I've just read that teaches and nurses are only being offered 2.8 percent pay rise.

[caringcarer]

I can't get my head around why train drivers got such a good deal yet teachers and nurses yet again are being given such a small amount. Can anyone make any sense of it? Is it because teachers and nurses are often female whereas the train drivers seem to be mostly male? I imagine we'll now have strikes by teachers and nurses and who could blame them?

Very poor initial offer/increase, the recent 5% NHS got was to some extent, eaten up by pension contribution increases, yes i know they'll get that back eventually but it doesn't pay the rent now - then there is extra parking charges and frozen mileage rates.
If the GOvt wants NHS staff to work harder in order to reduce waiting lists, this isn't the best way to go about it.

V large private sector company nr me has just given staff a 4.8% pay rise.

@caringcarer Train drivers got 15%, spread over 3 years approx 5% per year, going back 2 years as well, when inflation was much higher - its not a huge pay rise at all.

For context, energy prices rose 10% in October, rents are increasing by 8% & council tax will go up by at least 5% too.

I wonder what MPs will be offered?

Increasingly, i'm not hearing anything from this govt that i didn't get from the last one.

The train driver offer came after lots of inconvenient industrial action-there’s nothing to say that won’t happen here.

The problem in teaching is there is not enough teachers and the ones we have are unhappy and leaving. Giving them an unfunded and low pay rise will only make this worse.

Bridget P said something yesterday about being creative about having to look at recruiting teachers from a more ‘diverse’ background to help the crisis. What that means, I don’t know. Any guesses?

Ones under 21? Over 67? Ones without a degree? Ones from abroad?

Actually this isn’t true. Teachers pay freeze for years during austerity means they have lost between 15-25% of their pay in real terms since 2010. On average private sectors workers have seen their pay increase by 15%. Given inflation that’s not huge but teachers are amongst the worst affected in terms of pay. 2.8% may seem fair given current rates of inflation but it will just be keeping current pay at the same value rather than increasing it and making up for their loss in earnings over the years.

My school business manager husband was in meltdown last night- he's already cut everything he can and looked at raising revenue from lettings etc, he just can't find any more money in the school pot for a pay rise like this. I know our school has nothing spare. I don't want it if it means cuts elsewhere. From a purely selfish point of view, it makes my job so much harder if we are cutting support staff, but I also don't want anyone to lose their job in order for me to get a pay rise. Any rise HAS to be fully funded.

Agree-this will mean support staff job losses at many schools.

Its absolutely about sex in my view. People still have this idea womens salaries are the second in a family so careers dominated by women constantly get poorer pay. Train drivers are incredibly well paid while those educating our children are seemingly less valued 🙄

We won't get anything this year thanks to the employers' NI increase. We had money in the budget for an incremental rise, but that will have to be used for NI. So much for not taxing the Working People any more...

I’m glad this thread isn’t so far a race to the bottom argument. I’ve moved across public and private sector over the past 15 years. On paper I’ve been promoted several times in that period. In real terms I earn probably the same now as I did in 2010. It’s profoundly depressing to be battling to stay still as I move nearer to retirement age. In the private sector as I am now I’ve had no pay rise for two year and am at the top of the pay scale. I think everyone under the very senior tiers is facing real difficulties and private or public sector is less relevant than it has ever been.

DS2 is a nurse, he got 5.5% this year. DS1 is a soldier, he got 6% so 2.8% on top of that next year doesn’t seem too bad to me.

DH used to be in the military, now he’s in the private sector, he got 2% this year. I very much doubt he will get anything next, the company he works for will say it’s because of the increases in NI contributions.

Yes they will, any excuse not to give a pay rise, blame it on NI increases.... whilst paying out dividends and increasing director pay....

Funny that when business got a substantial tax break in November 2023, they didn't all shout "There you go, have a bigger pay rise".

It is not a formal pay offer, we are months away from that.

Train drivers are heavily unionised and (mostly) private sector, completely incomparable (also, far fewer of them compared to public sector workers that need to be paid from from taxes, pay is not based entirely on the subjective value of a job).

Yep.

For me and my colleagues, it's the black hole that we have in terms of supporting our most vulnerable children.

We have many children with SEND who require 1-2-1 support or 2-1 in some cases but it isn't fully funded (even with an EHCP). So we have to fund it somehow. Otherwise, that child has zero support and may have intimate care needs, be non-verbal, etc. No support is just not an option.

This is the real crisis in my state primary. And the main reason I would strike. But then we're not allowed to strike for this so striking for better pay and conditions is one of the only ways we can draw attention to it...

Yes, it's sad

Meanwhile also, carer's (as in, family members caring for relatives or parent carers) get less than £90 a week for what's often pretty much 24/7 care

It's a disgrace

Ditto. And we're facing job losses because of the cost of the NI changes.

Hard for us staff. Harder still for the vulnerable people who rely on us for support and services.

It's not an excuse. It's the reality. We have a budget, and in it is a provision for salary increases. But when there is increased tax to pay, that money has to come from somewhere, and that's the line of the budget it will have to come from. We can't just magic up money from somewhere.

Things are tough in our industry at the moment. We can't reasonably put our prices up as we'll lose work. We constantly review outgoings to ensure we're as efficient as possible.

We didn't benefit from the tax break relating to machinery purchase, as we don't purchase machinery!

Director pay has not increased, and the Directors hadn't had dividends for a few years as we recovered from the impact of Covid. They did take dividends last year, and also gave a small bonus (bearing in mind we'd had no salary rises for a few yrs).

So the NI increase isn't an 'excuse' at all.

They have already had payise so another big one would be unaffordable.

I’m not sure why people assume the private sector is awash with large pay rises every year.

I’ve worked for a number of firms and aside from promotions, pay rises have been pretty low. At my current firm (ftse100) our pay rises this year is 2.4% and that’s after negotiations. (Last year it was 2%). Of course our pension isn’t as good either.

it’s not a race to the bottom and I’d like to see larger increases across the board, but the reality is that for most people, it’s just a bit crap, both across private and public sectors

Is it because teachers and nurses are often female whereas the train drivers seem to be mostly male?

Yes.

Also because we seem to have an inability to realise that spending on education (and preventative health) is investment, not spending. £1 now, huge savings in future. Particularly in early education. Quality teacher recruitment and (even more so) retention is going down the toilet and the costs to society are going to dwarf what it would have cost to pay them fairly for what they do.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51yzv95wg9o#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%20severe%20teacher%20shortages%20in%20England%20in%20most%20secondary%20subjects.

Gives some statistics on teacher shortages.

dynamichealthstaff.com/blog/the-uks-looming-nurse-shortage-crisis-in-2024/#:~:text=The%20Current%20State%20of%20Nurse,of%20the%20total%20nursing%20workforce.

Gives some statistics on nursing shortages.

The real pay for both professions is still below where it was before the high inflation.

In real terms the pay for both professions is still lower than it was including the proposed small pay uplift.

Hth.

Partly sex as you say but also effective trade unions that include everyone. If the train unions want to stop the service they can absolutely do so! But fewer than 50% of teachers are unionised these days (not sure about nurses).

For one thing, union membership is costly.

I haven't followed this much but pp on schools affording this reminded me of a recent finance letter

Schools are struggling already

Pay has stagnated across the UK since 2008 really.

I think the stats saying private sector pay has risen must relate to a lot of people on minimum wage which has increased recently and then at the other end ceo pay and thier sort of level.

I don’t know about the NHS but this isn’t the actual pay rise for teachers yet. This is what the government have submitted to the independent pay review body as their suggestion of what is reasonable and affordable.

Last year the Tory government recommended 1-2% to the pay review body which then recommended 5.5%. Labour then implemented the 5.5%.

So it depends on what the independent pay review body says. They have gone against the government before.

I’m not sure why people assume the private sector is awash with large pay rises every year.

It's not, but if you're working for an organisation with a huge turnover and shareholders making high profits I would be asking myself why I was tolerating low pay rises, in the public sector it's not rocket science as to why pay rises tend to be less forthcoming (though not condoning wage stagnation). Obviously if it is a private sector organisation that does not turn over large volumes, because not all do, it's more complex, but whatever sector we should be looking at who is gaining from our own wage stagnation.

The Civil Service pension increases each year by CPI even if the salary for those in work increases at a lower rate. The pension increase is guaranteed by law.
Few, if any, private sector pension arrangements increase at the same rate. It is therefore misleading to look just at the annual pay increase for those in work. You have to look at the complete package.

Train drivers got an above inflation pay rise because they are members of a militant trade union which controls a critical national infrastructure and which leverages that control to benefit its members.