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

Dh and I are perceived high earners. Combined salary of £110k. However. We live in an expensive area. We bought our three bed house last year for £575k. Mortgage of around £430k.

Mortgage repayments plus nursery fees take out half our joint monthly income.

We could move but we’d have to leave the island (jersey) and our family support network and friends. Also to do the jobs we do realistically we’d need to be in London. Which wouldn’t be any cheaper.

Salaries are somewhat misleading IMO .Depending on a lot of things TBH cost of living in your town ,how much your mortgage costs and so on .We live on the South Coast and cost of living is high ,Homes/rent expensive and so on.£42.000 for a starting wage is still good money though !

That's a fabulous salary, well done! Much better than I was on at your age.

Well, it’s good money for your age in academia. If you have been able to buy a house, run a car etc and have a good quality of life in your eyes, then that’s what matters.

My only comment would be, that having children when working as an academic can be hard, and many lecturers in the social science department I worked in reduced their official hours (&therefore income), but of course, that only really meant working g what is a full-time job for many. The flexibility etc seems great, but it can make it difficult to actually get on with work once you have children.

Good luck.

I'n general I'd say yes but depends on your living costs, travel etc.

How much are you making for your company. Or what's your worth. If you left would they have to hire someone at 60k. For example if you work in sales and have brought in a million pounds of business that salary would be very low

Okay I'm about 3 years too late for this but 42000 is better than most wages, let's think, 20,000 to 25,000 is minimum wage, correct?
So already youre doing better than most,
You can live off 40,000 but don't expect having luxury, starting a family could be good since your wife/husband (not necessarily married) could work too, now let stalk theoretical, she had the same job, now that boost to 80,000 now thats amazing and also if your promoted thats 90,000 to 100,000 and thats awesome, I would recommend keeping the job you got, and don't rush into things, take it slow, thats my advice.

Some jobs just don’t pay well. £42k can be pretty much the top or close to it. In others it’s a starting salary and pay will rocket from there.

If you could do a different job and earn loads more it’s not a great salary. But of course there are reasons other than money to choose your fidelity. If it’s the max you can earn given your skills and qualifications, then it’s really good.

As everything, the answer depends.

Crucially, does it allow you to live the life you want. Comparison is the thief of joy, but we all have to live, so does it allow you to live in a way that makes you happy and plan for the future? and are you prepared to do a different job or whatever it takes to earn more if that’s what you want? Some are and some aren’t.

This thread is 2 and a half years old, the OP probably isn't even on the same salary anymore.

I earn 46k, not a lot in Surrey as I’m only income earner too in the house. When I move back to my native north wales that much will go a huge amount further

That's an exceptional salary at your age. Well above national average and probably in the upper quartile.

In fact upper quartile across the board in 2019 was £42,642. Average was £30,353.

www.cipd.co.uk/Community/blogs/b/policy_at_work/posts/how-much-are-people-paid-in-2019#gref

Generally speaking it's a reasonable salary, but you need to put it into context. Considering the years of education, hours of work, and skill level required, salaries in academia are pretty poor. This is why your colleagues complain. You have to remember that you are years behind other people in terms pension contributions etc, and have sacrificed years living on very low pay while doing a PhD. I worked in academia for a number of years before moving to another field. I now earn more and the work is far easier and less stressful. For me, the workload in academia simply isn't justified by the pay.

I was gonna guess “teacher”, if a promotion bumped you up a bit. I see you are a lecturer, so I was nearly right!

I’m at top of grade 8 senior lecturer in north west. I’m not full time but full time salary is 50k not 55k as previous posters suggested. It sounds like you’ve gone straight on to grade 8 which is unusual in HE but presumably reflects your industrial experience. Most of my younger colleagues do several years on grade 7 and have to work very hard to get the promotion to grade 8. I do know a couple in late 30s on grade 9 so will be earning up to 60k.
This is a big salary by most comparisons in the real world but not with professions that have required similarly long study/training eg law, medicine nor with graduate level engineering etc. I know young graduate engineers on 35k straight from uni expecting to hit 50k in a few years.
My DH works in IT, one level up from me, company in northwest England, walked in at 21, had no higher degrees or qualifications, earns 70k and staff have much better conditions eg. a much better maternity scheme than HE, and much better pension. The claim that public sector pensions are better than private company schemes is complete nonsense in our house as DH has always had a better scheme than me.

It sounds like your dh might need to earn as much as you or release capital from the business to move you up the housing ladder?

I'm a similar earner to you - but I have other streams of income too.
I can't afford the next jump up the housing ladder so I have extended my house which worked out cheaper than moving to get the extra space.