How much do you earn

[strangerontheinternet]

Have previously come across a similar thread on another forum and it was so interesting! Basically people commented with their job, age and how much they earn. I hate my job/industry and feel it doesn't pay well like I was led to believe but also feel I have no idea what's out there career/job wise and how much various jobs would earn so what I could do.

I'm 27, a solicitor in Scotland and earn £35k

@Xenia

I agree luck plays a large part. As my parents were relatively bright there was a reasonable chance I would be but I might not have been; luck plays a part but is not the only reason.

I also had to make a lot of applications for my first job. I have my diary entries from 1981/82 which I was looking at recently. We had 3m unemployed in 1982 - worst then for 50 years and much higher than now and I applied to 139 firms and had 25 interviews before getting it. It was a Robert the Bruce thing really - try try trying again and again.

Luck and lots of hard work.

I grew up on a council estate, parents unable to read and write.

Local schools were truly awful, when I was 13 managed through writing many letters to get into a selective school on the other side of town. Bought my second hand uniform and paid for the bus from many morning and weekend paper rounds then a Saturday job when I turned 16.

Went to a top uni but really didn't enjoy it as I had no money to do anything so worked and worked.

Went to work in the City and am now a partner in a major firm earning a lot but the hard work has been immense but luckily worth it.

Am now able to give my kids lots but am paranoid about them not realising how hard they need/should work and taking things for granted.

My parents are able to spend a lot of their year on cruise ships.

I'm passionate about social mobility and spend time in disadvantaged schools (hopefully) encouraging school children to aim for more.

Marketing, 24k, aged 31

@PigletMum40 amazing and inspiring story!

I work in compliance for an international bank. 15 years experience (though with 2 mat leaves). MA, GDL and LPC. My base salary is 92k + bonus and benefits (private health, private dental, can buy annual leave). I ended up in my industry by accident - I started it as a temp role, enjoyed the job, my boss loved me and made me perm and I’m still around 15 years later.
It can be very stressful - you’re fighting the business (bankers, traders; sales), audit and the regulators. If you do your job well, no one hears about it. If you mess up it can go horribly wrong. I have a former colleague who was really lovely and competent but got on the wrong side of the regulator (not in the U.K.) trying to expose wrong doing and got into all sorts of trouble.

PA, 40, London and earn £70k plus a bonus

37, South West, Learning & Development. 53k.

Compliance raises a good point. In some jobs often higher paid ones you can be sacked in an instant. it is not like secure jobs in other sectors and is the price you pay for high pay in some areas.

Piglet well done. My son is job hunting at present so I got him the diary extracts and details of my 139 applications. By interview number 24 I was so used to getting a train all the way down to London and having interviews so perhaps I just had enough practice by the final 25th interview. It was a huge relief to get that first job in law. By 1985 I finished my training but was not kept on at the firm but the economy had turned round and 3 of the best biggest firms in London offered me jobs so I actually moved to an even better firm although the consequence of having my first 3 children at 3 different firms in those days was I did not have the 2 years of service needed to get the 6 weeks at 90% pay so I used 2 weeks of annual leave to have babies in. Not easy nor to express breastmilk and work never mind feed every 2 or 3 hours the baby at night BUT more than worth it for how well things went since; although not everyone would make the same choice.

There is definitely a gender pay gap but it is partly due to life choices in my experience

Correct. Women should just choose not to have children and their careers wouldn’t be impacted. That’s the gender pay gap solved!

Unsuccessful YouTuber.

10p last year. Thanks Google.

Women should just choose not to have children and their careers wouldn’t be impacted. That’s the gender pay gap solved!

Bollocks would it, says childless woman.

@MintyMabel

There is definitely a gender pay gap but it is partly due to life choices in my experience

Correct. Women should just choose not to have children and their careers wouldn’t be impacted. That’s the gender pay gap solved!

Right.

So why is it that when a man has children, statistically his pay rises? Above that of his female, childless coleagues?

And a woman's pay when she has a baby declines.

Lots of men and women both make "life choices" to have childen. Why are women punished for it, continually?

Nurse 39K

As a woman you aren't actually in the workplace for the duration of say a year, whereas the man usually is. It's obviously really, anyone who misses a year of work is going to suffer financially and dent their progression

£140k pre-kids, then c£50k post kids, now zero!

@marieantoinehairnet

As a woman you aren't actually in the workplace for the duration of say a year, whereas the man usually is. It's obviously really, anyone who misses a year of work is going to suffer financially and dent their progression

The paygap is much more than one year if experience. Or two. Or three. This is nonsense.

@CompliancePro

I work in compliance for an international bank. 15 years experience (though with 2 mat leaves). MA, GDL and LPC. My base salary is 92k + bonus and benefits (private health, private dental, can buy annual leave). I ended up in my industry by accident - I started it as a temp role, enjoyed the job, my boss loved me and made me perm and I’m still around 15 years later. It can be very stressful - you’re fighting the business (bankers, traders; sales), audit and the regulators. If you do your job well, no one hears about it. If you mess up it can go horribly wrong. I have a former colleague who was really lovely and competent but got on the wrong side of the regulator (not in the U.K.) trying to expose wrong doing and got into all sorts of trouble.

This sounds hideous. You must be so stressed dealing with that.

The huge correlation from my personal experience has been that there were many talented and bright people at school who couldn't be bothered and they haven't got very far in life. Many from very nice homes etc. Whereas a lot of people who were not as bright or as privileged have done much better. Obviously being intelligent helps. And there is some luck. But most of the time the deciding factor seems to be hard work, particularly in your teens and 20s, to establish yourself with qualifications and a good career path. Then you can take your foot off the pedal a bit and coast later if you want a family etc, but that early period of hard work and focus seem crucial in most cases (obviously not all - luck as I said playy a factor. But for the best chances, this seems to be what works). Almost all of those I knew when young who I see now saying how sad they are about their lives were those who made no effort in those younger years, in terms of studying and careers etc.

Magenta I don't think it is nonsense, I have had two Mat leaves, and my career/earning took off after them. It depends on whether you put you foot back down to the pedal or not. If you coast then of course you will plateau. If you get back in the drivers seat and work like you did before children then there is no gender pay gap. It's not for every e, but it is obvious - hard work reaps rewards.

Yes, hard work plays a part. I certainly worked pretty hard. I don't think I wasn't made a partner at my last 2 law firms because I was a women - at the last firm they hired me when 5 months pregnant with 2 children under 4 plus the next 3 years as I left the only people made partners were female! It hasn't mattered as I chose to work for myself and that has been ideal for me in all kinds of ways (most of all because you keep all the money and I work at home and I decide everything from working hours - which have been very very long at times but less now - to what work I do and even things like when I will retire - no fixed age so I could work until 77 full time as my father did for example without being "eased out" to make way for younger blood. However without doubt there are a complex set of reasons for the gender pay gap and there were in 1983 when I started my first job and even then 50% of us trainees were female. It is no one factor.

I totally disagree that the reason for the gender pay gap is because of choices/working style of women post-children. As already pointed out the gender gap is often already there pre-kids. In addition, women are just not viewed in the same way, with the same respect and seriousness, as men (this is a generalisation gut one which I’m sure applies in many companies given the large disparities in pay and seniority across the board). I have seen hard working, excellent women who are overlooked time and time again for top level promotions in favour of less experienced, less hard-working men. There’s all sorts of reason, unconscious bias, informal mentoring, chat about football/golf.

These comments are not to ignore the fact that on top of these prejudices and hurdles, after having children women generally find themselves with a disproportionate amount of additional childcare and housework responsibility (including, in my experience most of the pick ups - having a hard deadline for when you need to leave the office is much harder and more obvious to the rest of the team than a nicely packaged drop off before starting the working day. And some fathers don’t even do that!)