Maternity on current job or none with new job?

[LorraineG90]

I've been working in my current job for 4.5 years and really feel like I need a change. It's quite a big organisation so there are always quite a lot of jobs going but recently they have made cuts and a lot of the jobs are fixed term up until 2020 or 2021 at the latest which seems a bit risky to me as my current role is permanent. I've gone for quite a few jobs previously that were permanent before the cuts, but haven't gotten any.

One day I applied for a job outside of my organisation and didn't really think much of it, surprisingly they got back to me and offered me an interview. The job salary would be 30k whereas my current job I'm on 21k. I'm a bit concerned I'll never get a job opportunity like this again.

Me and my husband had started trying for a baby, been trying 4 months so far. I was happy to stay in my current role longer as they have quite a good maternity policy and they're quite flexible in terms of changing your working pattern if you return to work, however since being offered this other interview, I'm not sure whether to go as it would mean probably forgoing maternity in the new role if I fell pregnant soon (as I wouldn't have worked there long enough to qualify probably) or whether to just go and see what happens as it might take me longer than I think to get pregnant.

Is it potentially worth being on a higher salary long term and just have statutory pay if I was to get pregnant or just stay with my current employer?

I realise there are a lot of its and buts (if I get pregnant and if I got the job) but I'm just getting a bit anxious as to whether it's worth going to this interview or not. We could wait to have a baby but I've put it off for 2 years due to a number of factors (weddings, honeymoons, finances etc) and don't really want to wait much longer as fibroids run in my family and my sister has been told she's unlikely to be able to have kids at 35. I'm 29.

Any help or advice would be really appreciated! Thanks 😊

Hi OP

We're going to move this over to employment issues for you, as we think you'll get some helpful responses over there.

My advice is to never do/not do anything because you think you might be pregnant. It's so painful to miss out on the thing and not be pregnant, whereas if you do it and then get pregnant it might cause problems but a wanted pregnancy is a good sort of problem to have. Unless it's completely financially unviable to do without mat pay (and it doesn't sound like it is, just not ideal) I wouldn't pass up a great job opportunity for a possibility.

”Is it potentially worth being on a higher salary long term and just have statutory pay if I was to get pregnant or just stay with my current employer?”

The new salary is £9k a year more. The enhanced maternity pay at your current employer must be ridiculously generous if you’re worried about leaving for a salary that much higher. Surely within a few months you’ll have made back the difference between the two maternity packages easily with having a higher salary instead?

@LilyMumsnet Thank you! Sorry I'm new to all this 🙈

@flowery The maternity pay is 5 months full pay and 2 months half pay and then we have quite a generous annual leave allowance of 32 days which can be used to top up your half pay. I think that's generous anyway, compared to other companies I've seen, but might be wrong? I'm just concerned mainly about how difficult it might be to potentially to just live on statutory

@NewAccount270219 Thankyou, that's a really good way of looking at it! 😊

That is very generous you’re right. But all you need to do if you get the new job is continue to live as though you’re still earning £21k, save up the extra you’re getting, then by the time you go on maternity leave you should have enough to ‘top up’ adequately.