To feel a little inadequate? Is 30K a decent salary?

[ShareaTear]

I feel like I’m completely surrounded by very high earners, and feel a little inferior, which I know is my issue and I need to get over it.

I have just completed a degree, which has opened some doors to me. I’ve started working in a related role with a salary of £30k. Is this a good starting point for someone straight out of university? Or should I be earning more by now?

Well done, OP! It’s a good start, and hopefully your earnings will increase with experience. In regards being a good salary, as others have said, it really depends where you live and circumstances,

Depends where you live. For an entry level finance role it’s fine. If you want it to grow you need to get qualified as an accountant and start moving up the ranks.

Thats a good grad salary.

I started work at top ten accountancy in 2012 on £19k. By 2022 I was earning £100k. £30k would be about what regional Big4 grads start on, and you should expect a big bump in pay once you’re qualified.

In the South East it’s a fairly standard graduate first job salary (but people in the South east like to feed the line that you can’t survive on less than 6 figures).

Depends on field but as a “first job out of uni” it’s a good salary. Of course if your first job is solicitor or banker maybe not.

Yes it's fine. And your earnings are NOT a measure of your value as a person, so no need to feel inferior!
There's a very wide range of graduate starting salaries, and it does depend on various things like what degree, what type of work, and where in the country, but there are other new graduates on less or the same.
You can always look into what you'd need to do to get a higher paid role.

Yes it’s a decent grad salary. After my first degree my salary was £17k… this was 2018 in central London. But DH starting salary the same year was £50k. Depends on the industry!

As I said, accountancy firm will be much different to an accounts department of another company. As will public/private sector. All businesses will have a finance function and all industries have different levels of pay. The ‘market rate’ is a range. My brother and my husband are CFO and finance director in very different industries.

I don't know what to say for now.

The thing is, the salary is fine as you have done an accountancy degree as opposed to accountancy exams. If you had been doing accountancy professional quals then it would probably be on the low side as you would usually do them alongside working.

If you want to earn more quickly you need to do the accountancy exams and get the work experience, 30k is good if you are being given that opportunity with this job.

You are essentially a trainee accountant/assistant accountant as you dont have any qualifications that would be asked for to get paid at a higher level. You genuinely can move up pretty quickly in this field once doing those professional qualifications. If I had someone applying with no experience and a degree they would likely be on less than 30k as we have very structured salary points and they wouldnt meet the criteria for higher.

It’s a great starting salary for a graduate. Aim to double it within 5 years.

Yeah. This is something i would say - Mandatory. The Salary thing.

but people in the South east like to feed the line that you can’t survive on less than 6 figures

The ones trying to support a mortgage and two children in nursery, yes. Not graduates.

It sounds like you’re doing really well - congrats doing your degree with a child to look after too.

Over time your salary will increase, as will your qualifications and expertise!

Remember to pay as much as you can afford out of your salary into the pension x

I’m in greater Manchester, which you wouldn’t think would be too bad! The salaries seem in the 20s until you’re qualified and then it rockets. It’s hard when you’ve still got exams left and life gets in the way of sitting them!

Then they burn out and Freshfields tells them they aren’t partner material and their up or out culture means they have to leave. Their training was so specialised it’s hard to find a move to a firm that’s not a city top 10. Then they have an identity crisis. Etc etc. Better a 30/50k a year you can stick with long term.

Bil is a primary teacher with a dc (age 3) a sahm wife and a mortgage on their 3 bed semi in Kent. Many, many people live in the south east on less than 6 figures but on mn a different picture is shared.

I didn’t say they didn’t. I simply said no one complaining about finding finances hard going on 6 figures is a graduate.

It was my starting graduate salary, in 2000. I am not sure you could survive on it with any decent quality of life in the SE though, but if you have a partner working and he pays most of the bills and mortgage then that’s a different ballgame. Presumably it’s only a starting salary and will increase?

There was a poster criticising the salary. That’s what I was responding to.

It will rise quite quickly too.

My first graduate salary in 2005 was £22,500 (graduate accountant scheme).

By 2010 I was on £55,000 and still fairly junior. There is huge potential for growth.