To think midwife’s get a rubbish deal compared to teachers?

[Midwifeacher]

Both should earn more than they do, obviously. My sister is trying to choose between midwifery and teaching. Both seem so different but she wants a guaranteed career and is trying to decide which route to take. I’ve been running comparisons with her.Whats shocked me is what a shoddy deal midwifes seem to get. Before taking into account that obviously, sadly, it carry huge emotional weight when things go wrong. Not entirely comparable in profession but why would anyone do this job?

Starting salary:
Midwife - £29,970
Teacher - £32,916

Highest salary without going into leadership
Midwife - £42,618
Teacher - £45,321

Holidays:
Teacher - 13 weeks plus term time bank holidays (though some unpaid, this is included in above salary) major holidays off, no flexibility to take term time off
Midwife - 27 days plus bank holidays, often work major holidays, can book time off when needed, though hard to get approval.

Pension (employer contribution):
Teacher - 28.6%
Midwife - 23.7%

Shifts:
Teacher - 6.5 hour shift mon-fri daytime (student facing) lots of reported overtime
Midwife - 12 hour shift inc evenings and weekends (patient facing) lots of reported overtime

AIBU to think midwives are getting a crap deal? Is it because they’re not as unionised?

also she’s obviously not basing which career she goes for on the above factors, but it has to be taken into consideration!

Oh how I wish I worked a 6.5 hour day 😂. Was 12 hours today and will be working most of the weekend to get mocks marked (only 421 to do). Yes, the holidays are nice but a pain if kids grown up as have to pay a premium to go on holiday. Can never take a day off in term time so miss all sorts of family things.
However midwives are under paid. And so am I. Had a chair thrown at my head, told to F off and broke up a fight today. Not a bad day to be honest.

Btw it isn’t hard to get time off. Where has that come from? Obviously it’s not always approved but it’s not hard.

Teachers rarely have to make life or death decisions and be accountable for their job many many years later.
Don't midwives have some level of accountability until the child is 18?

I don't agree they're badly paid - if you pension they're both earn well above average. Tough jobs, yes, but not badly paid.

£45k for a teacher plus pension = £57k
£42k for a midwife plus pension = £51k

Your starting salary figures for midwifery are incorrect.

Newly qualified midwives start on Agenda for Change Band 5. The bottom of Band 5 pays £31,047.

https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/pay-scales-202526

In addition, unsocial hours attract enhanced pay: x1.3 for nights and Saturdays, x1.6 for Sundays and Bank Holidays. This will substantially uplift the pay of most newly qualified midwives who tend to do a lot of out of hours work.

https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/unsocial-hours-payments

If you’re going to start a goady thread, at least try to get the numbers right

Pretty sure that you don’t just get UPS through length of service. - it’s something you have to apply for and prove. But there are also TLRs available, more often in secondary schools.

@Midwifeacher it's up to your sister and she must do what she wants to do.

I believe midwives can earn overtime; teachers can't.

DD is a teacher and earns an additional £250pw from tutoring. Base salary £42k with LW and SEN allowance. She's 27.

@Sunshineo how do you get time off in term time ???? Who covers your lessons ? Never had a day approved unless for bereavement.

Can we agree both are not paid well for the responsibility they hold. Midwives help mums give birth and teachers help them grow up to be helpful humans (mostly). Both suffer abuse I'm sure, me from 6 foot year 11s who are high or just angry, and midwives from mums giving birth (& they can be v angry !). Once had a scalpel held to my throat - will never get paid enough for that.

Sorry, I was talking about op saying that midwives struggle to get annual leave approved.* *

‘can book time off when needed, though hard to get approval’.

It varies depending on subject, but for most classroom teachers the workload is immense.There's also the fact that you find yourself dealing with 30 clients at a time. You're expected to teach, be a social worker, police...

You literally take your work home with you and you're working nights, weekends and holidays for no extra pay. That's on top of the expected Continuing Professional Development.

However, you're right in that a teacher wouldn't normally expect to have to be responsible for a life or death situation.

If a patient or relative becomes verbally abusive or violent, I think that a hospital professional has more recourse than a teacher. No - I'm not making it into a competition: just pointing out the problems that might face someone going into teaching.

By the time I retired from my permanent post as a teacher, the verbal abuse was happening daily with no possibility of refusing to see the abuser again. The physical abuse has become worse.

I did my last supply stint last year and was hit twice in the space of a week or so.

Nevertheless, you're right - I wouldn't want the responsibility over life and death faced by a midwife.

Find that very hard to believe. How could you actually prove how the delivery of a child could affect something 17 years later?

And getting a TLR or onto UPS is not easy these days as schools can't afford either, but still expect the work done.

Just under £35k for a new probationer teacher in Scotland

Absolutely roaring laughing at the 6.5 hour day!!! If only!!!

You don't, sounds similar to B7 midwife from what I can quickly research but I'm not sure they are equivalent so apologies if this isn't the case.

Let's agree they're both badly paid jobs.

Yup.

I miscarried after being punched in the stomach by a teenage boy. I've explained elsewhere on here that the possible pregnancy wasn't included in the initial report because it hadn't been confirmed by a doctor and I wasn't even sure until I lost it the next day. (The line on the test had been very faint and I was in my 40s.)

Nothing was ever done - Fife's finest 'lost the statements'.

Yes, TLRs can be over £17k.

so if you’re a teacher not in leadership but on UPS with a TLR, you could earn £67k

im just trying to help her with facts, she reads a lot about teaching being the worst/hardest job in the world, which is also why she’s considering midwifery now as she doesn’t hear bad things about that as much. Trying to help her with facts rather then just perception and thought it was interesting

not being goady. I’m not saying teachers have an easy ride, but I certainly believed they had the worse straw before I looked into it based on everything I’ve read before!

@Bitofashock everyone thinks we rock up at 8.30 and pop home at 3pm 😂.

Teaching is one of the only jobs where you prepare what will happen for every minute for 6.5 hours a day (accounting for every eventuality and need) at some unspecified, unpaid, 'non-working' time, and deal with everything generated by the over 200 kids you see each day outside those hours too.

If my husband has to prepare one presentation to 5 willing adults who don't yet understand something, he spends hours of his workdays leading up to it creating it. If I have 6 lessons tomorrow, plus pshe in tutor time, I just have to be ready with differentiated, fully resourced lessons and achieve nothing towards the next day within that time.

@Midwifeacher what tlr pays £17k ?!?!?! Most are £3-4k. And v unlikely to get one as no money. Why doesn't your sister shadow a teacher for a week and see the job ? Happy to oblige

I get that your sister is trying to choose between them but they are pretty different jobs and a bit arbitrary to compare.

I'm a teacher and it's hard but of course it's not the hardest or worst job in the world. It's quite subjective!

A TLR will involve some sort of leadership, for example Head of department, phase lead or head of faculty.

Never known anyone on a 17k TLR though!

They might go up to 17k but the vast majority are significantly lower. And can vary from school to school. A head of year TLR position in my school seems to be approx 9k.

Sorry but what is the point of this? You’ve made a post to put two professions against each other and also haven’t accurately fact checked. So many inaccuracies in what you’re saying about both professions