To think this salary is an insult?

[FlyingSolo16]

I’m a solicitor and recently interviewed for a position. Five rounds of interview, meetings with different people within the firm, etc etc.

Get to the offer stage and the “competitive salary” they’re offering was £27,500 a year. AIBU or is that an insult?

Can you live with family for a bit to save on the rent? Obviously have no idea where they are based in the country and where you're based.

I think what's always shocking is how wages have stagnated for DECADES now.
DH and I graduated in 2006 and didn't get "graduate" jobs - we just got any old job each to enable us to get a rental contract on a flat.
I got an admin job, which was an absolute piss around, for £17k. And DH got a bit of a sales rep role on £19k + company car. We paid £750 a month for our very swish 1 bed flat (not in London, but in the SE). And obviously food, bills and travel costs were so cheap back then. We always had spare cash for a night out, DVDs, some H&M clothing.

Bloody hell. I know I'm based in London but I bagged an entry level research role (consultancy, small firm) straight out of uni (though had had admin roles before) at £25k in 2000!!!

I agree. I started as a trainee accountant fresh out of university 30 years ago and earned £19,500, which rose to somewhere around £32/33k after three years when I qualified . I lived in a flat share for the first three years to save for a house deposit and bought a house once I’d qualified. Law is a comparable profession. The fact that salaries haven’t gone up in 30 years while house prices have more than doubled is disgraceful and why so many young people are so disillusioned with life in this country.

Family standard graduate wage but if you have experience i would expect 30k, a lot of experience then 35k or above

The newly qualified teachers tend to start on £28k but that should rise to £32k once they’ve been there a year.

That’s only been within the past 5 years it’s been that high to try and recruit and retain teachers.

I think most sectors start on around £28k.

I’ve just finished a masters degree and silly me did not think to check the starting salary and I am shocked by how little it is.
I feel like I’ve wasted time and money by doing it.

Now I have to decide whether to drop £8k+ a year and start from the bottom and work my way up, which in 10 years time could see me making decent money (no more than £70k a year though) or stay where I am and climb that way but my max salary would be about £50k but could get there quicker.

That’s shocking. My dd did law but although she enjoyed the degree found out that contrary to what people think, it doesn’t pay that much. She went into sales instead. No exams to pass and money is pretty good for a woman in her 20s-50k at the moment and expected to rise.

Are there decent bonuses, what’s the general location etc? It MIGHT be soft of reasonable but sounds low

I saw a job post the other day for a lecturer role (PhD required). Admittedly, it was for 17.5 hours a week, but in those hours (2.5 days?), you were expected to teach and administer 3 courses per year, supervise master’s and PhD students, have personal tutees, contribute to marking (other courses in addition to your own) and be the head of an entire postgraduate programme. The salary? £22k!

I nearly fell out of bed laughing. Dh, who is not an academic and has no idea what half of that even means, was equally appalled. Firstly, there is no way that anyone could fulfil the job role and do all of that in 2.5 7-hour days per week. What they expect is that you will work far more than your contracted hours, but they’ll still only pay you £22k a year because that’s your pro rata salary. There’s no overtime in higher ed.

Dh employs a team of welders in his business who have no university qualifications and they make £30k+ plus they get a half day every Friday, lots of food and drink in a stocked kitchen. They get a weekend away on the company for the Christmas do every year. The last Christmas party I went to for work (I worked for one of the one most expensive universities in the UK), we had Lidl juice boxes and some sandwiches in the seminar room. 😩

That’s insulting. In my team, admin posts (unskilled) start at 28k.

I’m wondering whether to point my DC in the direction/opposite direction of some careers.

It used to be that it was worth training for so many years to get a good career. Now a lot of those just aren’t worth it.

Our firm is pretty small, not in a city and pays NQas £38,500. I don’t think £27500 sounds about right at all!

That is an absolute laugh. One of my children is doing an MSc in London and gets paid £22 an hour to help out undergrads. Okay, it's only a few hours a week but it works out at twice that and he doesn't have a PhD. Make it make sense!

Im a lawyer in a small ish firm on a decent ish wage for my NQ level, my DP has a trade - he out earns me by a mile. I’d defo encourage my children to think outside of traditional careers (also he won’t be replaced by AI 😅)

Jeeso! We start our graduate social workers on £46,000 and are miles from London!

Where do you live OP? I’m a private client paralegal in a city - not London. Salary 42k a year plus large bonus. I don’t even have a degree in law!

Thing is, they need to pay the staff that do all the work low wages otherwise the person at the top wouldn't be able to rake in millions for themselves.

Ah, but to be fair, they more than likely know a man who can.

Oh, and if try to tax the millionaires at the top hoarding all the profits, they say they'll just leave the country.
This is the world we've made.

yep ridículous. Assume you are qualified and it’s not a trainee position? What’s your current salary?

Exactly this.

I was earning £25k as a PA in 2001. It was a smallish family firm. Salaries haven’t gone up.

That seems very low OP, DD has been applying for entry level admin jobs paying just under this. Have you considered legal teams in large companies such as retail or financial services companies?

No there are just different types of solicitors. Commercial law in top city firms pays well. Anything private client not so much.

Sadly I think so. Dd is in a purpose built cosharing apartment block. Hundreds of flats, nearly all working adults, a few postgraduate students. There’s more and more of these.

someone I know who’s a band 6 nurse says she can no longer afford to live on her own. 15 years ago when she was newly qualified on band 5 she could do so no problem.

wages certainly aren’t keeping up.

UK salaries are absolute dog shit at the moment. Labour rightfully strengthened workers rights and increased employer national insurance contributions, but that has resulted in salaries not being adjusted upwards in line with inflation. I’m not saying they were wrong to do what they did, but it’s had an impact.