Is 42,000 a good salary?

[RDW1989]

I’m 28 and currently earn 42,000. This went up from 33000 the previous year as I had a big promotion. I feel like this is pretty good for my age, but everyone in my profession talks about how rubbish the money is, especially given how hard the work is and the log hours we often end up working (although often from home, evenings and weekends etc)

Salary goes up around £1000 a year until £49000, after that I’d need another promotion but due to planning to start a family soon I don’t see this happening for me for a long while!

How does this compare? Do you think this a reasonable salary?

P.s. I know it’s crude to talk about money, hence posting in an anonymous forum

Blueshoes - I won’t get to 70k for a long long time. The academic system is weird - your pay makes small jumps of 1k or so a year until the top of your pay grade which I think is about £49k. Then you are stuck until you get a promotion. But the promotion just starts you at the bottom of the next pay grade which would be 50k. I think I’d need 3 promotions to reach 70k! Although I’m not aiming to work in London.

OP, what is your industry. Salaries are dependent on the sector.

I’m 45 and my full time rate is £40k. Your colleagues are complaining because that’s what we do when we’re degree level educated workers in the public sector - we equate ‘sub inflation pay rise for a couple of years’ or ‘mate who’s an investment banker earns my annual salary in a month’ with ‘I’m desperately underpaid’. True, we’re not doing great, but we do live ina fucking bubble sometimes.

Don’t work out your hourly rate.

Do consider what you’d be doing if you weren’t doing what you are now.

Positively revel in the fact you enjoy your job! That Is genuinely priceless.

And “I’d need another promotion but due to planning to start a family soon I don’t see this happening for me for a long while!” Fuck that. Go fo the family. Go for the promotion.

Quite a decent salary for a 28 year old but does depend on what you're doing & where you live. In London or the suburbs that would get you a mortgage of around £200,000k and probably not enough to buy yourself a 1 bed flat, unless you had a decent deposit.

For comparison, a doctor at that age would be on £50k and in a few years would be on £70k and then by the age of 40 close to £100k.

I'm 50 and 10 years ago I had my best ever year & earned £100k - 2 years later after getting divorced I earned £25k. Now its somewhere in between the 2.

Of course it's a good salary!

I also have a PhD and earn nowhere near as much as you, even though I'm 10 years older.

However, I have friends who work in academia and their workloads are all-consuming, so I can't say I envy you.

@redmarkone My husband runs a small family business with his father. It’s hard to say how much he earns as he only became a partner in the company last year and a lot of his money comes in dividends. But it’s not a lot, a lot less than my salary.

Our mortgage is only £700 a month, but I’d really like to move to a nicer area once we have children. It’s a cheaper area for a reason

I think that it used to be a rule of thumb that you had a higher salary in industry than academia but academia provided a higher level of security and better pension. I'm not convinced that's the case anymore tbh. Academia doesn't have the same cast iron security used to and, as pp have said it really is poorly paid!

If there's no where in industry that you want to work does it really matter? In terms of pensions I think you would struggle to do better anywhere. Before having kids I was self employed and actively salivate over dp's pension (also a lecturer ). You can definitely earn over £100k in academia though.

Sorry that should read 'it really isn't poorly paid. Shocker of a typo!

cod are you for real - 23 and £387,000 per year

i work in admin with 16 years experience and i'm on 24k in the midlands if that helps

It's a fair academic salary for your age, and a better than fair salary for your qualifications as you have little experience and no post-doc research.
After several years in academia I'm now CSO at a spin-out, and would think that an academic of your qualifications/experience/age on that salary was a high flyer. What are your concerns?

That's a good salary for a lecturer. Without meaning to be rude in anyway shape or form, are you at an ex poly? I ask as I know they sometimes pay these salaries whereas better unis usually start in less. My first post was in an ex poly and I also got a similar wage - when I went to a better institution I took a pay cut. I find lecturer salaries vary from 30,000-40,000 odd depending on the place.

Honesty op, getting a lecturer position straight out of a PhD is very, very unusual. You're doing very well.
Pp is right though- never work out your hourly rate!

Totally agree with you PP - I spend a good number of years in research contracts first. And had to live all over the country.

@ShowMeTheElf I suppose these concerns stem from looking at houses. We bought our first home 2.5 years ago, and bought in a rougher area to be able to get on the property ladder. It’s not all bad, I’m near Dh’s family, and we have a reasonably sized house that we’re slowly rennovating. As I said above we’re hoping to start a family in the next few years and once our children are starting reception I’d like to be in a nice house in a nice area with good schools. I started having a look on Rightmove even though we won’t move for a few years yet. But even the equivalent of our current 3 bed semi in a nice area is way beyond our budget. Think 350,000+

I can’t see a way that we can afford this on our current income. I tried a few mortgage calculators, and even with me on 50k we couldn’t afford this. Which got me thinking, what is everyone else earning that enables them to afford such expensive houses?!

You’re an academic yet couldn’t research the UK average salaries ;) ?

Of course you are well paid compared to the majority of the UK .

There was a thread last night called something like “how much do you earn” or something ... have a read .

Weetabix - no, it’s a Russel group uni. In my field it’s not as unusual, luckily for me. I know colleagues in other schools that have had to do many post docs before getting a permanent lectureship though

@riledandharassed I did, but then my question was if the average salary is around £28k and I am on a significantly higher than average salary, why can’t I afford a nice house?! Or even envision myself being able to buy a nice house in the next 5 years or so

Which led me to question whether this is skewed by part time salaries for example...

@riledandharassed thanks, will look for that thread now...

Wow-that's impressive then. Well done 👍🏻 !

There are lots of reasons why people can afford expensive houses. Lots of free childcare, big inheritance etc. Obviously you should look at you earning potential when considering your career but I really don't think you should be looking the cost of houses in potential school areas for as yet non existent children! If you're thinking of starting a family in the next few years then we could be talking 7 years down the line? Lots of things can change in that time. If you found a better paying industry position but it was far from where you live now would your dh be in a position to get a job there? Would you want to move? My dp is a lecturer now and we have 2 young dc , it's quite a flexible job at his level. He can sometime work around the kids in a way he simply wouldn't be able to in industry.

It is all so relative. Can you afford to live a good lifestyle in the area you live in and maintain a good work life balance and are you happy at work...if so it’s a good salary!

I earn just over £50k plus good car. I get good holidays and enjoy my job. My husband earns about £45k. We live in the midlands and our combined salary makes us feel very comfortable. We live in a large house in a nice area with a mortgage of £850p/m. Go on a couple of long haul holidays each year plus city breaks, eat out regularly, buy new things, save.

However I appreciate itd be a very different story and lifestyle on those salaries in London.

You won't starve on a salary like that and it's enough that you have options/choices. So it's a 'good' salary from that perspective.

It's not a good salary considering there are salaries of £50k, £70k, £100k, £300k, £1m, £10m.....

I'm 25 and my take home pay is around £1800. I am lucky to have no mortgage, so around £800 go straight to savings and I live off around £1000. I realise it's a lot of money and I am in a very fortunate position, but compared to the workload, the stress, the women dominated industry that makes it so bitchy.... oh well......