What salary are you happy with these days?

[Kent Border Kenny]

Any way, to answer the original question, I’ll be very happy with a household income of a round one million pounds.

That should be enough to keep all, the homes running and staffed, the cars filled up with petrol, and to be able to afford nice champagne.

[PrinceRupert]

kingston12 said:

I don't think they should, I was just interested to see if there was any middle ground. The type of packages that you mention do seem mad for NQs, but I'm sure they really expect the proverbial 'pound of flesh' for that.

For someone in princeperch's position with significant post qualification experience, presumably these firms are paying a fortune. I was just interested to see what the next level down was - I certainly wouldn't expect it to be a 9-5 role, but not 70+ hours aa week either.

They certainly do take their pound of flesh. I am not sure the mega paying US firms necessarily expect more hours than the high paying UK firms (there are only so many hours in the day ...), but they have leaner teams, less support staff, are more likely to expect you to work weekends / cancel holidays at short notice, etc. My anecdotal understanding is the culture is somewhat less friendly and collegiate. But I am sure it varies by firms. It just seems insane that I could probably move firm and increase my salary by 60-80k plus much bigger bonuses when I already feel remarkably well paid ...

It isn't as easy as saying "I'm 12PQE I could get paid a fortune". These mega paying firms recruit bright young lawyers, and work them very hard for 3/4/5/6 years, and then if they are promising put them on the partnership track, and if they are not manage them out. There aren't many 40 somethings plodding along as associates in these sorts of firms. It would be very difficult I suspect for someone who has spent his formative years in the public sector to move into a high paying private practice role, unless you have specific experience at a senior level e.g. work your way up to be head of legal for the FCA or something. I think once your past 3/4 PQE moving up the pyramid is very difficult.

[95JO]

PrinceRupert said:

Sheepshanks said:

princeperch said:

Where I work, the people that really really work hard get at best a £50 love to shop voucher.

My wife, doing a Civil Service admin job, part-time, used to get those now and again. Even she was slightly insulted.

My girlfriend is a private practice lawyer and got a £100 John Lewis voucher the other day as a reward for her hard work. Pretty amusing given her chargeout rate is in the region of £300 an hour.

Myself and my girlfriend are all too familiar with the £50 love to shop vouchers... I did get £150 (pre-tax) last month for successfully deploying our new service to production and a 2.2% pay rise this year.

To be honest, I don't expect any large bonuses/pay-rises and when I do get them, I see them as just that, a bonus.

However, I do recall a few years ago, working at a different Government department on a major Brexit related project, I was one of only 2 Civil Servants on a large IT team... I was offered something silly like £12 per night for on-call (if I didn't get called out) whereas my colleagues who were brought in via a consultancy were offered £250 per night, yes, £250.

Safe to say I declined their generous on-call offer, they were half-heartedly trying to push me into doing so as it was an expectation of my job role. I think even the SCS' at the time knew it was ridiculous to even ask me.

[MrJuice]

Junior doctors were excluded from the pay rise announced by Rishi.

You couldn't make this st up.

[kingston12]

PrinceRupert said:

They certainly do take their pound of flesh. I am not sure the mega paying US firms necessarily expect more hours than the high paying UK firms (there are only so many hours in the day ...), but they have leaner teams, less support staff, are more likely to expect you to work weekends / cancel holidays at short notice, etc. My anecdotal understanding is the culture is somewhat less friendly and collegiate. But I am sure it varies by firms. It just seems insane that I could probably move firm and increase my salary by 60-80k plus much bigger bonuses when I already feel remarkably well paid ...

It isn't as easy as saying "I'm 12PQE I could get paid a fortune". These mega paying firms recruit bright young lawyers, and work them very hard for 3/4/5/6 years, and then if they are promising put them on the partnership track, and if they are not manage them out. There aren't many 40 somethings plodding along as associates in these sorts of firms. It would be very difficult I suspect for someone who has spent his formative years in the public sector to move into a high paying private practice role, unless you have specific experience at a senior level e.g. work your way up to be head of legal for the FCA or something. I think once your past 3/4 PQE moving up the pyramid is very difficult.

Thanks, that makes sense. What happens to those who don't 'make it' though? They'll be a few plodders who stay within firms and a few others who find the type of niche roles you mention elsewhere, but do the others just go onto sub-£100k roles or leave law altogether?

[PrinceRupert]

kingston12 said:

PrinceRupert said:

They certainly do take their pound of flesh. I am not sure the mega paying US firms necessarily expect more hours than the high paying UK firms (there are only so many hours in the day ...), but they have leaner teams, less support staff, are more likely to expect you to work weekends / cancel holidays at short notice, etc. My anecdotal understanding is the culture is somewhat less friendly and collegiate. But I am sure it varies by firms. It just seems insane that I could probably move firm and increase my salary by 60-80k plus much bigger bonuses when I already feel remarkably well paid ...

It isn't as easy as saying "I'm 12PQE I could get paid a fortune". These mega paying firms recruit bright young lawyers, and work them very hard for 3/4/5/6 years, and then if they are promising put them on the partnership track, and if they are not manage them out. There aren't many 40 somethings plodding along as associates in these sorts of firms. It would be very difficult I suspect for someone who has spent his formative years in the public sector to move into a high paying private practice role, unless you have specific experience at a senior level e.g. work your way up to be head of legal for the FCA or something. I think once your past 3/4 PQE moving up the pyramid is very difficult.

Thanks, that makes sense. What happens to those who don't 'make it' though? They'll be a few plodders who stay within firms and a few others who find the type of niche roles you mention elsewhere, but do the others just go onto sub-£100k roles or leave law altogether?

There are a few options:
- Move into a non-fee earning role e.g. professional support lawyer.
- Move in-house (probably the most common).
- Move into the public sector.
- Join one of these contracting type legal offerings.
- Move into recruitment.
- Move down the pyramid to a mid-tier firm (some will also move out of London to the regions), either with the expectation of getting onto the partnership track or as a "counsel" or "director" i.e. a senior role as an alternative to partnership. You see more senior non-partner lawyers in mid-tier firms.
- Leave law and do something else.

EDIT: I should have added that (a) there will be a few plodders who stay within the firms and (b) this would all come with pay cuts, and other than some in-house roles or if moving not very far down he private practice pyramid a 6 figure salary may be difficult to achieve.

Edited by PrinceRupert on Monday 2nd November 11:56

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

How are people managed out in the large law firms? The way it works in my wife’s Big 4 firm is that good but not partner material Directors keep having the carrot of promotion dangled in front of them up to the point when they realise they’re being played and it’s not going to happen.

It’s a tough way to handle people who’ve been working all hours and under huge pressure for many years in order to impress the partner group enough to get the golden ticket, but I can’t see the process changing any time soon as simply put it’s effective.

[DoubleSix]

princeperch said:

DoubleSix said:

I suspect you are just scared of the big wide world outside of your cosy (public sector) confines.

Fear of finding out you can’t match the best and brightest in the private sector. Fear of not being as good as you think you are.

I trained and worked in private practice before I joined the civil service. I have excellent academics, a good degree and if I put my CV up here then the other lawyers here would possibly recognise some of the cases I have been involved in as being ground breaking and seminal litigation. I have also read about the cases I have worked on in national newspapers and on one case I worked on a while back, BBC panorama ran a feature on it.

So you see - I am pretty good at being a lawyer, as it happens. I'm just not interested in being a manager or doing a load of extra pointless st in addition to being a lawyer.

If you say so.

I don’t believe you fwiw. Your earlier posts betrayed your frustration, lack of perceived recognition and remuneration.

I have no doubt you have the academics and experience but you seem to lack that most crucial of ingredients to move forward: drive & confidence.

(Note: I don’t know you, so im just going based on your posts and my own experience of people in a similar position - career transition is scary, no doubt)

[PrinceRupert]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

How are people managed out in the large law firms? The way it works in my wife’s Big 4 firm is that good but not partner material Directors keep having the carrot of promotion dangled in front of them up to the point when they realise they’re being played and it’s not going to happen.

It’s a tough way to handle people who’ve been working all hours and under huge pressure for many years in order to impress the partner group enough to get the golden ticket, but I can’t see the process changing any time soon as simply put it’s effective.

I'm not entirely sure, to be honest; I haven't got to the point of being managed out yet!

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Chris Type R said:

Bullet-Proof_Biscuit said:

£60k seems to be a good balance to live on for the following reasons: (Of monthly take home pay)

£1k on mortgage
£500 on house running stuff
£1k on buying car parts / house renovation mats
£1k food/beer/spending money.

Obviously double that would mean double the fun however I am extremely lazy.

Is there any provision in there for pension contributions/savings/holidays though.

I've found that my income has continued to grow, but I don't feel any wealthier. Trying to play catch up on having a reasonable pension pot leaves very little for frivolous spending.

Apologies I should have clarified the car parts & renovation & beer stuff was a jest analogy for disposable income which would be forfeit in lieu of 'when the misses bangs on sufficiently enough that we go on another weekend' away type thing.

I am 32 with £168 in a pension pot and no family money therefore the current tact is property renovation..

What are your pension contributions? I intend to join the company pot once my FTB house buy goes through (hopefully!)

[Mr Whippy]

CharlesdeGaulle said:

princeperch said:

Me too, and large numbers of the people I work with too. As I've said before, it's a two way street. If my employer is going to pay me the minimum it can there isn't much I can do about it (apart from leave), but what I can do is work to rule and there is very little they can do about that. Unfortunately the pay and reward issue for lots of professionals in the civil service has reached crunch point. 94pc of our staff in our staff survey said they were extremely dissatisfied with the pay and reward package last year. 94 pc. That is pretty much all of the workforce. That is a very very very big problem.

In fact I read something that really struck a chord with me a while back. It was in a book called the age of absurdity. It basically said that in a lot of public sector jobs, because there is no 'up or out' policy, if you've reached a level where roughly speaking you earn enough, and you are fairly independent and aren't being managed all the time, there is one last thing you can do to break the rules without breaking the rules.

That is that you can opt out of the 'promotion game' with all the sucking up and fking about and extra hard work that comes with it.

Once you do that you remove the vast majority of leverage that managers have over you and as long as you meet your contractual obligations then it is very difficult for them to challenge you on it.

To be honest it's pretty much what I've done. If i go one level up from where I am at work then it's another 9k a year before tax, a lot of extra stress and hassle and exposure to scrutiny.

So for those in the public sector I say this : stay in the shadows, don't play the promotions game, get out when you can and take the pension as early as possible and have a long and hopefully happy and healthy retirement.

Edited by princeperch on Sunday 1st November 22:05

Really? I guess you need to be happy that most sensible folk think you're a prick, and the ambitious youngsters coming up behind you, that one would imagine you're going to encourage and mentor, simply come to think that you're the bloke they never want to be.

I'm not sure that's the professional place you want to be. But, hey, it's up to you.

Ambitious youngsters wouldn’t be in a public sector random j.o.b.

If they’ve got a career path planned out they’re not gonna care about furniture employees... indeed they should already know that’s par for the course and use it to their advantage. Win win.

[Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area]

My answer to the question of salary is an unusual one in that I’m very happy earning nothing. I’m a stay at home dad and don’t miss working at all.

In my last job however I was working 3.5 days/week and earning about £28k pro rata. This gave me a lifestyle I was content with with a nice house in a good area owned outright and no kids or partner. I couldn’t afford to splash out particularly but at the same time I didn’t have to be careful what I spent.

I was was very fortunate to be in the position I was and took the decision at the age of 30 to find an easy part-time job so that I could have a dog and have lots of time to do whatever I fancied. The fact is that I was never motivated enough to go down the career route, so leaving the 9-5 world suited me perfectly.

[7n8n]

A lot depends on whether you have a family to support.

I earn £40k and we have kids aged 3 and 1.

Wife is currently unpaid until she goes back to work in January (it wasn't worth her going back until child 1 is eligible for some funding towards childcare). Even when she goes back to work, once nursery fees are paid she'll only bring home £400 each month.

Currently I'm feeling the pinch and only breaking even at best each month once mortgage, bills and nursery fees are taken into account.

I could stop my employer-based share savings contributions, and take my first child out of nursery but I don't really want to do that.

I can't complain as I don't have the skills, experience or drive to progress my career any further.

Would be nice to have a bit of money to treat ourselves, but that's a small price to pay for having our children and a roof over our heads.

Had we no kids, we'd possibly be on double the household income and have a huge disposable income with a nice car and a nicer house.

[Jamescrs]

I'm comfortable with what I earn, circa £45k per annum, can vary slightly. My wife earns mid 30's. Up until maybe a year ago I was chasing money as I can add another £10k a year on if I put more hours in but now I value my time off work more and i'm generally happier.

[Sheepshanks]

princeperch said:

It's pretty simple really. I'm good at what I do. But I don't want to be a manager or have responsibility for a team. Being a manager and getting promoted is the only way of getting a pay rise. And even if I did "play the game" it's all for another 500 quid a month. what is the point? .

You're lucky there's more available - our NHS worker daughter supervises people who are on the same band as her, sometimes earning more due to length of service. Apparently the thinking is that it's easier being a manager than doing patient work.

She doesn't mind as it makes her working time very flexible which suits her as she has young kids. Her pay is terrible for the responsibility and risk (mental health stuff).

[Chicken Chaser]

I'm currently doing extra work at work to qualify as an assessor however, I wont get paid a penny more for it, at best I'll get a qualification out of it but in my niche area of expertise, I can't actually do this job anywhere else. The training and assessing qualification is transferable but I dont particularly want to leave.

Who is the bigger mug, me as the self improver or the guy sat next to me on the same salary without the extra work?

[Mr Whippy]

DoubleSix said:

princeperch said:

I don't encourage and mentor anyone at work I'm afraid. It's another job that there is an expectation you should do and there's no extra pay or reward for doing so and you still have to do your day job.

Put it this way. All those chaps who work in finance and do 14 hours days? The ones that get 200k a year - they deserve every penny imo. Good luck to them. They work hard and their employer rewards them. They put the effort in and get the pay they deserve.

Turn to the public sector - why on earth would you work harder than you have to? You still get paid £x at the end of the month. It's not about being a "prick" - I still get my job done. I wouldn't have worked there for 12 years if I was crap at my job and didn't get results.

But as I have said above the employment relationship is a two way street. There are several issue with the public sector which make industrial relations bad, but here are the three main ones:

1) drawing professionals into the public sector with Job adverts that say there is a salary range for the job. Say 50-70k. Candidates think great, and join. They are then plonked on 50k and given 1pc pay rises. It would take them 30 years to reach 70k. So when you treat someone like that- why would they put discretionary effort in?

2) paying professionals unequally. I know there are people in my office who earn 20k more than me. They negotiated when they joined because they knew (unlike me a few years before) that there was a pay freeze and so they aggressively negotiated their salary because they knew (unlike me) that they could be stuck on that figure for decades.Again good luck to them but don't expect people like me to be chuffed that I'm sitting next to a bloke who is doing the same job as me but just happened to join at a different time under different circumstances and had a better understanding of the gig due to not being misled on the job advert.

3) pay freezes/1pc pay rises. Pretty much for my entire career my pay has been frozen or I've had a 1pc payrise. That's hardly good for morale or a way to motivate me. Last year the nursery I send my kid to put their fees up 7pc. They'll do it again In a few weeks. I haven't even had a payrise this year. Year on year it gets worse. Why would someone make an effort when they are in that situation?

I know the answer is go and work somewhere else, but unfortunately once you've worked in the civil service for a few years it's difficult to get out. And it's got it's good points too. Cool work , I read about stuff I've worked on in the papers and on ph and the pension is good. My own financial situation isn't bad at all, I'd like to earn more of course but I have enough. But that is only because I've had a bit of luck here and there not as a result of my employers benevolence towards me with payrises and bonuses.

Those young employees you mentioned above? They aren't really joining my employer. My team is broadly made up of rich women (most of whom have wealthy partners), people like me who should have got out years ago but didnt, and temps (who earn £350 a day- so again a lot more than the people doing the same Job full time on £50k). The high flyers go and work elsewhere because they could earn a lot more elsewhere and they know it. And that is also a problem. A lot of the lawyers that are trying to join are crap and it takes a lot of time to interview and recruit the right person now because the pay is so bad. And turnover is bad too, a lot of people join because they've been made redundant and then when their luck turns they are off again.

Anyway in summary, you get what you pay for in most aspects of life and this is no different. You pay me the minimum you can get away with then fair enough but as my fellow civil servant said above, efforts will be adjusted accordingly. And it's happening across the board.

Quoted.

Utterly shameful attitude.

I always assumed my views on the public sector and those employed within it HAD to be wide of the mark. Apparently not.

Jeez he’s doing his job.

Everyone appears happy with that except you.

Only a cretin would work in public service and try rise up the ranks naturally.
You either do it by choice, or you don’t. You either go above the call of duty and expect to move up, or you don’t.

[bobbysmithy]

Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:

My answer to the question of salary is an unusual one in that I’m very happy earning nothing. I’m a stay at home dad and don’t miss working at all.

In my last job however I was working 3.5 days/week and earning about £28k pro rata. This gave me a lifestyle I was content with with a nice house in a good area owned outright and no kids or partner. I couldn’t afford to splash out particularly but at the same time I didn’t have to be careful what I spent.

I was was very fortunate to be in the position I was and took the decision at the age of 30 to find an easy part-time job so that I could have a dog and have lots of time to do whatever I fancied. The fact is that I was never motivated enough to go down the career route, so leaving the 9-5 world suited me perfectly.

Did you manage to pay off the mortgage on a sub 30k salary?

[Chris Type R]

Bullet-Proof_Biscuit said:

Chris Type R said:

Bullet-Proof_Biscuit said:

£60k seems to be a good balance to live on for the following reasons: (Of monthly take home pay)

£1k on mortgage
£500 on house running stuff
£1k on buying car parts / house renovation mats
£1k food/beer/spending money.

Obviously double that would mean double the fun however I am extremely lazy.

Is there any provision in there for pension contributions/savings/holidays though.

I've found that my income has continued to grow, but I don't feel any wealthier. Trying to play catch up on having a reasonable pension pot leaves very little for frivolous spending.

Apologies I should have clarified the car parts & renovation & beer stuff was a jest analogy for disposable income which would be forfeit in lieu of 'when the misses bangs on sufficiently enough that we go on another weekend' away type thing.

I am 32 with £168 in a pension pot and no family money therefore the current tact is property renovation..

What are your pension contributions? I intend to join the company pot once my FTB house buy goes through (hopefully!)

Paying as much as I comfortably can into a SIPP while high earner’s pension tax relief is still available.

[ChevronB19]

Sheepshanks said:

princeperch said:

Where I work, the people that really really work hard get at best a £50 love to shop voucher.

My wife, doing a Civil Service admin job, part-time, used to get those now and again. Even she was slightly insulted.

I’m now in government, but as a consultant at a company that may or may not be involved in ‘test, don’t bother with tracing’, I won a 13M contract off my own bat (paid about 40k per annum at the time). I found the opportunity, wrote the bid etc (and this was being a scientist, not a bids person), took it through review, submitted etc.

I got a £70 reward voucher (bear in mind what I achieved was way over my job description at the time). I think I bought a portable DAB radio. Redeemable only in certain stores by the way.

Next annual review, I was criticised for ‘taking other people’s credit’. In this case it was my senior manager (2 levels up) claiming credit for what I’d done.

Edited by ChevronB19 on Monday 2nd November 21:19