Salary Reality Check

John1993_2

ruggedtoast wrote: »

http://yahoo.careerbuilder.co.uk/Article/YAH-106-Job-Search-The-UKs-most-surprising-salaries/?lr=int_ukyahoo&siteid=int_ukyahoo_YAH-106



Maybe this might temper the expectations of those on this forum keen to denigrate renters who should just 'work harder' to earn the £50k a year a first time buyer now needs to get a 2 bed terrace in the SE.

The hard work has to start at school, continue through higher education or apprenticeship, and then be constant during the career, if you want to maximize your chances of being able to achieve a high salary.

It's also not sufficient, you have to apply it sensibly, and work hard at the right things.

Unfortunately all to many people just don't want to believe that it makes a difference, so bunk off at school, go straight into a poor job, and then sit back and expect to automatically get promotions.

They then turn up on here taking pot shots at people who've always done the right thing, and "unfairly" become comfortably off.

MacMickster

ringo_24601 wrote: »

and due to the distinct lack of progress available in his job, and none existent salary inflation, they will stay trapped in their tiny flat, surrounded by drug dealers and pimps. They'll have 2 kids, be unable to put them anywhere and end up in council accommodation unable to afford 'the next rung of the ladder'

Wow. A cheery outlook on life there.

Of course that could happen, or, having learned the art of saving rather than squandering money, the young couple could make a good life together, ending up in their family terraced house in their mid 30s.

Confucious said that a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.

One thing is for certain. If the young couple didn't take that first step - in case they never managed to take the second (or in the hope that the house fairy would grant their wish to move directly to the fourth step) - then they would be left behind the start line complaining that everybody who took that step had things easier than they did.

chucknorris

John1993 wrote: »

The hard work has to start at school, continue through higher education or apprenticeship, and then be constant during the career, if you want to maximize your chances of being able to achieve a high salary.

It's also not sufficient, you have to apply it sensibly, and work hard at the right things.

Unfortunately all to many people just don't want to believe that it makes a difference, so bunk off at school, go straight into a poor job, and then sit back and expect to automatically get promotions.

They then turn up on here taking pot shots at people who've always done the right thing, and "unfairly" become comfortably off.

I thanked you, but I bunked off school and got into all sorts of trouble when I was younger. But when I was in my late 20's it dawned on me what everyone had been trying to tell me when I was younger. I wasn't satisfied with what I had and where I was going so at the age of 28 I went back (back? I was never there in the first place) into education as a mature student and worked hard and got a first class honours degree in quantity surveying. My working hard ethos continued in employment as a graduate and because I graduated in a recession (1990) I witnessed chartered surveyors being made redundant and vowed I would get myself into a position where I would have to rely upon others for financial stability. It was very hard work progressing through the rank and getting to the top in my profession and also building up two businesses in my 'spare time' but I did it.

MacMickster

John1993 wrote: »

The hard work has to start at school, continue through higher education or apprenticeship, and then be constant during the career, if you want to maximize your chances of being able to achieve a high salary.

It's also not sufficient, you have to apply it sensibly, and work hard at the right things.

Unfortunately all to many people just don't want to believe that it makes a difference, so bunk off at school, go straight into a poor job, and then sit back and expect to automatically get promotions.

They then turn up on here taking pot shots at people who've always done the right thing, and "unfairly" become comfortably off.

That reminds me of when an interviewer suggested to Gary Player (a very good South African golfer famous in the 1960s and 70s for those too young to remember) that he was particularly lucky on the golf course.

He agreed saying that it was strange, but the more time that he spent practising the luckier he appeared to get.

ruggedtoast

John1993 wrote: »

The hard work has to start at school, continue through higher education or apprenticeship, and then be constant during the career, if you want to maximize your chances of being able to achieve a high salary.

It's also not sufficient, you have to apply it sensibly, and work hard at the right things.

Unfortunately all to many people just don't want to believe that it makes a difference, so bunk off at school, go straight into a poor job, and then sit back and expect to automatically get promotions.

They then turn up on here taking pot shots at people who've always done the right thing, and "unfairly" become comfortably off.

You get forum points for randomly citing lack of hard work as a reason for financial failure, but you'll find recommending Higher Education doesn't go down particularly well with the 'I'm Alright Jack' curmudgeons on here, most of whom consider a degree to a be a self indulgent affectation of millenials who 'want it all'.

I'll leave you to polish your Ferrari now, which is of course no way a substitute for any lack of virility you may or may not be experiencing, and to contemplate why criticising people for spelling and grammar isn't especially wise if you aren't going to proof read your own posts.

ruggedtoast

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I was just giving an analogy.

You are entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.

There are no government benefits (as I understand it) aimed at people 'trapped' in over priced rented accomodation. If the landlord is holding you there at gunpoint, then it is a matter for the police, and not this forum.

There is no need for housing to be as expensive as it is. It is an artificial bubble created largely to benefit one segment of the population to the detriment of the other.

The main thread of these arguments seems to be that boomers believed that they suffered when young, so young people now should have to suffer as well. Even if that suffering is completely pointless, harmful to the country as a whole and completely unnecessary.

I can't bend my mind into any place imaginable where I would would be advanced in years myself and wish that on an entire generation of people, because I don't want them to be able to afford to buy my house.

Loughton_Monkey

ruggedtoast wrote: »

........

I can't bend my mind into any place imaginable where I would would be advanced in years myself and wish that on an entire generation of people, because I don't want them to be able to afford to buy my house.

Very dramatic, and, as usual, failing to look at any grain of substance, but rather look for some sort of generational conspiracy that just doesn't exist.

Had I stayed in my very first house, and were I to be selling it today, Zoopla informs me that the detached ones in my road are selling for around £100K today. I can only assume my mid-terrace would be something less.

I bought it unseen [my wife visited it in her lunchtime, phoned me, and we had 30 minutes to say yes] because prices had risen 20% in 12 months.

You seem to think I (and others) by pointing out 'generational facts' are saying that you must suffer because we found it difficult. Think what you like, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm simply trying to point out that generation has nothing to do with it. Buying a house in UK has always been expensive and presumably always will be.

Prices go up and down. All the time. They are going up at the moment, after a period of stagnation. Nothing new. Nothing exceptional. And prices are driven by supply and demand. If they are in short supply, then that is not caused by people of any specific age, but the whole working age range.

I would have no particular 'fears' of starting my whole working life again in today's economic climate. I would hopefully learn as I went through and hopefully do just as well. I would listen to much older people and absorb their experiences - picking and choosing what anectodes made sense to me and what didn't.

Wage levels, inflation, stock market performance, mortgage rates, savings rates, taxation, house prices, gdp growth, exchange rates..... are all interconnected. At any one time, some are favourable, some are not. They go in cycles. Up, down, sideways. The young people I know, and in my family, seem to 'get on with it' and I wish them all well. Most of them will do well.

Those that don't will probably accept that it is rather more the situations into which they have chosen to put themselves that are the root cause. Not any one single factor of the external financial environment at any one time. That was perfectly true for my generation as well.

MrRee_2

martinsurrey wrote: »

£10k a week, or £500k a year, what industry and jobs are these contractors in?

They work 4 days a week, no Fridays.

The business calls for the brightest brains in a select area (Nuclear Physics) ..... the best minds in this elite area are as rare as rocking horse crap, hence they can charge what they want and aren't daft enough to be PAYE.

martinsurrey

MrRee wrote: »

They work 4 days a week, no Fridays.

The business calls for the brightest brains in a select area (Nuclear Physics) ..... the best minds in this elite area are as rare as rocking horse crap, hence they can charge what they want and aren't daft enough to be PAYE.

You must be right then, most consultants must be on £2k a day, as I can’t move in my local for nuclear physicists, they’re all “splitting the atom this, and, bury the waste that..”…

Don’t take the very niche market you work in and try to claim everyone must be the same!

That’s like saying the average premiership footballer is on £2m a year so the published average salary of £26k a year must be wrong.

For every nuclear physicist on £8k a week (£368k a year with 46 weeks a year) there are 50 minimum wage factory workers on £12k.

(Edit for this)

after posting I had to laugh, last weekend I actually couldn’t move for physicists, out for a 30th birthday party with 6 of them, but their work is classified (weapons research and ballistics modelling is as good a guess I could make based on their PhD subjects)

[Deleted User]

I believe you can also make £2k a day as an IT contractor, but in rather specialised areas (e.g. banking security http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240105426/RBS-pay-leak-reveals-the-contractors-paid-2000-a-day) but more typically the 'day rate' is £400 - 500).

I'm a stupid PAYE IT Consultant, but i've been offered up to £650 a day for a long term contract (doing specialised Healthcare IT stuff). I could have realised my dream of earning more than a plumber!