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!

It's not a race to the bottom 🙄

I don't know about midwifery so can't comment. But there are many more hours involved in teaching than you've stated including working during most of those holidays!

Also what do you mean by a 'guaranteed' career? With teaching it reslly depends. If she's going into a needed subject in secondary like maths then it's a pretty safe bet. But if she's looking at primary I'd do a lot of research into your local area. You always hear there's a teacher shortage but this is mainly in secondary, in my area there were far too many applicants for each primary teacher job.

Plus, it used to be that teachers generally get permanent contracts, not true anymore for primary. In the school I was in, most younger teachers had 1 year contracts and had to reapply and reinterview every year for their own job. Really demoralising and not guaranteed career at all. One of many reasons I left teaching!

I'd choose midwife just for job satisfaction. The night shifts would be bad though. I'm assuming they get paid for overtime. Teachers always talk about the extra unpaid work they have to do. Plus it looks draining. Most births end happy, and the obstetrician deals with things that go wrong.

Sister says that the great teacher holidays are not worth anything when the job makes you feel so shit from all sides. She loves midwifery but says her teaching and life experience helped her enormously. She finds it much more satisfying. Teaching had broken her and she was saved by mat leave but is thriving as a midwife.

I feel like the exact opposite could be someone else’s experience depending on how you react to different stressors. Neither are easy jobs for different reasons and depending on where you work both can again be wildly different experiences.

I am a midwife.

If I could get paid £10k more to be a teacher……I’d still be a midwife 🤣

In teaching, you do

A degree
A year PGCE
2 years ECT

Then you are qualified.

Is midwifery similar?

In Scotland, professional fees are mandatory.

ETA Ditto CPD which is also included in the mandatory Professional Update required together with our registration fee.

As a midwife some things to consider.

if you work a lot of weekends or nights then unsocial pay really bumps your wage up. Downside is working unsocial hours! It really isn’t family friendly or even life outside of work friendly. I can’t emphasise how awful it is not being able to plan and as you haven’t got your off duty.

You are supposed to go up to Band 6 after completing your preceptorship. However recently I’m hearing a lot of people saying they are not going up to band 6. The hospitals say they have to wait for a band 6 position to become available and apply. This is common wrong and I’m sure should be against agenda for change. Hopefully the unions get involved. It’s always been a big difference of midwifery and nursing.

The maternity working environment is often quite toxic. Bullying, nastiness, etc.not every hospital but overall the profession is known for this.

Someone mentioned notes being kept for 25 years in case you’re sued. Sadly it’s worse than this now. Nottinghamshire police are currently advertising for civilian criminal investigators for the Nottingham branch of the Ockenden enquiry. Looks like they will be going through cases and seeing what criminal charges they may be able to put against maternity staff.

Meant to say both professions are poorly paid and I imagine can be quite stressful. Lots of burnt out staff. I think to survive either profession you have to have a passion for it or you just won’t hack it. She’s really got to go with her gut about which she’d prefer.

The maternity working environment is often quite toxic. Bullying, nastiness, etc.not every hospital but overall the profession is known for this.

Interesting-I wonder why that is the case. More than nursing?

Midwives coming out of training on band 5 afaik and do circa a years training on top of that before they are allowed total control with a client

Omg do you actually think teachers stop working at 3:30? 🤣 Crazy people still think this!

Just to put another view, that hasn’t been my experience at all. I’ve worked in two hospitals and bar the odd individual, 30-50 women on the unit (not all on the same shift!) get on remarkably well.
We’re usually basically kind and caring people, I find.

@maxandru 😂😂😂 we are only in school when kids are. And everything else is done by magic fairies.

Hmmm, well I’m a midwifery lecturer now so maybe I see it from a different side. Not everyone is kind and caring to the students for sure. Lots of stuff on social media about staff on staff bullying. There’s a whole “just say no to bullying in midwifery” campaign. Someone wrote a book, gathered true stories from midwives around the country and put the stories together. Shocking stuff.

Heard it so often. We should pay for the privilege of going on school trips. Because a week away with 50 other peoples kids is a holiday !

Should she be doing either if she has no particular passion for either?

Yes. You have to do this before applying for a PGCE. Love the 'reported overtime'. When do you think lessons are planned, work marked, reports written, resources made, parents met, etc. I have 2 hours a week to do stuff in the 33 contact hours a week when I am not with kids. Lunch/break is catch up or detention or duty. So I spend Sundays working and start at 7am and finish about 6pm on a good day. Parents evenings often end at 9pm though.

My sister is trying to choose between midwifery and teaching. Both seem so different

They are really different.

I think your sister needs to do some proper research into it rather than listen to you 'not being goady about teaching, but...' and make her own choices.

Generally, people who go into a job do it because they are really interested in it to begin with, and then they stay in it because they love it.

Your sister obviously needs to think about what she's interested in and what she'd love to do.

You having an epiphany that you'd thought teaching was really hard but now you've looked into it for 45 seconds and decided it's actually much easier than you'd thought, is probably not helpful.

I am a midwife.

I also initially started teacher training after my first degree (well over a decade ago now) and realised very quickly it wasn't for me.

Both are hard. And I think both are professions you have to really, really want to do.

I find I can do midwifery, and work with all the shit stuff that's going on, because I care about it, I felt called to it in a way I wasn't to teaching. I think this is really important for your sister to consider because conditions in midwifery (as I've heard they are in teaching too) are really tough at the moment, many NHS trusts are in a lot of debt which impacts staffing and resources, and the profession is under a lot of scrutiny due to recent national maternity safety reports.

A few other points that have come up.

Midwifery is at minimum a three year degree, followed by 1-2 year preceptorship after which midwives should progress to band 6. There is ongoing CPD and mandatory training throughout your career to maintain and improve knowledge and skills. There are opportunity to complete postgraduate training, either standalone level 7 modules or MScs to gain more advanced training, which a fair few midwives (including myself) do. This can help with progressing into more senior band 7 or above roles.

In terms of pay etc. it really isn't a job you do for the money. Enhanced unsociable hour rates do help. Although last year my trust made the very unpopular decision to stop enhanced pay for bank shifts due to the level of debt they're in, the removal of this "perk" is the sort of thing that makes conditions worse!

Ditto, you don't do it for the regular hours and guaranteed holidays. I would love to spend the whole Christmas period with my kids but I knew what I was getting into when I chose this career.

Records are kept for a minimum of 25 years in case a child wants to pursue a medical negligence case. I don't know how common it is for a child to do this, but many parents do. Maternity and obstetrics have the highest litigation costs of any medical field. It's such a big thing that being involved in an investigation and going to court was actually part of my midwifery training. Midwifery is an autonomous profession, so we are responsible for making decisions that can mean life or death.

I can't speak for the ins and outs of teaching because I wasn't in it for long enough. I knew it wasn't something I could do, and I will always have a great deal of respect for those who can. They're two different careers that both take the right person. I guess your sister needs to figure out which one she's right for and which (if either) is right for her.

Both midwives and teachers in the public system have crappy jobs mediocre pay but relatively good pensions and benefits like sick pay/annual leave etc.

However considering that both professions have a massive shortage of experienced staff and poor staff retention I’d strongly advise reconsidering career options if those are your only choices.

As a midwife there’s aspects of teaching I’d hate (much prefer the greater flexibility in midwifery) but on the other hand I’ve never met a teacher who has worked more than 24 hours straight and I certainly have as a midwife and it’s becoming more prevalent in the current times of crisis.

Both jobs have limited ways out, both jobs have similar toxic cultures and management , both jobs have some really high highs and some really low lows but in the long term there are better jobs out there than either.

My daughter has just started teaching. She had to do a PGCE year, after she got her degree a few years ago. It was a tough year and cost a fortune.
Since starting her ECT, she is in school for 7.45am. She runs after school clubs. She has weekly afterschool ECT meetings, faculty meetings and bus duty responsibility. She has already had 2 parents evenings and stays late to do marking, lesson planning etc. She has been sworn at, had loads of crap from parents and cannot believe some of the behaviour….
She does not get paid overtime or unsocial hours.
Let’s stop comparing. They are both worthwhile jobs, but very very different.

Is this a joke? I work in a secondary school, mainly teaching A level and GCSE students. I average a 70 hour week and work a lot in holidays. No overtime paid.
Both are vocations. Not career choices for those looking for a quick buck.

I see it is is a joke, LizTruss.

Teachers are usually paid for 5.6 weeks holiday and not 13 weeks.
NASUWT | Directed Time (England)

Our teachers work 8.15am to 4.15am and longer for those with responsibilities.
I would image saving a life would be a fantatstic accomplishment.

Teacher here! I can guarantee that I have NEVER left school at 15:30 😂
When do you think meetings happen??? I get to school at 7am and leave most evenings at 6pm - most teachers in my school do. Holidays - aka catch-up time.