list your job and wage

guitarman001

Nickg370 wrote: »

39, Sales Director for a B2B technology company. Basic 110K, total package about £170K so extremely lucky. 3% pension contribution, BUPA, Life Assurance and Car Allowance. As my income has increased over the years, so has my standard of living so I don't feel particularly well-off. That's why I love this site!

Did you need an MBA or similar to get into this role?

retepetsir

28 y/o

Electrical engineer for railway infrastructure development but based in London (expensive train season ticket )

£40k - not particularly good for London

28 days holiday + public holidays

Decent pension

I'm looking elsewhere now as I've been in the role for a few years and need to develop my skills for chartered status. Ideally don't want to commute 2 hours each way to London as we have a baby on the way! Had considered contract work/off shore as mentioned by guitarman001 but wouldn't fit with a young family.

guitarman001

essex6 wrote: »

-That being said, I grew up poor, and often hungry. To have my finances in order is a very comforting feeling and it's the best I can do for now. My parents worked what would probably be today 6-8 quid per hour semi-skilled jobs (father was a lorry driver, my mum a seamstress). I've never forgotten where I come from and I still live like this today, and that is probably why I read this forum.

+1000. I come from a poor background and worked my !!! off (uni was ALL work for me) to get where I am.

Good luck, retepetsir. They always say engineering wont make you rich (true compared to my friends!!!) but it's not too bad. I'd recommend moving North where it's much cheaper.

EDIT - great thread! I'm always seeing folks in flash cars or walking out of flash houses and think to myself, "what do they work as"!?

reason2

27 yr old..

work as a project manager for a football club in the north west of england..

salary varies - but average day rate of £200 depending on project

DemiDee

guitarman001 wrote: »

ATC sounds good - I considered that.

I don't work in oil & gas, but a friend of mine just started. Moved from £22k (civil engineering) to £48k + overtime + offshore allowance. Not sure if I should go for it or not.

I design electronics at the nanometre scale for things like cameras, phones, motors, etc (have to read up all the time to keep up to date). Guess I should be thankful - job's good, boss is great, love it! And going by some of the salaries on here - WOW! A lot are much lower than I would have expected - people in the UK are getting shafted!! I thought I had a tough time trying to save for housing (which is SUCH a con in the UK). IF I went into oil & gas I'd probably be a controls engineer (controlling the running of a site through the use of programmable logic controllers and the like).

DemiDee, what degree did you do? I did electronics & electrical (Masters) and an MSc. Started on £27k or so around 2007. Bonus can be up to 10% each year, I'm going to say 6-7% average. 31 days hol total, something like 5% pension match. No overtime. Most important: I don't work in an expensive city like London! Mate of mine does the same job in the States, ~$120k + share options. Europe you're talking $60-90k or so, I believe. Still some ways to go for me, hopefully. I think it's a young man's game, though. British engineers/graduates seem to falling way short of the mark - a lot of the best engineers now seem not to come from the UK (education standards, society problems etc)


And FYI buyers on here seem to have good salaries. Whatever they do!
FYI trades can be decent. Got friends who did apprenticeships (engineering) and they're on ~£30k + overtime. Not bad considering a lot of grads wont hit that and will be landed with £40k+ debt.

Guitar Man, if you think you can do it, you should go for it. Why not? It's like anything though - having money's great, but since we spend most of our lives at work, it's so important that you like your job first and foremost, and don't take on so much stress that it ends up killing you. Much respect to you for knowing what you wanted to do early on and going for it. You'll never fail with electronics qualifications in society as it is today. I think you have a skill that justifies the pay. I couldn't do it. I just look at anything technological and it breaks.

My degree is in journalism and psychology - the former is highly competitive to break into and when you do, it's feast or famine if you choose to work freelance and outside of London as I have. The latter necessitates further qualifications in order to progress to the higher salaries.

Great discussions here. Fabulous thread!

guitarman001

Definitely a great thread. I've never been scared to discuss salary - WITH people who are also willing to. Employers wont pay you what you're worth, only what they can get away with - have to take a bet on leaving/asking for a raise in order to get it.

Thing is I'm not sure about oil & gas. The industry can have boom/bust cycles, the working conditions can be poor (check out reviews for field engineer at Schlumberger!), I'd be taking a big risk when right now I sit in a cosy office with great work & great colleagues on decent pay. I've been a risk-taker but when you're in a good position, you think twice. Now's the sort of age for me to do it, though. Will see!

I don't know if engineering was a calling, really... I just remember doing some work experience with PCBs and thinking 'this is cool' - then when applying for uni I noted engineering had plentiful jobs and the salary wasn't bad (knew I didn't want to go into banking etc). I bet you COULD do it if you shadowed me for a year - thing is most employers aren't willing to put in the training.

I don't know enough about your degree & options to comment, unfortunately, but best of luck!

guitarman001

I think a lot of people in these lower paying private sector jobs would be better off in the public sector - especially considering the more favourable pensions there. Hell, I even considered the RAF/Navy engineering scheme upon graduation - joining bonus of £27k if it's the Navy, and you get SOME sort of a decent pension in retirement if you serve out a minimum time. Never went for it but my point is.. seems to be an inequality here when looking at these salaries and then considering pensions?

guitarman001

Amarie wrote: »

Have privately taught music lessons for 5 years, which makes approx 6.5k a year..

I've also thought about doing this... don't know if the time invested is worth it, though.

EDIT: When I was in the States last year I was talking to some random Americans who seemed shocked at the low salaries here. Now it looks like I'm on ok money but compared to over there - they were shocked (honestly). Found out a couple months ago one of our engineers is off to work for Apple, something like $140k basic, relocation, shares & profit share. Bloomin' nice one (though you're worked hard).

EGGP1878

Reue wrote: »

You forgot the most obvious con associated with ATC: Stress.

Nope. I rarely find it stressful. It can have its moments of course. But as long as they all behave themselves, it's usually not too bad...

I work my 37ish hours per week and have absolutely no take home. The minute I unplug that's it. So even when I have a particularly busy session, there's always plenty of time to sit in a dark room and wonder what the hell has just happened for the last hour and a half...

Very interesting to be able to read through this thread, gives a great insight to other careers.

DemiDee

koloko wrote: »

There is a thread in the matched betting board of this forum with negative experiences from people trying to get a mortgage and failing because of their exposure to bookmakers. And they are people with full time careers who make money on the side risk free through matched betting.

You would be rejected from every mortgage lender in the country if you told them you were a professional gambler. I'm calling you out on this one.

Not if it's a self cert.