To think salary is very low for this job ad

[Jobseeker0]

FTC job ad I just came across has a salary of £25,063 based in Kings Cross

I get that it’s a junior role but is it just me who thinks 25k is very low for this London based role? It’s really getting me down as I have a degree and a few years experience including placement year but most jobs I see pay very little and are still extremely competitive to land. I’m fighting for jobs that will barely cover my essential bills, and will require me to get a second job.

“We’re seeking a coordinator to support the successful delivery of multidisciplinary projects at the (x), working closely with project, delivery, finance, and discipline leads in a fast-paced, agile, and collaborative environment. Ideal for an early-career professional or graduate eager to develop new skills, this role focuses on overseeing project-level requirements, aligning processes, managing delivery tools, and coordinating resourcing and financial aspects of successful project delivery.

Key responsibilities

Manage and coordinate project delivery with cross-functional teams across various disciplines.
Ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget, and meet established goals.
Working with the project team to ensure focus on the quality of outputs and how the work we do best reflects the values of the (x).
Actively engage in continuous improvement initiatives, including retrospectives and delivery team meetings.
Coordinate meetings and manage project resources.
Develop and maintain collaborative and positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders through effective communication and engagement.
Provide clear monitoring and reporting to clients when required, covering project-level deliverables and key performance indicators.
Monitor effectiveness across project work-streams and provide administrative support as needed.
Perform financial tracking, budgeting, and reforecasting activities.
Encourage agile ways of working and efficiencies across the (x).
Other ad hoc duties as required.
Provide backup support for Business Support when they are on leave, such as handling receptionist duties.”

Seems to be quite a long list of responsibilities too…
(I’m a struggling job seeker so appreciate I’m no expert)

The thing is its obvious why other wages havent increased though as most businesses dont actually make a big profit any more. Take for example a small ish pre school I look after payroll and accounts for. The gap between the assistants and manager is so small now as they just do not have enough funding to cover bigger rises for all staff. There is very little incentive to bother with responsibilities or qualifications in this area. The government funding is pathetic for nurseries, some years didnt increase, other years increased by a tiny %, meanwhile minimum wage increased massively, supplies getting more expensive. Like I mentioned in my previous post, in 10 years the gap between entry level at my place and my salary (professional) means I am earning £8k less comparatively than I would have. Thats not a small amount.

Its a shit situation for every one at most salary levels now IMO (and for businesses).

Do you have to work in London?

Do you live in London or will you commute?

Ridiculous. I wonder what incredibly useful, world enriching product or service this company creates?

But they can't even afford to pay someone London Living wage.

It doesn't even sound that junior, the list of tasks they've got the person expected to do.

What strikes me is you haven't said what your degree is in or what kind of job/ career you want.

Was there any vocational element to your job? ie science, maths or computing etc?

Is it more an arts degree?

What work do you really want to do?

There's a massive difference between getting a 'job' and creating a career.

What did you plan to do with your degree?

EA is Executive Assistant. PA is Personal Assistant.

Originally an Executive Assistant was a higher job than a PA, assisting a senior manager with management work - like having a second brain to do straightforward tasks and freeing up the senior manager to focus on strategic work.

But job title inflation has eroded that and EAs basically do what PAs used to: diary management, travel booking etc.

Some EAs are on very good salaries, up to £60k, according to some Mumsnetters. But I don't know if those are the type of role where you're expected to work long hours and be on call out of hours, especially if you're working for a CEO.

It's not a role with obvious progression into something else and can be difficult to get out of unless you have a strong career development mentality and deliberately use it to gain some skills and then move on. Although the work of a good EA is valued and appreciated by those on the receiving end, it's basically seen as "just admin" and not high status.

Transferrable skills (meeting support, minuting, budgets) can be used to get into project management, in which there is a hierarchy you can progress up (project/programme/delivery management) or branch out (business analysis, change management).

Yes it’s an apalling wage.
I don’t know why people are saying it’s a junior/ basic admin job. It’s vaguely written, and the reference to covering the business manager and receptionist might mean they ARE looking for basic admin, but theres also reference to actual project coordination, which is a technical skill that takes some knowledge and training. (I’m a PM and started out as project support)
Not every low paid office job is automatically “junior admin” 🙄
OP if you want to continue in projects my advice is to get professional qualifications such as APM/Prince2 (sorry if you have these have only skimmed thread) and find somewhere that may be low paid but they are willing to train you up.

I’m in the NW and saw when job hunting
competitive salary - min wage
benefits - bare legal minimum annual leave listed as a benefit

Yes there are a lot of woefully underpaid roles out there but getting a good degree from a Russell Group university does not entitle you to a higher salary. It's a marker of strong, and definitely impressive, academic ability, which many employers value but salary is usually determined by many more factors.

Yes it is shit. The whole system seems to be eating itself.

But failing to increase minimum wage in response to huge CoL hikes would mean the responsibility for topping up unskilled workers income to cover basic essentials (and avoid mass homelessness, shanty towns, crime to survive, etc) then gets pushed back to the government. Which in turn reduces funding available for e.g. nurseries.

There is wealth in the economy. Allowing it be concentrated to the top few percent means the government has less funding via tax (the more money you have, the easier it is to avoid taxation) and the customers can't pay increased nursery fees due to salary suppression.

Rectifying this would mean better income for the nursery (via both increased availability of government funding and higher fees) and the opportunity to increase the salary gap between levels.

It's an absolutely shocking salary. I suppose the only people it might benefit is someone who lives/can stay with family for free in London so could use it to get their first "professional" role for 6 months to put on their CV, with a reference, which is often the hardest step, then leave to progress up the ladder. The company will then probably moan that nobody has any staying power or loyalty, but serve them right. If they had any nous at all they'd realise that spending a bit more would actually save them a fortune in turnover and recruitment!

I suppose there is a possibility in some sectors where job hopping is normal/expected that perhaps they deliberately lower salaries as a result - i.e. they were previously paying £40k and the last few candidates left as soon as they got some experience so they thought 'Well fuck it then, if they're going to leave anyway even if we pay the max we can afford, we may as well halve it just to get a bum in seat doing the doss work, which we'll ramp up to sound a bit more important, and accept we'll be recruiting every year.

I really want to stay in London because my social life is here. Don’t know how I’d have got through tough times without my friends

Not a high earner but through my social network get to enjoy lots of things for free or a lower price. For eg friends perks from their work (free +1 tickets to events, shows, gigs)

I find there are many free things to do in London too. I actually think I spend less £ on socialising/activities yet lucky to experience much more than in my home town. There are far less jobs in my hometown and you need a car. Also it’s much harder to make friends at my age if you’re single and childless (also seen as ‘odd’)

I am extremely lucky to live in Zone 2, 20ish mins commute for £800 pm. I don’t own a car, can take the bus/tube or even walk to places

A factor which is regularly ignored is the impact on raising the pension age for women from 60 to 66/67 over a very short period. Although lots of people are still retiring or cutting their hours before the state pension age, the trend is towards working longer. If you have good qualifications and experience, but worked part time and / or faced sexism earlier in your career, you may feel short changed about the rise in your pension age but carry on in your career as retiring on a reduced occupational pension (perhaps aligned with the state pension age) with no state pension for a number of years will mean a low standard of living. This creates a bottle neck as those who would have happily walked out of the door 15 years ago at 60 will now be staying in their middle management / senior role, perhaps until 67 or beyond. To be fair, at the beginning of their career they wouldn’t have expected progression on the scale of graduates over the past few decades.

Market forces.

I am extremely lucky to live in Zone 2, 20ish mins commute for £800 pm.

You pay £800 a MONTH- so £9K a year on fares?

Was this a typo?

Could you say what your degree is in, if it's relevant to a career and what kind of career you are looking for?

If you are looking at jobs that do not require a degree and which anyone with a few GCSEs could do, then they will be paid the minimum wage which is around £24K pa.

Sorry yes that was a mistake, was supposed to say
20ish min commute to the City. I pay £800 pm for my flat

I just have a BSc degree in Sociology which isn’t directly linked to a career path. I know some will gleefully jump on that and think it’s your fault for doing that ‘Mickey Mouse’ subject (my own working class parents lol)

I don’t think it’s my degree though. Most of my friends here who ended up with good jobs did similar degrees, some even went to much lower ranking unis.

I wish I made different decisions when younger but I can’t go back in time and change things.
I think one difference was there were soo many jobs my parents and I didn’t even know that existed. I’m not using that as an excuse either btw

My parents kept telling me as a student the only ‘real’ job I could hope for was becoming a teacher (not for me)

you are SO young, you have no liabilities / house / kids you’ve got so much time to sort your career, don’t panic at all.

Make sure you’re paying into your pension, ideally more than minimum and salary sacrifice. If you do ask employer if they’ll put the NI saving on top

thats the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career

you are SO young, you have no liabilities / house / kids

That does make me wonder if lower salaries for older workers could be considered discriminatory 😀

Thanks, I genuinely appreciate your kindness and reassurance x

However I feel it’s not sensible for me to stop worrying about it. I worry it could be seen as concerning how I’m single childless without liabilities yet still unable to find better job or at least a stopgap that is closer to a better job.

Staying stagnant in junior role for past 3 years without progression and no clear next step is very worrying for me. Companies I worked at before in at least a year I could achieve something (promotion after doing internship at first company, 30% pay rise after 10 months at second company)

Most of my friends here earn 45k - 65k. I know few people who earn even more but they are stereotypical high flyers

There is progression in lots of organisations for EAs- business manager, fixer, head of private office, chief of staff are all roles on EA progression path at orgs I’ve worked at- I’ve seen people make multiple promotions from an EA role and end up in really well paid jobs (if they’re good).

And in public sector it’s unusual for an EA to work more than a 35 hour-ish week. Maybe if the completely unexpected has happened but it’s not the norm- and yes, that’s 35 hours for a 50k salary for a decent EA.

edited for typo

The problem is clearly your employer and you’re looking at moving so it can be fixed. It’s good that you’re worrying but what I’m saying is you have plenty of time to catch up.

I appreciate it’s a tough job market out there.

You’d get twice that amount for the same job in the banks or insurance companies.

If this is the kind of role that you are looking for I’d encourage you to look at PMO Analyst roles in banks and insurance (financial services). It’s a junior role but would be paid much more than £25k and then there are plenty of progression opportunities into Project Management or Business Analysis.

I’m a Senior PM and contracting at the moment at £850 p/day and could get up to £1k a day (this is with 20 years experience tho but shows what salaries are available over time).

I’ve sent you a PM

DS took a job like this as his first job post uni - £25kpa and they worked him to the bone. Per hour he was earning WAY under minimum wage. But he moved on after 6 months to a far better company with a small pay rise. Two years after leaving uni, working in London he's still only on £29k, though he does get some perks which have financial value. The industry he is in is highly competitive and creative - lots of people are on far less. It's shocking. But his company barely broke even last year. If they all had fair pay rises, it could fold.