 a day as a maths supply

The daily rate doesn't seem to have increased much since my late OH was doing Supply work 20 years ago but he tended to work directly with the schools rather than through one of the Agencies.

£35K per annum for a temporary job - going rate?

perhaps you should consider tutoring. That way you can charge more.

A friend of mine quit teaching to be a cleaner... more money, less stress and more flexibility.
Very sad....

YANBU, it's unacceptable for the level of responsibility and value given to society. Teaching should be much more highly paid than it is.

Civil/structural engineering doesn't pay great either when you consider that it's 3 years at uni then 5+years on the job to get chartered and the average wage in London for that, once you're chartered, is around £55K.

It doesn't really pay to go to uni anymore as you're also left with ~£50K + of debt once you leave.

I'm not sure what the answer is, though, but you're right that it shouldn't be a race to the bottom.

Private tutors near me, London, are £50 per hour or £80 for 2 hours.
But that is after school time and weekends.
Cash in hand....

Hi OP, I agree that it is not enough.
My son who has just done his A levels gets almost twice that for tutoring.
Is that something you could do to supplement your income?

@Plum02

What is it then?

And you are mistaken. I get a weekly fee plus an allowance for the child.

She's not a professional teacher when she's doing supply though - it's casual part-time work with little responsibility and no evening or weekend work.

£16 an hour take home to work a guaranteed 6.5 hours a day with no other hassle sounds pretty good to me.