Would you class £32,000 as a good salary?

[Poshpuppy]

I know there are so many variables. For a 21 year old living at home it's probably a very good salary!
For a single parent who owns a home maybe not.

For me, I'm 35 and I don't feel this is a good salary for me. I'm in the Civil Service, I have a degree and master's, it's my own fault for possibly doing qualifications that haven't led to anything higher paid/more specific.
I'm an EO/Executive Officer grade which is junior. There are not many HEO/Higher Officer grades that don't require very niche experience or line management, there are also few fewer HEOs than AOs or EOs so competition is tough.

I'm looking outwards at the local council, third sector and private sector. I know money isn't everything but when you have things to pay for and any chance of saving then it does help. I think I'd feel comfortable on closer to 40k, whether this will happen is another matter.

Of course there will be people on under 30k who manage perfectly fine, it's all relative. Just wondered what anyone thought!

But that means it IS higher though! I don't have any ideological problem with public sector pay rises and people being paid properly for what they do - and wage growth completely flatlined under the Tories, which was a disaster and has left the government up shit creek now. The problem is that the country can't afford massive public sector increases when the economy is barely ticking over.

@Mangelwurzelfortea worth bearing in mind there was a huge period where public sector got no or very low pay awards. It has been better the last few years but it had a bit of catching up to do to be fair. I would get 10k more in private sector.

I wouldn’t even call that a good pension.

@Mangelwurzelfortea the increases may be higher but from a much lower starting point.

I'm always on the look out for a role with a better salary but there seems to be a real shortage of well paid jobs in my area. I have dependents, a very flexible, hybrid role and I'm good st my job, so it's easy. I'm not sure of the best sites to look at fir better paid roles.

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This is the reality for many degree qualified people. When did you last look for a job yourself?

I can’t speak for the Civil Services but I work in the public sector and am on £35k which for me, is fine although it’s so much less than my friends earn - they’re pretty much on anything between £60k - £100k+

I’ve been here 20+ years (I can’t remember what I started on, £16k?) and although the pay isn’t great compared to others, the flexibility, annual leave, sick pay, etc. do make up for it. There are a lot people I work with who have been here for 15+ years which must count for something!

No, it's very low.

I know! And like I said - I am not saying that the pay rises shouldn't have happened, they absolutely should. We went through over a decade of low interest, low productivity, low wages and it was always going to end up like this, in a total mess, unfortunately. It started after the economic crash in 2008 - I'm in the private sector and we all had pay freezes and some people had pay cuts - and never improved from there.

Oh, and I line manage a team of six (although would prefer a non-managerial role TBH!)

I eat £32k a year but I have a higher earning husband and I work part time (2 days a week, 12 hour shifts as a nurse) so have the ability to easily increase my earnings if I needed to. I also live in Scotland where cost of living and house prices are much much less than down south. I would really really struggle on my earnings alone if I was a single parent, it would be completely undoable.

There is an HEO role in DSIT currently advertised as available to work from Salford, dealing with Parliamentary business - PQs / OPQs and PO correspondence, and dealing with coordinating FOIs and drafting core briefing. Otherwise, you could look for a level transfer to a department offering more progress. Lots of colleagues where I work (not DSIT) progress from EO / HEO to G7 in a few years.

I find this ridiculous for that amount of responsibility.

I remember being so public sector focused as a new graduate. Placement with the Audit Commission et etc…I caught one look at the salary projection and legged it into legal tech sales.

I'm in public sector, ex private sector and i dont think id get any more for what I do in private sector, my salary benchmarks quite well. Private sector salaries have massively stagnated due to a saturated market, compared to public sector in my field.

suppose there is the pension Don't CS pay something like 29% into that each month. You would do well to get 9% in the private sector. So would adding another 20% make for a like for like comparison. That would be high 30s.

I think it's average but it hugely depends on where you live and what your outgoings are.

it's hardly that ridiculous, it was an option under the CS until 2015 when 'alpha' was introduced as the main scheme.

In my opinion it’s not bad. I’m also 35 and I earns 33.5k, I work in finance not in public sector. My husband earns abojut 50k so we do fine.
it does bother me something feeling like I don’t earn very much so I understand how you’re feeling. What I have noticed in life though is you can get so much out of your money by being savvy and a lot of higher earners than you won’t have anything to show for it!
it’s not just about salary.
its salary + outgoing + spending habits + attitude

At one time, a degree and masters meant you'd be headhunted. Now, lots of people with these can't find any job at all. It's not fair, as we still bring up our kids to say that if they work hard, they'll get a good job. I'm not saying you shouldn't try for something else, but we should all be wary of throwing away any job these days.

If EO is the lowest level, I'm guessing the same as what I was when I worked. I was like an office administrator but it was in a business. That wouldn't seem too low tbh.

My brother is a senior carer earning £32k, no degree, just on the job training. Living in Yorkshire, rented 1 bedroom flat, no car, single and no kids- he's comfortable.
Hubby is an engineer, earns less- he has a degree, years of experience- earning less than £32k.
I'm a teacher, degree and post graduate qualification- earning quite a bit more. Could we, as a family of 3, live off hubby's or brother's pay alone? No. But everything is relative- it all depends on your lifestyle, number of people you're supporting etc.

You've not said what your degree/masters are in. Neither are necessary for your EO role, so perhaps look for jobs in your field where the education will be used and remunerated

you do understand that "you" isn't the same as "everyone?" It's quite concerning that "a senior civil servant" understands neither that concept nor the meaning of the word "literally."

Yes if you compare like for like, perhaps some lawyers or IT technicians or HR officers in some private firms might earn a third of someone doing a broadly comparable job in, say, their local council
(although again most people don't take into account all the benefits of the public sector that might mean the overall difference is less than what it seems when you just look at the headline salary)
but there are also a lot of solicitors and IT staff and HR officers in the private sector earning the same or less than their public sector counterparts.

Either way it doesn't mean that all jobs in the private sector are better paid than all jobs in the public sector or that the public sector is "literally" the worse paid career.

If you added up all the salaries of every public sector employee you'd be including a comparatively large number of people who are fairly well paid even if they could (as individuals) possible earn more in the private sector - chief execs, chief legal officers, CFOs, doctors, headteachers, etc. Many more white collar roles, including teachers, nurses, etc who, while their salaries are hardly big bucks are still higher than the average full time wage. All of which would bring the average pay per employee up.

Whereas if you considered, say, the private care or retail sector, a huge majority of staff would be on minimum wage, or close to it.

@Poshpuppy hi OP. It's not horrendous, it would be a great salary for someone in their 20s but not so great for someone in their 30s. But you're not doing too bad. There are people in their 50s who only dream of reaching £32k.

I could probably advise more if you said what you studied and maybe what department you're in. For example if you were at defra, you could look to join an environmental consultancy.