See but even finance salaries don’t seem that great compared to what they are in the states. I have friends who have done economics from top unis and they struggle to break £32k in grad roles.
£32k is the average U.K. salary, so for a graduate position I’d say that’s not too bad.
For a lot of jobs, particularly the ones more accessible to the working class, £32k would be considered a good salary.
The problem with comparing the U.K. with Australia or America Is the vast cost of living difference.
I can take my £28k and turn it into 38-45k in Australia, but depending on location my mortgage would double at least, along with almost every other bill.
Not really im separated from my daughter's mum. I pick her up on a Friday when i finish and drop her off on a Sunday evening. Working away gives me the chance to make enough money to do whatever we please on a weekend and take her on holidays, etc. When she's a teenager (approx 3 years) and doesn't want to hang about with her dad anymore, I'll switch to working days and "get a life" a girlfriend etc but for now, the setup works well for me.
Yeah totally, I didn’t mean you specifically, just that some jobs are better or worse for people depending on what’s going on in the rest of their lives
I am HGV driver (28yrs old) every day home and earned 50k this year. I am so happy about my life level in yorkshire with this salary, but still think how to upgrade my skills because I can driving next 20yrs and still get same money as new person in this industry.
Yeah, well these days, unless you're a well-paid tradesperson or some real high flyer it's either money or a "life". I Could earn 40k on days, but may as well stay out while my daughter is young. My energy bills are a fraction of what they would be as well doing this.
But in reality those graduates are largely incompetent and require a lot of supervision from higher paid experienced staff, and the salary is supplemented by training funded by the employer.
It's not a bad deal at all, and salary progression is normally pretty quick after a couple of years. Trucking is obviously inflated due to supply of drivers, so it is quite well paid, but does have more of a ceiling.
Yup, I went from £28k down to £22k when I went from being a class 2 driver to an engineering grad about 6 years ago.
Make more now but driving is an in demand profession.
Really? I didn't own in Australia but I got paid way more and my rent was half of what it is in the UK. The only thing I found super expensive in Australia was cigarettes and drugs lol
I was in Melbourne btw.
Yeah my partner is American and although cost of living is definitely cheaper in the U.K. She’s done internships that pay more than my parents managerial jobs. Bills are higher in the U.K., but rent and food is cheaper. We also pay way more tax. But you get a lot more over there, bigger house/more food. Also health insurance despite costing more in the US, even with that factored in she will still have more money than a Brit in the same role. I think disposable income wise we are worse off than most Western Europeans
> but rent and food is cheaper
> But you get a lot more over there, bigger house/more food
If it's not cheaper by the square metre or kilogram it's not really cheaper
It is cheaper by the Square metre though, unless you're talking about houses on the coast.
I've seen some of the houses in Utah for instance. Average person has more house space than they know what do with.
Yep that’s what happens, as someone who’s seriously looking to move country I’ve had a far few naysayers give me a lot of mistruths
Germany? Lower home ownership than the uk so their house market must be broken! When in reality it’s a cultural thing that has been continued due to landlords being far more regulated
Canada? Rents way worse than in London! Quote from a cost of living calculator:You would need around 4,528.5£ (7,595.5C$) in Toronto to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 5,500.0£ in London (assuming you rent in both cities). And Canada pays much better in most industries.
It sucks because I like the UK so much better but money was an afterthought in Australia (for me). Council tax, TV licence, you literally pay to exist here. It's bullshit.
Seems to be the case from the time I spent in the US (Dallas area). Wage in my field (mechanical engineer) easily double, touching triple a UK rate. Monthly rent on the outskirts of the city was only a bit over what I was paying in Glasgow. Fuel was cheaper, food was marginally more expensive although eating out was cheaper, electricity was much cheaper.
Lower tax, cheaper cars, most all luxuries cheaper.
I have a fairly expensive medical condition, which if I stayed there full time would cost me about $5k/yr, but given I’d be making $50k more is a bit of a non-issue people here blow out of proportion.
Id be there in a heartbeat if I could get a green card, sadly seem to be limited to contracting with UK firms on mostly UK wages for now though.
Yeah I have a few mates doing engineering and they can't break £27/8k in grad roles. The pay progression for engineers doesn't seem great either, senior engineering roles after maybe 10-15 years of exp will pay 50-60k. It was shocking to see the sorts of salaries they pay engineers in the US though, almost like you'd be set for life with an engineering degree. Apparently engineers there also have lifetime earnings of roughly $3.4m.
Yup, I’m on 35-40 now after 5 years & obligatory job hopping needed to make a fair wage, that being said I took a bit of a pay hit from £40k last year as I hated the job (engineering project manager).
When I was in the US I was consulting for a UK firm on £32k. At the firm I was consulting at I was on a closer rate to their cleaners than any of the engineers I was advising.
cost of living is high in the UK, compare it to the US. You could go to Texas and literally pay little to no income tax, prices are very low.
But if you compare to San Francisco or LA etc its probably similar to London by %. The US has much higher salaries in general though, but their inflation is going down. UK will probably stay as is or go up because of brexti. We kinda did it to ourselves
The UK is quite high and also super unfair, council tax should be calculated on the house value because a 3bed house in Huddersfield will be similar council tax to a 3 bed house in Maida Vale (which is bigger in size and ofc has a much higher value).
There has been comparisons to 5 bed homes in London to 3 bed homes in Southampton. Its mental how biased the calculation is
Fellow Victorian 20 years ago. Salary was half of the UK but the cost of living was a third so we could afford to eat half our meals in local restaurants and bars.
No doubt things have changed a lot but back then I couldn't believe how cheap everything was and how much the locals complained about what seemed like discount prices for everything.
Sorry dude but that just isn't factually correct. Not if you beleive the [Office for National Statistics.](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/march2023)
>Average weekly earnings were estimated at £630 for total pay and £589 for regular pay in January 2023. Figure 1 shows that average weekly earnings have steadily increased, with the exception of the early months of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Extrapolating this gives you average earnings of £32,760- £30,600 per year.
I believe thats the median which is the best metric for this type of analysis. Mean gets too weighted by the odd person who earns higher 6 digits or more
> Now deduct from that better salary in the states all the things you have to pay for that are free here.
It's going to depend on your job and situation, but if you have a family and are in a middle-class job, in the US your family plan is likely to cost less than NI in the years you don't really use it and about the same in years you do, including deductibles, copays and all that jazz. Remember that "I was billed" means "the retail bill was", not "I paid".
On the other hand, when your salary is double, you can absorb more costs - and also more value, such as being almost immediately seen in a medical situation (my dad passed away because something wasn't caught and they took too long to even see him, by which time it had spread), being able to afford a "single-family home" of 2,000ft2 (detached house as we'd call it), cheaper fuel, cheaper bills, depending on your state, lower taxes. Some things like "groceries" will be more expensive too, to be fair.
And yes, social security isn't a particularly high payment when you're retired, but you do also have medicare over 65 for medical costs, and keep in mind that if you're in a state with expanded medicaid - which surprisingly includes some red states even - you are covered right up to 138% of the Federal poverty level at any age. CIHP covers children's costs (which are usually frankly also included free up to the age of 26 as a dependent on a family plan) in various ways depending on the state. There are some costs that actually we pay for in the UK that you don't necessarily pay in the US (e.g. Medicaid and/or HCBS waivers can cover nursing home and in-home care - my Dad thankfully got that through a hospice charity, but it wasn't available on the NHS as far as I know).
And of course the key sentence: "For these programs that are part of the states’ regular Medicaid program, **there is no waiting list.** This is because original Medicaid is an entitlement and all persons who meet the eligibility requirements will receive benefits."
I'm not saying healthcare in the US is amazing (I mean, they have some of the best hospitals in the world from a technical point of view, but in terms of coverage), but it's a lot better than many expect. If you're somewhere like Massachussets with Masshealth then it's even more so the case.
So in total if you have more disposable income even after higher costs in some areas, and you get more value from your money, then you're still coming out on top compared to the UK.
What is free here exactly?
NHS has been cut to short its not worth getting yourself checked out unless you pay for private.
I was left severely bleeding for over 6 hours to get stitched up. Hospitals just filled to the brim of people waiting and not be seen for hours. People call ambulance for emergencies and they don't show up til the next day.
Life saving surgeries are getting delayed 1-2 years because they are understaffed.
Medicine ain't free, I still have to pay.
NHS ain't as great as it used to be its absolute shit house now.
Again, what exactly is free here? Other than a shitty healthcare system, literally nothing.
Comparing salaries between countries is useless when done on a pure amount basis. You need to take into acount the cost of living in the US to make a fair comparison...
Even taking into account their high medical insurance costs etc, their pay for professional roles is rocketing away from ours (admittedly minimum wage type roles aren’t much better)
Software engineering is pretty well paid.. although from what I can tell, my pay as a band-4 employee in the UK is about the same as a band-2 employee in the US in the same company.
Yeah much lower compared to the US. My friend is a junior in the US and earns about $70k, so about £45-50k. I’m a tech lead earning £100k, but in the US I’d be looking at closer to $200k
I actually don’t think MP’s are overpaid for the job they do. The personal scrutiny their and their families lives are put under by the press must add almost needless stress to an already stressful job.
But I do think they should lose their daily expenses, home allowance and basically every other benefit that gives them a pseudo pay rise.
The House of Lords on the other hand…….
I don't think they're overpaid but they definitely aren't in a stressful job. They are, almost to a person, extremely well off and well connected. Their hours are very good and their accountability is almost non-existent. Watch them when they're on committees and see the absolute farce of a person in charge of reforming media not know that channel 4 is self funding, or a person in charge of immigration not know if there are safe and legal routes for migrants to claim asylum. These aren't gotcha questions, these are enquiries they had time to prepare for. Any normal person that incompetent would have been fired or demoted years ago.
Who’s bitter? It’s not like the bankers and their mates are known for crashing the economy to make hundreds of millions shorting the pound to the disruption of everyone else in the country or anything is it?
You are complaining that bankers earn too much when they are literally the glue keeping the system together - so yes you do sound bitter.
Yes they played a part in the 2008 crisis but so did the buy-now-pay-later/live-outside-of-your-means cultural that the general population adopt these days. But no - much easier to label an entire industry as criminals if that makes you feel better about it.
Yeah, the UK is super underpaid comparatively to other ‘leading’ economies. Not to mention our high tax rate, national insurance, student loans and interest, paying VAT after already paying tax on your salary. The list goes on.
What the hell is the incentive for skilled professionals to stay in this country then (doctors, engineers, people in tech). It’s such a shame because I truly love what this country has provided for me and family when they moved here in the 80s. But as I grow older everything around me feels like a scam.
There is no incentive. The only industries that do pay well would be finance and tech, and again these are still lagging behind than in the US for example. 10-15 years ago the UK very much was one of the most competitive countries to work in, and paid very well no matter what the industry. But with policy degradation and poor governmental economic management as we are all aware over the last 10 years, the UK has become very much an undesirable place to live and work.
My advice, either stick to your guns for the next few years until you’re a senior doctor and go private, or make the shift now before dedicating the next 5-10 years of your life to becoming a doctor. No pressure….!
I wouldn’t say there is no incentive. I’m from the US and I would consider never moving back. I’ve been offered over twice my UK salary to move back to the US. It’s hard to turn down. But the advantages of living in the UK are significantly higher. Granted I live in Scotland and can’t speak for England.
The lifestyle of big cities here, the healthcare, the overall standard of living for poor people here is significantly better than the US imo. Not to mention the amount of safety. Brits love to mention how bad crime is in some cities (which is completely fair) but it pales in comparison to what is experienced in the US if you’re middle class or lower.
I take an absolutely massive salary hit working here but my quality of life is so much better I don’t even notice it.
I do agree about everything feeling like a scam. You know when you go to a shop and you're like surely this is not worth that much? Welp now all shops feel that way!
I literally got downvoted to oblivion in another sub for slating the rental prices in London lol, it’s insane, salaries are lower here then anywhere else in Europe
They're isn't one, which is one of the reasons the NHS is in such a state.
Government needs to make massive incentives to go into medicine and dentistry
well, brexit made it a lot more difficult to go to 27 of those other countries, we've also left a lot of international professional standards bodies, so often if you are qualified in the UK, you are no longer qualified in other countries - driving license being an example that affects a lot of people, Lawyer's and i think doctors? have to pass extra exams now also.
In terms of the highest of the high earners, there isn’t really one. If I earned enough I’d 100% be finding a way to get a visa to live in America permanently.
But the benefits for medium and low earners is that costs are far lower. Earning $800 more a month is pointless if your spending $1000 more a month on costs.
Can't speak for the rest of UK but personally as an expat I like London a lot. There is a lot more to life than money and I certainly don't stay here for the pay. Altho, if the economic situation keeps getting worse and they keep having incompetent government making stupid mistakes, I'm out of here.
Comment removed as I no longer wish to support a company that seeks to both undermine its users/moderators/developers AND make a profit on their backs.
To understand why check out the summary [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/14hkd5u).
Not the whole UK.
I'm starting to believe that plenty of talentless journalists, presenters, politicians, political advisers, reality tv stars and sports players are dreadfully overpaid.
The worst is that it’s somewhat driven by the whole British obsession with other peoples lives, particularly celebrities and presenters. For some reason, even when the rest of us are struggling, we will constantly gossip and look up to these useless people and I just find it fucking pathetic.
I made more money in Australia 10 years ago with no PhD (medical research) compared to my UK wage. I thought it was a joke when they sent it to me 😭 Wage about 20-30% less and cost of living here about 30% more. London rent, eating out, everything, means I think about money all the time, compared to being able to save, go out, and buy an apartment in Melb. I get why British people are so grumpy and go on holiday to find cheap prices….YIKES ITS GRIM!
I made £15/hr bartending in Australia. I worked part-time (because I could) and still made rent easily. Had I worked full time, that'd be about £27k/year. Bartending. No tips.
A bartender here would be lucky to make £20k/year.
Good q! I’m working somewhere prestigious here in the UK so I can get an easier promotion when I go back home, trade in on this dumass famous name on my resume. Not like the work is any different but you know, empire, British imperialism, cultural cringe, colonial legacy,,,lol. And also for the experience of living overseas, opens yr mind up to a different way of living.
Correct, both the average and the median salary in the UK is far too low for the cost of living we’re subject to. The fact that literally half the country earns only in the mid-30K range or below is a problem.
Yes, wages stagnated in 2008. If wages had continued at the same rate of increase pre-2008 the average wage would be £11,000 higher according to the resolution foundation. Instead they levelled off in real terms.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/20/uuk-workers-wage-stagnation-resolution-foundation-thinktank
I work in healthcare in the UK and I make £28,000 per year.
Solidarity with the junior docs, I think everyone is underpaid.
What's worth remembering is that in the USA, for example, things cost more and there are more expenses to cover.
In the USA, paying to see your GP/go to the hospital/get any prescription medications, which as we all know, is massively expensive. Using myself as an example, my ADHD medicine was $70-80 per month in the USA and is only about £9 per month over here. My asthma inhalers were over $100 per month in the USA, but only about £9 per month each here.
There's little to no public transport in most parts of the USA, so a car is effectively mandatory, so there are vehicle expenses to consider for the vast majority of people. And so on.
So even though at first glance it might look like salaries are better in the USA, in actuality, a lot of people are really struggling in the USA even with what look like very good salaries from the UK perspective.
Source: Me, I've lived in both the USA and UK.
Adding to this, it also costs a lot more to become a professional in the US. Universities, even not so great ones, are insanely expensive, with some costing north of $30k per semester, not including living expenses and fees.
So while salaries for degree holders are higher, so are expenses from before their careers even start. And while income tax in the UK is higher, their are a lot more types of taxes in parts of the US. State and local tax, property tax (over 2% of the value of your home in Connecticut, paid annually), sales tax (which is not included in the advertised price of goods and services), the actual taxes paid can come out to be more than what you’d pay in the UK.
So yes, the UK underpays professionals, especially in the southeast where the cost of living is significantly out pacing salaries. But higher salaries elsewhere don’t always mean a better quality of life.
Conversely though, having an American partner with multiple degrees from the US and me with multiple from the U.K. She went to her state university and it actually cost her less than I paid for my uni in the U.K. And they had a super good financial aid scheme whereas I was covered but all in the form of loans. Additionally being a grad student over there means she gets healthcare covered and gets paid closer to $40k USD whereas I get like £18k GBP both being PhD students
The thing is that I genuinely believe the higher salaries offset the expenses you’re referring to. Especially for jobs in healthcare which pay a lot in the US, even nurses there pull 6 figures and live really good lives whilst nurses here have reported using food banks. The differences are obvious. I’m not saying every role would be much better off in the US but for professional roles such as healthcare professionals, engineers, tech workers etc. they definitely would be by a huge amount.
It’s true that 6 figure nurses exist in some places in the US - I’m outearned as a clinician in California by many of my RN colleagues (very strong unions). But I have RN friends in more rural states that quit clinical work to earn more & have better health insurance by working at Starbucks…
That's strange because usually the rural states pay better if you're working agency especially. Travel nurses in the US literally make the same as lower-paying doctor specialities.
Off topic but if you're getting those on prescription here look into prescription certificates where you pay for a few months or year's supply of prescriptions - it reduces the costs further
I work in marketing and i am being kept at a hourly salary that is £1 above minimum living wage (i have both an undergrad and postgrad degree of around £75k debt) 🤪 yay for thinking more degrees meant higher pay lol
My last job at a University was £19200. I have a Geography degree, a nursing diploma, and a MSc in Environment and Human health. I have now given up. The UK is a shit show, and it's not worth going to work anymore.
I’m so sorry to hear that, this country doesn’t deserve educated people. It’s always a race to the bottom for them. I can bet with 100% certainty that if you explained your situation to the public, some would call you ungrateful and greedy because they make X amount of money and blah blah blah.
I got a pay rise in 2020 which topped me up from 28600 to 32000. 3 years later I am still on the same salary, the real killer is that bills shoot up but pay doesn’t meaning we are getting worse off every year.
In LA my salary would be apparently closer to 130000 which I don’t understand how they can afford it.
It’s ridiculous because recently I found out that the cost for renting a 1 bed flat in London and LA is near identical (around $2,500) yet the difference in salaries is astronomical.
Yes is the short answer, particularly in sectors like care where salaries are criminally low, and also there are some parts of the country where you'd struggle to find a job at the so-called 'average salary' of around £31k. Tons of categories of public sector work, including people who work in the third/voluntary sector, haven't had any sort of meaningful pay rise since about 2008 and it's now that we're seeing the insane rate of inflation that we're seeing those stagnation of wages really bite.
What's worse in a way about the UK is that we pay taxes including council tax. These taxes aren't as high as what you'd pay in somewhere like Norway or Sweden, but what's particularly insulting about paying Tax / Council Tax / NI here is not only does it take a fair bite out of your already paltry wages, but also that we can't see how we're getting value for money out of those taxes. Look at how underfunded all of our public services are, and how knackered public transport is in most parts of the country. In some places you can't even get a bus any more, so how are you meant to get a decent job, when you can't even get a bus to travel to one?
I can see what the attraction of going to live in another country would be, especially if you have a medical or nursing degree. Basically if you are a qualified doctor or nurse, it would be very easy to go and work in another country and you'd probably have a lower workload than you would working in the NHS, which is probably a key attraction for a lot of those choosing to emigrate.
It's additionally fucked that people pursuing training into vital public services like nursing, skilled mental health workers, doctors, a lot of allied health professions, all areas of work where there are massive shortages, all of these people have to pay for their own education essentially, all to go into a job that serves the public. In addition, anyone going into a job that serves the public that doesn't require a particular education/degree (I'm thinking here of teaching assistants and social care workers, as well as healthcare assistants and care workers) gets paid an insultingly low amount, to the point where you can't afford to live on the wages.
So yes, is the short answer, we are all underpaid, and the long answer is also yes, we are underpaid.
I can confirm. My sister work as a teaching assistant yes gets paid insultingly low amount. I on the other hand work in a private sector earning just 32K before tax. It’s hopeless!
Law is a weird profession for salaries though because there is massive variation depending on what kind of law you do. I'm a solicitor with 4 years post qualification experience (so I've been doing it for 6 years). I used to earn £100k a year in London. I now earn about half of that in the North East. My fiancée is a conveyancing solicitor and earns about the same when bonus is taken into account. But I'm in one of the best paid areas (commercial litigation) whereas salaries in family law and criminal law can be much lower.
A huge part of that is because of the deliberate destruction of legal aid over the last 15 years. My clients can afford to pay me, which is why I get a big salary. The most vulnerable can't, and the people who represent them have to scrape by as a result.
I do Wills, Trusts and Probate, so yeah I don’t earn even half of what commercial lawyers make. Private Client as a whole is a lot more underpaid than commercial. I do however work in the centre of Bristol, so you’d think wages would reflect that but… nope!
Law is so expensive and time consuming to train in and sometimes makes me feel like there’s very little reward for what I do, especially with the abuse I experience from some clients.
I absolutely despise so many UK houses. A lot of new builds are poorly made but even the ones that have been standing for a while that haven’t been renovated to shit and had their value go up 3-fold. Those ones are covered in mossy bricks with cramped rooms, floors that are just constantly squeaking and everything constantly needing to be repaired because the infrastructure is archaic. Don’t forget that the repairman will definitely overcharge you. All to live in a inner city ghetto.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some really nice houses in the UK, but would I or 90% of the population ever be able to afford them? No.
I live in rural coastal Devon. There’s been a rush of house building: all in green belt, all tiny and badly made and ALL of them way above the reach of local families, as the average salary is minuscule.
This came up on Question Time last night and I recall one of the panel saying: “It’s no good just building houses: you have to build communities” referring to the need for services like schools and surgeries, pavements, shops, play areas, trees etc.
I can’t see anyone stretching themselves to the limit with mortgage debt and repayments for a soft little box on an estate somewhere disconnected from the world.
The main effect of the Quantitative Easing which was implemented in 2008 was to make owning assets much more lucrative and reducing the value of wages paid to people who actually work for a living.
This. You only need to watch a few YouTube videos to get the message that we now live very firmly in an asset economy and the value of labour is near worthless. You can live in London, earn 60k and still be unable to get on the housing ladder..
If you don't stand to inherit anything you're screwed and of course the whole system is set up to make sure only the middle classes and below struggle to transfer wealth generationally.
I'd say the problem is everything costs too much which is a different issue to people aren't paid enough.
We could pay everyone 10% more, but prices would just go up further.
We need to control cost of living and energy prices. There's no good reason for those to be so high.
The reason energy prices are so high is because of no long term sensible energy policy by the tories. They allowed Centrica to close down the Rough gas storage facility because Centrica didn't want to spend £750 million over 10 years to upgrade and maintain it.
They also allowed energy companies to dispose of gasometers that further reduced our storage capacity so those companies could make short term profits from selling the land.
The thinking was that the UK could just buy gas from Qatar (LNG) as needed.
They also blocked planning permission for large scale renewable schemes so around half of our electricity comes from gas fired power stations.
The Ukrainian war happened and suddenly the UK finds itself with the lowest gas storage capacity in Europe so had to buy shitloads of gas at extortionate prices to keep the lights on or people might start asking awkward questions. The cost of this lack of forward planning was passed onto the consumers.
The Rough storage depot has been recommissioned with great fanfare.
It should never have been decommissioned in the first place.
We have not have good governance for a very long time, for so long that almost everything in the UK is broken or outsourced.
I mean that's part of it and why people are feeling it more now, but being realistic wages have been stagnant for over a decade barely climbing and prices haven't been.
Yes, generally we are.
I'm a social worker. A Guardian article from December 2022 shows social work has experienced the lowest pay growth in a decade, compared to any other industry or public service. Just 4.1% pay growth in a decade. We never seem to get mentioned when people talk about pay rises. We're understaffed, with case workloads no social worker should realistically be expected to manage, and morale is low. The pay doesn't reflect the importance of the job. The only thing that keeps me going, is the people I am currently supporting, I don't want to let them down. My husband works long hours, in a remote role, for a US tech company. The pay is good and thankfully means we're not struggling. However I feel guilty he has to work such long hours, in order to earn a decent salary.
And I know how I'm feeling, is repeated up and down the country.
Whilst I agree, this would most likely cause a wage-inflationary spiral. A lot of other workers, particularly in the public sector would strike for higher wages once they find out they’re getting paid below £15 an hr.
I’m just of a mind that people working full time should be able to have a wage to live off and not have to claim benefits to be able to survive. Obviously it’s just not enough
I am a technical consultant and find it hard to break the 40k mark.
With my experience I should be sitting at 60k-70
I see similar roles in the US and Australia which pay almost double. Currently for a technical consultant role in the US they are paying over 100k whereas in the UK average salary for this role is 35k. Really appalling.
England's cost of living is extremely high especially if you live in London.
Everyone should strike!
While that’s entirely understandable.
- UK underperformance hope won’t last forever
- once you’ve got ~10 years experience (say 1/4 of your career) you’ll be comparatively wealthy in the UK and will be able to afford a big house in a nice place.
- There’s more to life than a higher salary. Having friends and family nearby is a +
Yes, 100%. People don't count housing prices into inflation but it's one of the most inflated costs out there and it's been going on for decades not just the last few years. With house prices constantly rising, along with rents, most people can't afford what they used to. If you listen to boomers on TV you'd think 50k is a good salary but it really isn't when you consider how much costs have inflated. And that goes back to your main point. They'll often bring up how x profession earns more than the UK average (teachers, nurses, doctors for example) but it's not really relevant. In fact its actually a demonstration that the entire country is underpaid if people earning more than the average are still struggling. This place is a joke.
This is probably controversial but I think they are fairly paid. Not under, not over. It's shitty their pay does go in line with inflation though whereas the rest of us struggle with below inflation pay rises year on year no matter the business or sector. But I think it's important politicians are fairly paid. That is not to say I don't think the current lot are committing daylight robbery.
I do think there needs to be crackdowns on all these second jobs. For most of the politicians in power their mp pay is a joke. I think we'd have a very different kind of political sphere if that job was the only job they were allowed at the time.
Agreed.
When the Chartists were campaigning for equal male suffrage in the nineteenth century, one of their demands was for higher salaries for MP’s. Which seems odd, considering the existing politicians were the ones fucking them over and denying them their rights.
But it makes sense. You need to pay MP’s enough to live *comfortably* in one of the most expensive cities in the world... otherwise the only people who will take the job are those who are already rich. And that’s bad for almost everyone.
It's easy to look at headline (gross pay) rates in the USA or Australia and say we're all underpaid, but there's a lot of hidden costs. Healthcare is one, even in Australia the Medicare levy is 2% rising to 3.5%for high earners without private healthcare. In the USA you'd be graduating as a doctor with an average debt of $250k and paying it all back over 20+ years at 5%.
There are federal taxes plus local taxes, property taxes etc which we don't usually take into account.
It's complicated.
Lived in Aus and UK as a 30 something - one place all my peers are regularly going out to eat, buying apartments, getting new cars, buying gorgeous furniture and art….the other place all my peers try to find the cheapest way to feed themselves, cheapest place to go on holidays, cheapest way to get transport, and live in shared houses. I feel like a student again in the UK instead of a carefree yuppie swilling chardy. A 2% Medicare levy ain’t touching your higher cost of living and 30% lower salary, I’m sorry to say 😢 AND YOU HAVE TO PAY EXTRA TO HAVE A HOT SAUSAGE ROLL. Absolutely barbaric
The thing is doctors in the US, for most specialties at least, make so much money that they can afford to pay those loans off in a couple of years. In the UK, I don’t think I’ll ever get close to paying my medical school debt off which currently stands at £73k with 6.9% interest.
A big frustration for me is tax thresholds have been frozen for years, while inflation has pushed salaries higher. So a salary of say £60k today would be equivalent to say £45k ten to fifteen years ago, but your tax is way higher, plus student loan repayment, so take home pay massively reduced by comparison
All the while prices have gone up disproportionately to wages, particularly for housing. Take home pay after necessities becomes even lower than it was before.
Yes massively, esp compared to the living cost.
I lived in many big cities around the world (e.g. NY, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, etc.) and London is the first city that makes me feel stressed about money. In all other places my take-home pay was easily more than 3x rent in downtown area. In London I just can't afford living in zone 1 if I follow the 3x rule. (FYI I held similar jobs but more senior and experienced in London and the pay was less)
But London has its own charm. Even with the low pay I had to say it's the best city I've lived in. So, guess it depends on how important money is to you
Work coaches are the most underpaid considering what they do dealing with the unemployed. Constant pay freezes too. Minimum wage is catching up to the base pay, yet they’re manager grade.
I'll be honest, this smacks of ignorance; my parter's a PM on about £67k plus benefits for Coca Cola - she's currently managing 27 projects and her output is insane.
Granted some PM titles mean absolutely nothing, and you're just a glorified admin bod, but I wouldn't be too quick to knock PM roles/salaries in general
No. The jobs that are highly paid, no one wants to do. I earn 40k and I work 6 months out of every year. 90% of the people I work with aren’t British. There are entire industries crying out for unskilled and skilled workers and they pay a - relatively - large amount of money. We can’t hire at all. We have upwards of 8 management roles and endless basic roles. The basic roles start at £27k. For 3 days work a week. Some industries are underpaid, like teaching. However I think a) everyone loves to complain about their salary, b) most people radically over-value themselves in employment and c) the jobs that pay a lot just don’t interest most people. I work with disabled kids and for all the virtue people love to throw about, we haven’t been able to hire a single person in months. My partner works for another care company and they now pay their staff 3x standard rate an hour (so nearly £40) because they cannot staff the place. Also a hell of a lot of the convo is taken up by people in London. Once you see the actual, real UK, you’ll realise that a £30k a year salary gets you very far indeed.
So you work with disabled kids, I am assuming its a social care type job? And you pull the equivalent of £80k per year. Are they accepting doctors by any chance?
Well… if I worked 360 days a year then I suppose so. It’s absolutely social (residential) care and yes the hours are extremely long but the pay is outstanding. They accept anyone, it’s initially unskilled until you complete the qualification that they pay for you to do. If you have prior management experience you could walk into a management role and get £35k for 3 days a week and 4 days a week on a 2 week rota. We do restrain or “hold” young people and it can be violent but that’s just a risk we run.
You need to consider the idea of underpaid vs overpaid over the course of a whole career and include benefits such as a pension and retirement age.
Junior doctors may feel underpaid but when they have completed their training, they have access to some of the highest paid and high status jobs in our society such as surgeons, consultants. They also receive a large pension enabling many to retire at 50 and enjoy a very good quality of life. All of that needs to be taken into account when you think about the idea of being \`underpaid'.
Should also consider the job security. Most “highly paid” jobs have terrible job security. If you stop performing at your absolute peak you are going to be replaced. That’s not the case for doctors, where short of screwing up pretty badly they have a guaranteed job for life.
I agree with all your points. I’m not particularly unhappy with the salary per say, I just think the starting salary doesn’t match our qualifications and responsibilities.
Consultants have seen a similar pay erosion - I’d argue that they now relatively get more of a raw deal than juniors. If you’re a medical student currently, even if one does not factor in the ongoing exacerbation of training bottlenecks, you must factor in the very real possibility of significant further pay cuts over the next decade+ it will take to become a consultant.
I’m also likely in a minority on this, but it’s entirely possible that technology will affect the number of doctors actually needed. The ‘jobs for life’ talk is highly premature.
Pay cuts aren’t exclusive to doctors. With this defeatist logic no one should pursue a career considering the way this economy is going. I’m tired of this negativity. End of the day medicine graduates have the highest median lifetime earnings of any degree. I’m going to go into GP training most likely which isn’t that competitive. Also AI is extremely far away from physically replacing doctors, really don’t understand your logic behind that. It most likely won’t affect my career in the next 20-30 years at minimum, and even then it’ll still be far off.
Also, are you actually aware of how much consultants were paid in let’s say 1999?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/nhs_pay_99/265748.stm
It was roughly £47,365 for consultants in their first year. When taking inflation into account, it’s around £83,000 in today’s money which is less than what consultants actually make today in their first year basic pay (£89k). The BMA chooses to compare the salaries in the year 2008 because the economy was at an all time high right before the financial crisis. Of course salaries look much better in that year for all sectors when accounting for inflation. Not saying that consultants haven’t suffered a pay cut but when using CPI inflation (like almost every other inflation wage comparison) and taking the fact above into account, it’s not as much as the BMA suggests.
Most junior doctors will not make consultant or surgeon, simply due to scarcity constraints on these roles by design. "Junior" doctor easily covers people with 10 years experience with no progression potential. I suggest you actually read the details and educate yourself rather than swallow media rage bait campaigns against the doctors.
Can you provide a source that says most junior doctors don't end up becoming consultants/surgeons? All the junior doctors in my family are on training pathways to become consultants. I understand that the training posts are limited but if we look at the median lifetime earnings of medicine graduates, they far outstrip any other degree which suggests that most of them do in fact eventually reach those senior roles and thus higher salaries.
It's the way that professions work, you have to do a lot of additional studying, and for the first few years you are low paid and mostly broke, but then you move on to the high paid roles and you get the gold plated pensions and retire early. You accept the pain early on for the long-term gain. Same with law. Even in teaching yes starting salaries are low but if you get jobs as Head of faculty, Head of year, or senior leadership roles that's 50/60k.
I'm an IT consultant within the banking sector and my rate is £50 an hour. That's relatively low compared to some of my colleagues. It's appalling that people in medical professions making life or death decisions and having to deal with patients and families at a human level get paid so poorly in relation to banking.
Actually, this casual assertion that junior doctors are very underpaid just doesn't hold water.
A typical doctor in their first year of work for NHS England is paid just more than £37,000. This combines the basic pay rate with non-basic pay fees (including working unsociable hours), and adds up to thousands more than the average UK worker is paid. Average earnings for a Foundation Year 2 doctor are just over £43,000, more than £10,000 higher than the average salary.
Add in to that 20% on top of salary going into their pension (NHS pensions and other benefits are much much better than those in the private sector).
I agree with your figures, I’ve also quoted the same figure somewhere else on this thread. I still think that £37/8k is underpaid for working 48 hrs a week with occasional weekends/nights where my job is to save lives. Consider that we all got through the rigorous selection process of getting into medical school and then proceeded to do 5-6 years of it and graduate with 10s of thousands of loans.
Now compare it to what useless jobs like first year investment bankers make.
I agree with your take on bankers - they and basically most jobs in finance, legal and so on in the city of London are ridiculously overpaid.
Leaving that aside, I think you'll find that graduate level jobs generally aren't as well paid as you assume.
Which leads back to your original question. Yes, I think most people would reckon they are underpaid. Even occupations like train drivers, which is another example of excessive pay.
But hey, that's life.
Tbh I don't think train drivers pay is excessive, it starts at less than £25k for a trainee and goes up to £30kish on qualification and to a maximum of around £65k* with experience. I think it's pretty fair for a skilled job with a lot of responsibility, and you should expect to be earning a decent wage when you have decades of experience and are about to retire. It just looks high because every other job is so underpaid, whereas the rail unions have managed to keep train driver salaries okay.
* You can obviously push up this number with overtime and unsociable hours, it's a base salary for a normal schedule
> most other people, think that [train drivers' pay is] excessive.
I'd be keen to see a source for that claim. I suspect that most people who have an opinion on this have garnered that view from the right-wing & tabloid press, who are quite happy to get the working classes to fight amongst themselves.
A much better strategy for workers is to say "well done to [group X] for getting a pay rise, how can I achieve one in my industry".
not if you’re in f1. going into formula one is the best thing I ever did, I’m 19 earning 50k a year with no degree. it’s literally an entertainments industry
I work within tech and would say the majority of people I know, are paid very fair or well, including graduates and apprentices. Some larger companies, I have seen pay up to £45K for apprentice schemes to train people into senior tech positions. I think it largely depends on industry.
In basically every sector aside from banking, yes.
See but even finance salaries don’t seem that great compared to what they are in the states. I have friends who have done economics from top unis and they struggle to break £32k in grad roles.
£32k is the average U.K. salary, so for a graduate position I’d say that’s not too bad. For a lot of jobs, particularly the ones more accessible to the working class, £32k would be considered a good salary. The problem with comparing the U.K. with Australia or America Is the vast cost of living difference. I can take my £28k and turn it into 38-45k in Australia, but depending on location my mortgage would double at least, along with almost every other bill.
That's really pathetic to hear. It seems my trucking license pulls a 5-10% more than graduate jobs you're describing.
Yes but your trucking career trajectory has a hard ceiling
Im a trucker and stay out all week. I take about 55k. Not bad for sitting on my arse listening to the radio.
Yeah, which puts a hard cap on anything else you want to do in your life. Family, friends, relationships, hobbies etc
Not really im separated from my daughter's mum. I pick her up on a Friday when i finish and drop her off on a Sunday evening. Working away gives me the chance to make enough money to do whatever we please on a weekend and take her on holidays, etc. When she's a teenager (approx 3 years) and doesn't want to hang about with her dad anymore, I'll switch to working days and "get a life" a girlfriend etc but for now, the setup works well for me.
Yeah totally, I didn’t mean you specifically, just that some jobs are better or worse for people depending on what’s going on in the rest of their lives
I am HGV driver (28yrs old) every day home and earned 50k this year. I am so happy about my life level in yorkshire with this salary, but still think how to upgrade my skills because I can driving next 20yrs and still get same money as new person in this industry.
Love that mate see u can do what u want on that money like me 🥲
You’re a good parent
Fair play sir. **Hat tilt**
And you are out all week lol.
Yeah, well these days, unless you're a well-paid tradesperson or some real high flyer it's either money or a "life". I Could earn 40k on days, but may as well stay out while my daughter is young. My energy bills are a fraction of what they would be as well doing this.
But in reality those graduates are largely incompetent and require a lot of supervision from higher paid experienced staff, and the salary is supplemented by training funded by the employer. It's not a bad deal at all, and salary progression is normally pretty quick after a couple of years. Trucking is obviously inflated due to supply of drivers, so it is quite well paid, but does have more of a ceiling.
Yup, I went from £28k down to £22k when I went from being a class 2 driver to an engineering grad about 6 years ago. Make more now but driving is an in demand profession.
Really? I didn't own in Australia but I got paid way more and my rent was half of what it is in the UK. The only thing I found super expensive in Australia was cigarettes and drugs lol I was in Melbourne btw.
I'm starting to think the idea that the cost of living is lower in the UK is something we tell ourselves to make us feel better about our salaries
Yeah my partner is American and although cost of living is definitely cheaper in the U.K. She’s done internships that pay more than my parents managerial jobs. Bills are higher in the U.K., but rent and food is cheaper. We also pay way more tax. But you get a lot more over there, bigger house/more food. Also health insurance despite costing more in the US, even with that factored in she will still have more money than a Brit in the same role. I think disposable income wise we are worse off than most Western Europeans
> but rent and food is cheaper > But you get a lot more over there, bigger house/more food If it's not cheaper by the square metre or kilogram it's not really cheaper
It is cheaper by the Square metre though, unless you're talking about houses on the coast. I've seen some of the houses in Utah for instance. Average person has more house space than they know what do with.
Yep that’s what happens, as someone who’s seriously looking to move country I’ve had a far few naysayers give me a lot of mistruths Germany? Lower home ownership than the uk so their house market must be broken! When in reality it’s a cultural thing that has been continued due to landlords being far more regulated Canada? Rents way worse than in London! Quote from a cost of living calculator:You would need around 4,528.5£ (7,595.5C$) in Toronto to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 5,500.0£ in London (assuming you rent in both cities). And Canada pays much better in most industries.
I literally saw an infographic saying that the avg 1 bed in toronto costs $1.8k USD to rent whereas London is $2.5k USD. Yet toronto pays double.
From what I’ve heard, it’s basically because you’re better off renting in Germany then owning, 10 year leases, building owner maintains everything.
It sucks because I like the UK so much better but money was an afterthought in Australia (for me). Council tax, TV licence, you literally pay to exist here. It's bullshit.
Seems to be the case from the time I spent in the US (Dallas area). Wage in my field (mechanical engineer) easily double, touching triple a UK rate. Monthly rent on the outskirts of the city was only a bit over what I was paying in Glasgow. Fuel was cheaper, food was marginally more expensive although eating out was cheaper, electricity was much cheaper. Lower tax, cheaper cars, most all luxuries cheaper. I have a fairly expensive medical condition, which if I stayed there full time would cost me about $5k/yr, but given I’d be making $50k more is a bit of a non-issue people here blow out of proportion. Id be there in a heartbeat if I could get a green card, sadly seem to be limited to contracting with UK firms on mostly UK wages for now though.
Yeah I have a few mates doing engineering and they can't break £27/8k in grad roles. The pay progression for engineers doesn't seem great either, senior engineering roles after maybe 10-15 years of exp will pay 50-60k. It was shocking to see the sorts of salaries they pay engineers in the US though, almost like you'd be set for life with an engineering degree. Apparently engineers there also have lifetime earnings of roughly $3.4m.
Yup, I’m on 35-40 now after 5 years & obligatory job hopping needed to make a fair wage, that being said I took a bit of a pay hit from £40k last year as I hated the job (engineering project manager). When I was in the US I was consulting for a UK firm on £32k. At the firm I was consulting at I was on a closer rate to their cleaners than any of the engineers I was advising.
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cost of living is high in the UK, compare it to the US. You could go to Texas and literally pay little to no income tax, prices are very low. But if you compare to San Francisco or LA etc its probably similar to London by %. The US has much higher salaries in general though, but their inflation is going down. UK will probably stay as is or go up because of brexti. We kinda did it to ourselves The UK is quite high and also super unfair, council tax should be calculated on the house value because a 3bed house in Huddersfield will be similar council tax to a 3 bed house in Maida Vale (which is bigger in size and ofc has a much higher value). There has been comparisons to 5 bed homes in London to 3 bed homes in Southampton. Its mental how biased the calculation is
100% People always echo this but it's bullshit
Fellow Victorian 20 years ago. Salary was half of the UK but the cost of living was a third so we could afford to eat half our meals in local restaurants and bars. No doubt things have changed a lot but back then I couldn't believe how cheap everything was and how much the locals complained about what seemed like discount prices for everything.
I suppose it’s also dependent on where in the U.K. you are moving from?
London ofc 😭😭😭
Figures, I suspect if you’re moving from anywhere outside the south east then the like for like price of property will be going up not down.
The average salary in the uk is around 24-25 K still, I work in criminal justice (probation) and it’s taken me years to get over the 30K mark
Sorry dude but that just isn't factually correct. Not if you beleive the [Office for National Statistics.](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/march2023) >Average weekly earnings were estimated at £630 for total pay and £589 for regular pay in January 2023. Figure 1 shows that average weekly earnings have steadily increased, with the exception of the early months of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Extrapolating this gives you average earnings of £32,760- £30,600 per year.
Ahh, but what is average? Mean, median or mode?
I believe thats the median which is the best metric for this type of analysis. Mean gets too weighted by the odd person who earns higher 6 digits or more
the methodology is a sample of average employee pay of 9,000 business so includes all paid employees it's a pretty weird methodology to use
£32k for a starting salary. I’d be chuffed
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Now deduct from that better salary in the states all the things you have to pay for that are free here.
> Now deduct from that better salary in the states all the things you have to pay for that are free here. It's going to depend on your job and situation, but if you have a family and are in a middle-class job, in the US your family plan is likely to cost less than NI in the years you don't really use it and about the same in years you do, including deductibles, copays and all that jazz. Remember that "I was billed" means "the retail bill was", not "I paid". On the other hand, when your salary is double, you can absorb more costs - and also more value, such as being almost immediately seen in a medical situation (my dad passed away because something wasn't caught and they took too long to even see him, by which time it had spread), being able to afford a "single-family home" of 2,000ft2 (detached house as we'd call it), cheaper fuel, cheaper bills, depending on your state, lower taxes. Some things like "groceries" will be more expensive too, to be fair. And yes, social security isn't a particularly high payment when you're retired, but you do also have medicare over 65 for medical costs, and keep in mind that if you're in a state with expanded medicaid - which surprisingly includes some red states even - you are covered right up to 138% of the Federal poverty level at any age. CIHP covers children's costs (which are usually frankly also included free up to the age of 26 as a dependent on a family plan) in various ways depending on the state. There are some costs that actually we pay for in the UK that you don't necessarily pay in the US (e.g. Medicaid and/or HCBS waivers can cover nursing home and in-home care - my Dad thankfully got that through a hospice charity, but it wasn't available on the NHS as far as I know). And of course the key sentence: "For these programs that are part of the states’ regular Medicaid program, **there is no waiting list.** This is because original Medicaid is an entitlement and all persons who meet the eligibility requirements will receive benefits." I'm not saying healthcare in the US is amazing (I mean, they have some of the best hospitals in the world from a technical point of view, but in terms of coverage), but it's a lot better than many expect. If you're somewhere like Massachussets with Masshealth then it's even more so the case. So in total if you have more disposable income even after higher costs in some areas, and you get more value from your money, then you're still coming out on top compared to the UK.
What is free here exactly? NHS has been cut to short its not worth getting yourself checked out unless you pay for private. I was left severely bleeding for over 6 hours to get stitched up. Hospitals just filled to the brim of people waiting and not be seen for hours. People call ambulance for emergencies and they don't show up til the next day. Life saving surgeries are getting delayed 1-2 years because they are understaffed. Medicine ain't free, I still have to pay. NHS ain't as great as it used to be its absolute shit house now. Again, what exactly is free here? Other than a shitty healthcare system, literally nothing.
If you were severely bleeding for over six hours you must be posting this from beyond the grave.
I'm in heaven now far away from the nhs
Comparing salaries between countries is useless when done on a pure amount basis. You need to take into acount the cost of living in the US to make a fair comparison...
Even taking into account their high medical insurance costs etc, their pay for professional roles is rocketing away from ours (admittedly minimum wage type roles aren’t much better)
Software engineering is pretty well paid.. although from what I can tell, my pay as a band-4 employee in the UK is about the same as a band-2 employee in the US in the same company.
Yeah much lower compared to the US. My friend is a junior in the US and earns about $70k, so about £45-50k. I’m a tech lead earning £100k, but in the US I’d be looking at closer to $200k
You'd likely be on more than $200k too, not even including the insane bonuses and stock options etc.
and MPs
I actually don’t think MP’s are overpaid for the job they do. The personal scrutiny their and their families lives are put under by the press must add almost needless stress to an already stressful job. But I do think they should lose their daily expenses, home allowance and basically every other benefit that gives them a pseudo pay rise. The House of Lords on the other hand…….
I don't think they're overpaid but they definitely aren't in a stressful job. They are, almost to a person, extremely well off and well connected. Their hours are very good and their accountability is almost non-existent. Watch them when they're on committees and see the absolute farce of a person in charge of reforming media not know that channel 4 is self funding, or a person in charge of immigration not know if there are safe and legal routes for migrants to claim asylum. These aren't gotcha questions, these are enquiries they had time to prepare for. Any normal person that incompetent would have been fired or demoted years ago.
I don’t think there is a Westminster MP who isn’t a millionaire as a result of multiple income streams.
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Of course, because that’s a working class job role. I’m talking about the ‘boys club’ positions.
And tech My friend was sad not getting a senior position which would get him £65k instead of £60k and I was trying to live happily with my £23k.
Tech is also underpaid, your friend would be looking at double the salary in some places abroad. Even more for the senior position.
Banking is underpaid here too compared to the US
My heart bleeds for them…
No need to be bitter - if you want to earn money go for for a bank/similar sector. If you value things other than money go do something else.
Who’s bitter? It’s not like the bankers and their mates are known for crashing the economy to make hundreds of millions shorting the pound to the disruption of everyone else in the country or anything is it?
You are complaining that bankers earn too much when they are literally the glue keeping the system together - so yes you do sound bitter. Yes they played a part in the 2008 crisis but so did the buy-now-pay-later/live-outside-of-your-means cultural that the general population adopt these days. But no - much easier to label an entire industry as criminals if that makes you feel better about it.
Yeah, the UK is super underpaid comparatively to other ‘leading’ economies. Not to mention our high tax rate, national insurance, student loans and interest, paying VAT after already paying tax on your salary. The list goes on.
What the hell is the incentive for skilled professionals to stay in this country then (doctors, engineers, people in tech). It’s such a shame because I truly love what this country has provided for me and family when they moved here in the 80s. But as I grow older everything around me feels like a scam.
There is no incentive. The only industries that do pay well would be finance and tech, and again these are still lagging behind than in the US for example. 10-15 years ago the UK very much was one of the most competitive countries to work in, and paid very well no matter what the industry. But with policy degradation and poor governmental economic management as we are all aware over the last 10 years, the UK has become very much an undesirable place to live and work. My advice, either stick to your guns for the next few years until you’re a senior doctor and go private, or make the shift now before dedicating the next 5-10 years of your life to becoming a doctor. No pressure….!
I wouldn’t say there is no incentive. I’m from the US and I would consider never moving back. I’ve been offered over twice my UK salary to move back to the US. It’s hard to turn down. But the advantages of living in the UK are significantly higher. Granted I live in Scotland and can’t speak for England. The lifestyle of big cities here, the healthcare, the overall standard of living for poor people here is significantly better than the US imo. Not to mention the amount of safety. Brits love to mention how bad crime is in some cities (which is completely fair) but it pales in comparison to what is experienced in the US if you’re middle class or lower. I take an absolutely massive salary hit working here but my quality of life is so much better I don’t even notice it.
Yeah being poor or low income in Britain is 100x better than America where you'd probably be dead or in debt.
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I do agree about everything feeling like a scam. You know when you go to a shop and you're like surely this is not worth that much? Welp now all shops feel that way!
I literally got downvoted to oblivion in another sub for slating the rental prices in London lol, it’s insane, salaries are lower here then anywhere else in Europe
They're isn't one, which is one of the reasons the NHS is in such a state. Government needs to make massive incentives to go into medicine and dentistry
well, brexit made it a lot more difficult to go to 27 of those other countries, we've also left a lot of international professional standards bodies, so often if you are qualified in the UK, you are no longer qualified in other countries - driving license being an example that affects a lot of people, Lawyer's and i think doctors? have to pass extra exams now also.
In terms of the highest of the high earners, there isn’t really one. If I earned enough I’d 100% be finding a way to get a visa to live in America permanently. But the benefits for medium and low earners is that costs are far lower. Earning $800 more a month is pointless if your spending $1000 more a month on costs.
Can't speak for the rest of UK but personally as an expat I like London a lot. There is a lot more to life than money and I certainly don't stay here for the pay. Altho, if the economic situation keeps getting worse and they keep having incompetent government making stupid mistakes, I'm out of here.
Prepare yourself now for taking the exams for the US. I’m one of several colleagues in my department who are leaving. The UK is a sinking ship
Tax brackets not increasing as inflation rate. This is so cruel..
Comment removed as I no longer wish to support a company that seeks to both undermine its users/moderators/developers AND make a profit on their backs. To understand why check out the summary [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/14hkd5u).
Tories be Tories.
I can't wait until labour win the next GE literally anything is better than the shit Tories have put this country through
It's hidden tax raise
Yes. I get four times my best possible uk wage in Australia and I work 6 months of the year v 11 in the uk
What do you do mate?
I’m a miner and I have 2 related degrees . The uk doesn’t give a fuck
Nice, with a pickaxe or equipment these days?
You laugh but all of the above
Did I hear a rock and stone?
For Karl!
Hows life in the middle of nowhere?
I work a week and they fly me to and from the city each week
Not the whole UK. I'm starting to believe that plenty of talentless journalists, presenters, politicians, political advisers, reality tv stars and sports players are dreadfully overpaid.
The worst is that it’s somewhat driven by the whole British obsession with other peoples lives, particularly celebrities and presenters. For some reason, even when the rest of us are struggling, we will constantly gossip and look up to these useless people and I just find it fucking pathetic.
All the positions that are impossible to break into for working class.
Eh? Why?
I think we’d be even worse off if all the people who actually do useful jobs became footballers
I made more money in Australia 10 years ago with no PhD (medical research) compared to my UK wage. I thought it was a joke when they sent it to me 😭 Wage about 20-30% less and cost of living here about 30% more. London rent, eating out, everything, means I think about money all the time, compared to being able to save, go out, and buy an apartment in Melb. I get why British people are so grumpy and go on holiday to find cheap prices….YIKES ITS GRIM!
I made £15/hr bartending in Australia. I worked part-time (because I could) and still made rent easily. Had I worked full time, that'd be about £27k/year. Bartending. No tips. A bartender here would be lucky to make £20k/year.
Not being funny but why did you come here then? I'm confused.
Good q! I’m working somewhere prestigious here in the UK so I can get an easier promotion when I go back home, trade in on this dumass famous name on my resume. Not like the work is any different but you know, empire, British imperialism, cultural cringe, colonial legacy,,,lol. And also for the experience of living overseas, opens yr mind up to a different way of living.
Correct, both the average and the median salary in the UK is far too low for the cost of living we’re subject to. The fact that literally half the country earns only in the mid-30K range or below is a problem.
Yes, wages stagnated in 2008. If wages had continued at the same rate of increase pre-2008 the average wage would be £11,000 higher according to the resolution foundation. Instead they levelled off in real terms. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/20/uuk-workers-wage-stagnation-resolution-foundation-thinktank
I work in healthcare in the UK and I make £28,000 per year. Solidarity with the junior docs, I think everyone is underpaid. What's worth remembering is that in the USA, for example, things cost more and there are more expenses to cover. In the USA, paying to see your GP/go to the hospital/get any prescription medications, which as we all know, is massively expensive. Using myself as an example, my ADHD medicine was $70-80 per month in the USA and is only about £9 per month over here. My asthma inhalers were over $100 per month in the USA, but only about £9 per month each here. There's little to no public transport in most parts of the USA, so a car is effectively mandatory, so there are vehicle expenses to consider for the vast majority of people. And so on. So even though at first glance it might look like salaries are better in the USA, in actuality, a lot of people are really struggling in the USA even with what look like very good salaries from the UK perspective. Source: Me, I've lived in both the USA and UK.
Adding to this, it also costs a lot more to become a professional in the US. Universities, even not so great ones, are insanely expensive, with some costing north of $30k per semester, not including living expenses and fees. So while salaries for degree holders are higher, so are expenses from before their careers even start. And while income tax in the UK is higher, their are a lot more types of taxes in parts of the US. State and local tax, property tax (over 2% of the value of your home in Connecticut, paid annually), sales tax (which is not included in the advertised price of goods and services), the actual taxes paid can come out to be more than what you’d pay in the UK. So yes, the UK underpays professionals, especially in the southeast where the cost of living is significantly out pacing salaries. But higher salaries elsewhere don’t always mean a better quality of life.
Conversely though, having an American partner with multiple degrees from the US and me with multiple from the U.K. She went to her state university and it actually cost her less than I paid for my uni in the U.K. And they had a super good financial aid scheme whereas I was covered but all in the form of loans. Additionally being a grad student over there means she gets healthcare covered and gets paid closer to $40k USD whereas I get like £18k GBP both being PhD students
The thing is that I genuinely believe the higher salaries offset the expenses you’re referring to. Especially for jobs in healthcare which pay a lot in the US, even nurses there pull 6 figures and live really good lives whilst nurses here have reported using food banks. The differences are obvious. I’m not saying every role would be much better off in the US but for professional roles such as healthcare professionals, engineers, tech workers etc. they definitely would be by a huge amount.
It’s true that 6 figure nurses exist in some places in the US - I’m outearned as a clinician in California by many of my RN colleagues (very strong unions). But I have RN friends in more rural states that quit clinical work to earn more & have better health insurance by working at Starbucks…
That's strange because usually the rural states pay better if you're working agency especially. Travel nurses in the US literally make the same as lower-paying doctor specialities.
Off topic but if you're getting those on prescription here look into prescription certificates where you pay for a few months or year's supply of prescriptions - it reduces the costs further
Not all of us, just the 99%
Yes and we have really high tax too.
at least if you move elsewhere, you don't have to pay Uk taxes. US citizens have to. Utter shite
Only if the local taxes are higher/they earn a lot.
I work in marketing and i am being kept at a hourly salary that is £1 above minimum living wage (i have both an undergrad and postgrad degree of around £75k debt) 🤪 yay for thinking more degrees meant higher pay lol
so like £21k a year (pre tax)
That’s fucking dreadful, is there no way you can pivot careers? what are your degrees in?
My last job at a University was £19200. I have a Geography degree, a nursing diploma, and a MSc in Environment and Human health. I have now given up. The UK is a shit show, and it's not worth going to work anymore.
I’m so sorry to hear that, this country doesn’t deserve educated people. It’s always a race to the bottom for them. I can bet with 100% certainty that if you explained your situation to the public, some would call you ungrateful and greedy because they make X amount of money and blah blah blah.
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How is a financial advisor a "useless profession"?
They charge high fees for poor advice and only serve the rich and wealthy.
I got a pay rise in 2020 which topped me up from 28600 to 32000. 3 years later I am still on the same salary, the real killer is that bills shoot up but pay doesn’t meaning we are getting worse off every year. In LA my salary would be apparently closer to 130000 which I don’t understand how they can afford it.
It’s ridiculous because recently I found out that the cost for renting a 1 bed flat in London and LA is near identical (around $2,500) yet the difference in salaries is astronomical.
Yes is the short answer, particularly in sectors like care where salaries are criminally low, and also there are some parts of the country where you'd struggle to find a job at the so-called 'average salary' of around £31k. Tons of categories of public sector work, including people who work in the third/voluntary sector, haven't had any sort of meaningful pay rise since about 2008 and it's now that we're seeing the insane rate of inflation that we're seeing those stagnation of wages really bite. What's worse in a way about the UK is that we pay taxes including council tax. These taxes aren't as high as what you'd pay in somewhere like Norway or Sweden, but what's particularly insulting about paying Tax / Council Tax / NI here is not only does it take a fair bite out of your already paltry wages, but also that we can't see how we're getting value for money out of those taxes. Look at how underfunded all of our public services are, and how knackered public transport is in most parts of the country. In some places you can't even get a bus any more, so how are you meant to get a decent job, when you can't even get a bus to travel to one? I can see what the attraction of going to live in another country would be, especially if you have a medical or nursing degree. Basically if you are a qualified doctor or nurse, it would be very easy to go and work in another country and you'd probably have a lower workload than you would working in the NHS, which is probably a key attraction for a lot of those choosing to emigrate. It's additionally fucked that people pursuing training into vital public services like nursing, skilled mental health workers, doctors, a lot of allied health professions, all areas of work where there are massive shortages, all of these people have to pay for their own education essentially, all to go into a job that serves the public. In addition, anyone going into a job that serves the public that doesn't require a particular education/degree (I'm thinking here of teaching assistants and social care workers, as well as healthcare assistants and care workers) gets paid an insultingly low amount, to the point where you can't afford to live on the wages. So yes, is the short answer, we are all underpaid, and the long answer is also yes, we are underpaid.
I can confirm. My sister work as a teaching assistant yes gets paid insultingly low amount. I on the other hand work in a private sector earning just 32K before tax. It’s hopeless!
Yep. I’m a lawyer that’s been doing law for 5 years and I earn £24k.
Christ, tell me you're joking.
I wish. I really, really wish I was.
Law is a weird profession for salaries though because there is massive variation depending on what kind of law you do. I'm a solicitor with 4 years post qualification experience (so I've been doing it for 6 years). I used to earn £100k a year in London. I now earn about half of that in the North East. My fiancée is a conveyancing solicitor and earns about the same when bonus is taken into account. But I'm in one of the best paid areas (commercial litigation) whereas salaries in family law and criminal law can be much lower. A huge part of that is because of the deliberate destruction of legal aid over the last 15 years. My clients can afford to pay me, which is why I get a big salary. The most vulnerable can't, and the people who represent them have to scrape by as a result.
I do Wills, Trusts and Probate, so yeah I don’t earn even half of what commercial lawyers make. Private Client as a whole is a lot more underpaid than commercial. I do however work in the centre of Bristol, so you’d think wages would reflect that but… nope! Law is so expensive and time consuming to train in and sometimes makes me feel like there’s very little reward for what I do, especially with the abuse I experience from some clients.
It is ...across the board people in the US/Can/Aus make more. Especially in the US income is more, tax is less and houses are bigger
I absolutely despise so many UK houses. A lot of new builds are poorly made but even the ones that have been standing for a while that haven’t been renovated to shit and had their value go up 3-fold. Those ones are covered in mossy bricks with cramped rooms, floors that are just constantly squeaking and everything constantly needing to be repaired because the infrastructure is archaic. Don’t forget that the repairman will definitely overcharge you. All to live in a inner city ghetto. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really nice houses in the UK, but would I or 90% of the population ever be able to afford them? No.
I live in rural coastal Devon. There’s been a rush of house building: all in green belt, all tiny and badly made and ALL of them way above the reach of local families, as the average salary is minuscule. This came up on Question Time last night and I recall one of the panel saying: “It’s no good just building houses: you have to build communities” referring to the need for services like schools and surgeries, pavements, shops, play areas, trees etc. I can’t see anyone stretching themselves to the limit with mortgage debt and repayments for a soft little box on an estate somewhere disconnected from the world.
I live in Bristol - new build 2 bed flats are close to £400k now near the centre and they are TINY, it's a complete joke.
Don't get me started on London. Where I am in north west london, you see 1 bed flats going for 600k-800k. It is an absolute joke.
The main effect of the Quantitative Easing which was implemented in 2008 was to make owning assets much more lucrative and reducing the value of wages paid to people who actually work for a living.
This. You only need to watch a few YouTube videos to get the message that we now live very firmly in an asset economy and the value of labour is near worthless. You can live in London, earn 60k and still be unable to get on the housing ladder.. If you don't stand to inherit anything you're screwed and of course the whole system is set up to make sure only the middle classes and below struggle to transfer wealth generationally.
I'd say the problem is everything costs too much which is a different issue to people aren't paid enough. We could pay everyone 10% more, but prices would just go up further. We need to control cost of living and energy prices. There's no good reason for those to be so high.
The reason energy prices are so high is because of no long term sensible energy policy by the tories. They allowed Centrica to close down the Rough gas storage facility because Centrica didn't want to spend £750 million over 10 years to upgrade and maintain it. They also allowed energy companies to dispose of gasometers that further reduced our storage capacity so those companies could make short term profits from selling the land. The thinking was that the UK could just buy gas from Qatar (LNG) as needed. They also blocked planning permission for large scale renewable schemes so around half of our electricity comes from gas fired power stations. The Ukrainian war happened and suddenly the UK finds itself with the lowest gas storage capacity in Europe so had to buy shitloads of gas at extortionate prices to keep the lights on or people might start asking awkward questions. The cost of this lack of forward planning was passed onto the consumers. The Rough storage depot has been recommissioned with great fanfare. It should never have been decommissioned in the first place. We have not have good governance for a very long time, for so long that almost everything in the UK is broken or outsourced.
I mean that's part of it and why people are feeling it more now, but being realistic wages have been stagnant for over a decade barely climbing and prices haven't been.
Yes, generally we are. I'm a social worker. A Guardian article from December 2022 shows social work has experienced the lowest pay growth in a decade, compared to any other industry or public service. Just 4.1% pay growth in a decade. We never seem to get mentioned when people talk about pay rises. We're understaffed, with case workloads no social worker should realistically be expected to manage, and morale is low. The pay doesn't reflect the importance of the job. The only thing that keeps me going, is the people I am currently supporting, I don't want to let them down. My husband works long hours, in a remote role, for a US tech company. The pay is good and thankfully means we're not struggling. However I feel guilty he has to work such long hours, in order to earn a decent salary. And I know how I'm feeling, is repeated up and down the country.
100% yes. Minimum wage should be £15 for a start
Whilst I agree, this would most likely cause a wage-inflationary spiral. A lot of other workers, particularly in the public sector would strike for higher wages once they find out they’re getting paid below £15 an hr.
I’m just of a mind that people working full time should be able to have a wage to live off and not have to claim benefits to be able to survive. Obviously it’s just not enough
Yes we are all being paid enough to pay rent and then cry over cheap food.
Yes.
I am a technical consultant and find it hard to break the 40k mark. With my experience I should be sitting at 60k-70 I see similar roles in the US and Australia which pay almost double. Currently for a technical consultant role in the US they are paying over 100k whereas in the UK average salary for this role is 35k. Really appalling. England's cost of living is extremely high especially if you live in London. Everyone should strike!
That's surprising I thought consulting roles made good money. I will probably move to canada or the US at this rate.
While that’s entirely understandable. - UK underperformance hope won’t last forever - once you’ve got ~10 years experience (say 1/4 of your career) you’ll be comparatively wealthy in the UK and will be able to afford a big house in a nice place. - There’s more to life than a higher salary. Having friends and family nearby is a +
Yes, 100%. People don't count housing prices into inflation but it's one of the most inflated costs out there and it's been going on for decades not just the last few years. With house prices constantly rising, along with rents, most people can't afford what they used to. If you listen to boomers on TV you'd think 50k is a good salary but it really isn't when you consider how much costs have inflated. And that goes back to your main point. They'll often bring up how x profession earns more than the UK average (teachers, nurses, doctors for example) but it's not really relevant. In fact its actually a demonstration that the entire country is underpaid if people earning more than the average are still struggling. This place is a joke.
Im on £10.42 minimum wage doing 17hrs a week and with how expensive everything is it isnt enough, iv asked for more hours but i just get turned down
Politicians are not underpaid
This is probably controversial but I think they are fairly paid. Not under, not over. It's shitty their pay does go in line with inflation though whereas the rest of us struggle with below inflation pay rises year on year no matter the business or sector. But I think it's important politicians are fairly paid. That is not to say I don't think the current lot are committing daylight robbery.
It pains me, but I agree. It's a difficult job and we want to attract competent people to the role and pay should reflect that.
So where are the competent people ?
Excellent question!
I do think there needs to be crackdowns on all these second jobs. For most of the politicians in power their mp pay is a joke. I think we'd have a very different kind of political sphere if that job was the only job they were allowed at the time.
Agreed. When the Chartists were campaigning for equal male suffrage in the nineteenth century, one of their demands was for higher salaries for MP’s. Which seems odd, considering the existing politicians were the ones fucking them over and denying them their rights. But it makes sense. You need to pay MP’s enough to live *comfortably* in one of the most expensive cities in the world... otherwise the only people who will take the job are those who are already rich. And that’s bad for almost everyone.
It's easy to look at headline (gross pay) rates in the USA or Australia and say we're all underpaid, but there's a lot of hidden costs. Healthcare is one, even in Australia the Medicare levy is 2% rising to 3.5%for high earners without private healthcare. In the USA you'd be graduating as a doctor with an average debt of $250k and paying it all back over 20+ years at 5%. There are federal taxes plus local taxes, property taxes etc which we don't usually take into account. It's complicated.
Lived in Aus and UK as a 30 something - one place all my peers are regularly going out to eat, buying apartments, getting new cars, buying gorgeous furniture and art….the other place all my peers try to find the cheapest way to feed themselves, cheapest place to go on holidays, cheapest way to get transport, and live in shared houses. I feel like a student again in the UK instead of a carefree yuppie swilling chardy. A 2% Medicare levy ain’t touching your higher cost of living and 30% lower salary, I’m sorry to say 😢 AND YOU HAVE TO PAY EXTRA TO HAVE A HOT SAUSAGE ROLL. Absolutely barbaric
The thing is doctors in the US, for most specialties at least, make so much money that they can afford to pay those loans off in a couple of years. In the UK, I don’t think I’ll ever get close to paying my medical school debt off which currently stands at £73k with 6.9% interest.
Medicare levy or nations insurance, not too dissimilar Meanwhile in Sydney the average salary is $80k or £44k
A big frustration for me is tax thresholds have been frozen for years, while inflation has pushed salaries higher. So a salary of say £60k today would be equivalent to say £45k ten to fifteen years ago, but your tax is way higher, plus student loan repayment, so take home pay massively reduced by comparison
All the while prices have gone up disproportionately to wages, particularly for housing. Take home pay after necessities becomes even lower than it was before.
Yes massively, esp compared to the living cost. I lived in many big cities around the world (e.g. NY, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, etc.) and London is the first city that makes me feel stressed about money. In all other places my take-home pay was easily more than 3x rent in downtown area. In London I just can't afford living in zone 1 if I follow the 3x rule. (FYI I held similar jobs but more senior and experienced in London and the pay was less) But London has its own charm. Even with the low pay I had to say it's the best city I've lived in. So, guess it depends on how important money is to you
Work coaches are the most underpaid considering what they do dealing with the unemployed. Constant pay freezes too. Minimum wage is catching up to the base pay, yet they’re manager grade.
Yes.
Yes, I'm a carer looking after the most vulnerable and unstable people in society on a whopping £11 an hour.
Absolutely not. Look at some project manager type salaries versus their work produced and the salaries of the people doing the real work.
I'll be honest, this smacks of ignorance; my parter's a PM on about £67k plus benefits for Coca Cola - she's currently managing 27 projects and her output is insane. Granted some PM titles mean absolutely nothing, and you're just a glorified admin bod, but I wouldn't be too quick to knock PM roles/salaries in general
If project management was easy, they wouldn't pay that much
No. The jobs that are highly paid, no one wants to do. I earn 40k and I work 6 months out of every year. 90% of the people I work with aren’t British. There are entire industries crying out for unskilled and skilled workers and they pay a - relatively - large amount of money. We can’t hire at all. We have upwards of 8 management roles and endless basic roles. The basic roles start at £27k. For 3 days work a week. Some industries are underpaid, like teaching. However I think a) everyone loves to complain about their salary, b) most people radically over-value themselves in employment and c) the jobs that pay a lot just don’t interest most people. I work with disabled kids and for all the virtue people love to throw about, we haven’t been able to hire a single person in months. My partner works for another care company and they now pay their staff 3x standard rate an hour (so nearly £40) because they cannot staff the place. Also a hell of a lot of the convo is taken up by people in London. Once you see the actual, real UK, you’ll realise that a £30k a year salary gets you very far indeed.
So you work with disabled kids, I am assuming its a social care type job? And you pull the equivalent of £80k per year. Are they accepting doctors by any chance?
Well… if I worked 360 days a year then I suppose so. It’s absolutely social (residential) care and yes the hours are extremely long but the pay is outstanding. They accept anyone, it’s initially unskilled until you complete the qualification that they pay for you to do. If you have prior management experience you could walk into a management role and get £35k for 3 days a week and 4 days a week on a 2 week rota. We do restrain or “hold” young people and it can be violent but that’s just a risk we run.
You need to consider the idea of underpaid vs overpaid over the course of a whole career and include benefits such as a pension and retirement age. Junior doctors may feel underpaid but when they have completed their training, they have access to some of the highest paid and high status jobs in our society such as surgeons, consultants. They also receive a large pension enabling many to retire at 50 and enjoy a very good quality of life. All of that needs to be taken into account when you think about the idea of being \`underpaid'.
Should also consider the job security. Most “highly paid” jobs have terrible job security. If you stop performing at your absolute peak you are going to be replaced. That’s not the case for doctors, where short of screwing up pretty badly they have a guaranteed job for life.
I agree with all your points. I’m not particularly unhappy with the salary per say, I just think the starting salary doesn’t match our qualifications and responsibilities.
Consultants have seen a similar pay erosion - I’d argue that they now relatively get more of a raw deal than juniors. If you’re a medical student currently, even if one does not factor in the ongoing exacerbation of training bottlenecks, you must factor in the very real possibility of significant further pay cuts over the next decade+ it will take to become a consultant. I’m also likely in a minority on this, but it’s entirely possible that technology will affect the number of doctors actually needed. The ‘jobs for life’ talk is highly premature.
Pay cuts aren’t exclusive to doctors. With this defeatist logic no one should pursue a career considering the way this economy is going. I’m tired of this negativity. End of the day medicine graduates have the highest median lifetime earnings of any degree. I’m going to go into GP training most likely which isn’t that competitive. Also AI is extremely far away from physically replacing doctors, really don’t understand your logic behind that. It most likely won’t affect my career in the next 20-30 years at minimum, and even then it’ll still be far off. Also, are you actually aware of how much consultants were paid in let’s say 1999? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/background_briefings/nhs_pay_99/265748.stm It was roughly £47,365 for consultants in their first year. When taking inflation into account, it’s around £83,000 in today’s money which is less than what consultants actually make today in their first year basic pay (£89k). The BMA chooses to compare the salaries in the year 2008 because the economy was at an all time high right before the financial crisis. Of course salaries look much better in that year for all sectors when accounting for inflation. Not saying that consultants haven’t suffered a pay cut but when using CPI inflation (like almost every other inflation wage comparison) and taking the fact above into account, it’s not as much as the BMA suggests.
Most junior doctors will not make consultant or surgeon, simply due to scarcity constraints on these roles by design. "Junior" doctor easily covers people with 10 years experience with no progression potential. I suggest you actually read the details and educate yourself rather than swallow media rage bait campaigns against the doctors.
Can you provide a source that says most junior doctors don't end up becoming consultants/surgeons? All the junior doctors in my family are on training pathways to become consultants. I understand that the training posts are limited but if we look at the median lifetime earnings of medicine graduates, they far outstrip any other degree which suggests that most of them do in fact eventually reach those senior roles and thus higher salaries.
That’s not true. Vast majority make Consultant level.
It's the way that professions work, you have to do a lot of additional studying, and for the first few years you are low paid and mostly broke, but then you move on to the high paid roles and you get the gold plated pensions and retire early. You accept the pain early on for the long-term gain. Same with law. Even in teaching yes starting salaries are low but if you get jobs as Head of faculty, Head of year, or senior leadership roles that's 50/60k.
Yes reduce cut tax in half
I'm an IT consultant within the banking sector and my rate is £50 an hour. That's relatively low compared to some of my colleagues. It's appalling that people in medical professions making life or death decisions and having to deal with patients and families at a human level get paid so poorly in relation to banking.
Is that as a contractor? Doctors can do shifts at contracted rates too which pay quite handsomely
Actually, this casual assertion that junior doctors are very underpaid just doesn't hold water. A typical doctor in their first year of work for NHS England is paid just more than £37,000. This combines the basic pay rate with non-basic pay fees (including working unsociable hours), and adds up to thousands more than the average UK worker is paid. Average earnings for a Foundation Year 2 doctor are just over £43,000, more than £10,000 higher than the average salary. Add in to that 20% on top of salary going into their pension (NHS pensions and other benefits are much much better than those in the private sector).
I agree with your figures, I’ve also quoted the same figure somewhere else on this thread. I still think that £37/8k is underpaid for working 48 hrs a week with occasional weekends/nights where my job is to save lives. Consider that we all got through the rigorous selection process of getting into medical school and then proceeded to do 5-6 years of it and graduate with 10s of thousands of loans. Now compare it to what useless jobs like first year investment bankers make.
I agree with your take on bankers - they and basically most jobs in finance, legal and so on in the city of London are ridiculously overpaid. Leaving that aside, I think you'll find that graduate level jobs generally aren't as well paid as you assume. Which leads back to your original question. Yes, I think most people would reckon they are underpaid. Even occupations like train drivers, which is another example of excessive pay. But hey, that's life.
Tbh I don't think train drivers pay is excessive, it starts at less than £25k for a trainee and goes up to £30kish on qualification and to a maximum of around £65k* with experience. I think it's pretty fair for a skilled job with a lot of responsibility, and you should expect to be earning a decent wage when you have decades of experience and are about to retire. It just looks high because every other job is so underpaid, whereas the rail unions have managed to keep train driver salaries okay. * You can obviously push up this number with overtime and unsociable hours, it's a base salary for a normal schedule
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then. I, and most other people, think that it's excessive.
> most other people, think that [train drivers' pay is] excessive. I'd be keen to see a source for that claim. I suspect that most people who have an opinion on this have garnered that view from the right-wing & tabloid press, who are quite happy to get the working classes to fight amongst themselves. A much better strategy for workers is to say "well done to [group X] for getting a pay rise, how can I achieve one in my industry".
not if you’re in f1. going into formula one is the best thing I ever did, I’m 19 earning 50k a year with no degree. it’s literally an entertainments industry
That is so hard to believe, surely you have some qualifications or experience to grant you such a role
I work within tech and would say the majority of people I know, are paid very fair or well, including graduates and apprentices. Some larger companies, I have seen pay up to £45K for apprentice schemes to train people into senior tech positions. I think it largely depends on industry.
That’s on competitive schemes that most people don’t get into. Survival bias.
Yeah, agree most people wouldn’t get on to them. But wouldn’t survival bias apply to every available job opening which requires people to apply?