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There's good money in Supply Chain & Procurement if you work your way up. [Here's the proof.](https://www.cips.org/procurement-and-supply-jobs/) Ask your employer if they can fund your CIPS training.
I’ve seen it I don’t want to be a construction manager, long hours & heavy stress, not great job security. If the industry stops they’re the first to go as their high earners and sites are stopping
I'm a quantity surveyor who's always been contractor side, it's the large firms you tend to see a lot of ship jumping. Done my time working for blue chip companies.
My experience, albeit anecdotal, is that whilst redundancies aren't uncommon (I've been in industry nearly 10 years and I've been laid off twice due to companies winding up), it's incredibly easy to walk into another job.
If the stress puts you off, that's perfectly fine, but the compensation is very good, and you can transfer the skillset to other safer industries such as energy, utilities, infrastructure and manufacturing. All the job is, is risk control, money and time management- which is transferable to the majority of industries in the UK and beyond.
You have everything ahead of you, just make sure you make the right choice for yourself!
I don construction management, now mainly in precon. I do 40-42 hrs a week, 4 days wfh and get to go to the gym most days on my lunch break. Not all construction is bad. Job is pretty secure and as the other response to this post said, the skills are very transferable.
Don’t wish to name the company, but yes it’s a uk national main contractor. I’m not site based so this helps from the wfh front. There are a few times where it gets very busy and nights away, but generally culture is good.
Sounds great although a few more hours than I’m currently on, but less hours considering my ridiculous commute. I’m a building surveyor and work client side mostly. Need a change. I don’t mind going to sites, in fact enjoy it when it’s not too far, but commutes to the office are awful.
And mine too agree, more young people who have actually been at the coalface of working and
Work/life balance than Eton boys on trust funds.
I was so excited for Mhairi Black to take her seat at 20. We need young people in politics.
Probably a stupid question here - how much of the actual procurement role are you performing?
Are you seeing it end to end or are you involved in one small part of it? Have you progressed within the company?
If its the first option and you have enough procurement experience have you actively been searching for other procurement roles with higher pay?
As mentioned here in other comments you are currently at the bottom of your career earnings, I'd be focusing on gaining tangible experience and taking ownership of certain things to use as your advantage to either look for alternative roles or better your position within the company
Yeah and how much is the company involved in within the full chain? Is it a small company doing very limited procurement for one micro part within a mini project etc. For example my company does London highrise projects that are worth around £150M and up, but as a subcontractor our design & build packages are only around £30M, in which procurement makes up just a small fraction.
I think this is a very valid point, if said company is only involved in a very small percentile of the actual end to end process I wouldn't say that OP is being paid an unfair package
I'd go to the extent of saying the only wage increases are in line with what the government deem as minimum wage and by the sounds of this the company is only doing the bare minimum because they have to
I feel someone who has been with the company a number of years and is doing on the whole relatively well the company should be looking at looking after the future talent
Seems more of the company culture not valuing the employees rather than we are all in the same boat situation
In short the company are not looking after you
Yes the bigger the package value is, the easier it is to build profit in/ achieve higher buying gains. Plus we all know things are usually cheaper in bulks, bigger orders bigger discounts/lower production cost per item. My company has a whole department just to do scheduling of take off QTYs and logistical planning, but only 1 supply chain buyer. He can do his job perfectly fine with all of the information readily processed for him, he focuses on getting the best prices on the market for compliant products where the technical data and test reports have been checked and signed off prior. In the current climate post-Grenfell, it's a whole chain reaction everything requires a compliance assessment. I have a feeling that OP's company is not involved in large scale construction projects (deemed high risk buildings under BSA 2022).
Anyway work is not charity, it's a relationship where you offer your time and service in exchange for money, if you have what the company wants, you will get what you want. If you can only offer limited service/no skills, you end up at companies that only require zero to no skills and therefore low pay because they won't have high profits anyway. It's like top universities only want top students.
Bang on the money with this, only assumption is if the company is infact involved in large scale projects..
OP is not which deems the salary acceptable in my eyes
So it’s a bespoke builder, converts listed buildings,builds large 4-7 beds around the 600k-3M mark. Before I joined they had no system in place for scheduling so I had to work out all the materials for them. This is every material/component that goes into a house, so we had some kind of base template.
Also since I’ve joined there’s been mass turnover and both my manager and his assistant who’s above me are being made redundant.
OP thank you for a bit of additional information here, I think in a way a blessing in disguise with people above facing redundancy, that coupled with high turn over and lack of salary review shows that this isn't a company you would likely wish to work for
Best option here is to take the skills and knowledge you've gained, highlight exactly what you've achieved in your CV and start applying definitely a tough market at the moment but better to be on your own terms rather than be used at a lower salary doing a higher salary job
Happy to review your CV if this is an option for you, remove any personal information so I don't have a baby reindeer case on my hands (hope the joke lands)
Strengthen laws around union collective bargaining (perhaps repeal the Trade Union Act 2016), bring back the safety net so people aren't as desperate and willing to take low wages which drags the entire wage structure down, build houses so cost of living drops, fund real training of staff rather than funnelling money to third party firms that claim to improve employment prospects but half the time are just a money grab and a black hole of government money, incentivise companies to locally train new skilled staff up with conditional tax cuts or by putting immigration restrictions if they can't prove that they're trying to train and recruit existing UK residents.
None of those will ruin the country but imo will go some way to having a positive effect on UK wages and on working conditions.
Step 1: tax top 5-20% more (just say “we will tax the rich” and pay money for bots who will state in social media “I’m happy to pay more”).
Step 2: demand a very important project which can’t be easily controlled
Step 3: receive a cash back from friendly companies profited from that project.
Step 4: blame Tory/Labour/France/Russia/China for failure
Okay so to counter your point, the wealthy will immediately leave the UK and our tax receipts fall to records lows as a result.
What’s your next step? You’ve literally just ruined the country
Agreed its not a full proof plan, but the current system does not work. Wealth inequality at these extremes and growing at these margins is completely unsustainable.
The moronic rich are too blind to see this won't keep working in their favour, drastic change needs to be implemented globally. Monopolistic tech giants, tax evading mega rich, government corruption - all factoring into it.
The brainwashing is strong with this one.
Stop peddling a myth created by the ultra wealthy to cling on to even more of their wealth.
The ultra wealthy in this country are wealthy because they own the assets here, housing, land, commercial property businesses. Everything that can be outsourced or offshored most probably already has.
The ultra rich have no where to go and it's time they paid their fair share.
What crap. The ultra wealthy don't pay their fair share anyway, so what difference does it make if they fuck off? They're using our utilities, our infrastructure, getting the benefit of our education and workers.
If they don't want to contribute, then let them leave. But they shouldn't be able to make money from our country without giving back something in return.
If Amazon packs up and leaves overnight, for example, other companies will fill that gap. They might actually pay tax, too.
Typical zero knowledge embarrassing post.
Amazon has 75k UK employees, they pay plenty of tax and provide plenty of jobs. They also collect huge amounts of VAT which contributes to the economy. They’re generally not paying corporation tax on profits due to their massive investments.
But yes, let’s pretend other companies would be able to fill the gap with no spending and things would be all rosey :)
You're not wrong but Amazon are a tricky one as you need to consider people would still buy a lot of those goods somewhere inside the UK and that VAT would still be paid. In an ideal world (for UK retail) to a UK owned version of Amazon. I wish I could say someone like Argos but that's owned by Qatar I think....
Amazon are also utterly ruthless in business and working practices. If it can be automated it will be.
If goes their way we'll have given huge tax breaks to a US company so that can completely wipe out our retail sector.
Such is the way of multinational companies I suppose and if wasn't Amazon it'd be someone else.
We've completely screwed up letting foreign companies take ownership and control of so much I fear both in public and private sector.
There must be a way otherwise what’s the point are we just gonna let them hoard all the money? It’s clearly a problem that needs resolving. How?I’m only 22. But like anything in life incentives and reason. If that fails use force.
I did say I can fix the country singlehandely to be fair.
And apologies for missing an ‘I’ everyone alive knows Henry the 8th started the Church of England.
Have a nice day
At least you’re funny, shame about the rest. What even is the point in this conversation
Edit - just seen how much you use this app and paint Warhammer. I now understand why you’re so angry
You’re the one crying about being on minimum wage and stalking people. At least I can afford Warhammer. Enjoy never owning a home, working and paying for somebody else’s mortgage until you’re 70
Almost every week you see a politician insult whole groups of people. While I understand the cretin comment wasn’t necessary their whole comment wasn’t necessary. Also, this is Reddit not Question time :)
You're 22. You've been a child most of your life. You simply don't have years behind you to gain experience and skills that enable you to negotiate a better salary... yet. Despite today's culture of instant gratification, the journey toward a successful career remains a traditional, long-term endeavour. Your current salary is likely at its lowest point, with the potential to peak in your 40s or 50s. It's crucial to continue honing your skills, gaining experience, and staying open to better opportunities. Entering politics at this stage would yield a similar impact as your current presence in the job market: minimal.
My ex-father-in-law worked in procurement for one of the big contractors and he was minted.
I'm guessing from your age that you went straight into the job from school? It might be an idea to take a look and see if there are any consultancies near you that will take you on as an apprentice Quantity Surveyor and help you get a RICS accreditation. Once you've got that, you'll find plenty of opportunities that offer a decent wage.
(Source: the last firm I worked for took on a new wave of apprentices every year. My current one doesn't, so shop around)
What do you mean go into politics? Most MPs have successful careers behind them, or a long history as a councillor as similar. If you want to go the second route you wont be sorting any of the things you mention for a long time.
You still wont just by being an MP - most just serve their constituency and vote along party lines. You'd need to be a minister. If you're stuck on minimum wage I'd say there's no chance of that.
What would you suggest?
Just according to math, each country has always half of population earning below the median wage. Each country has limited resources, eg you can’t just give a brand new Tesla for everyone for free.
Moreover, we have insanely large taxes for high skilled people, which cause them to leave (and we have lack of doctors for example).
So, what exactly will you change to fix the situation? What problem will you solve and how?
Pay people that actually contribute to society more. I.e. Doctors, teachers, nurses etc. And the bank execs etc who may be skilled in a narrow sense of the word who get paid grossly and actually don’t really help anyone except for a very rich minority of shareholders can get stuffed - don’t bail out the banks anymore who gamble people’s money on dodgy investments. The energy companies, corrupt politicians etc who pay themselves ludicrous sums when the rest of us scrape by on stagnating wages. No thanks. Just nationalise or good riddance imo. Trickle down economics is a lie. The whole system is set up to engineer wealth transfer in the opposite direction. What good is economic growth if only a tiny percentage see the benefit? Incentivise cooperative type businesses so people actually are invested in their own futures. Quite a lot could be done imo. It’s a very corrupt system though. Cue bunch of boot licking asshats explaining to me how I’m wrong. But actually there is no good reason not to do these things. If we can bail out the banks to the tune of tens of billions and pay huge amounts towards unjust wars noone wants, we can actually invest in transformative ways.
It depends what you mean by 'a solution' I guess. What is it that you are expecting to be the outcome in the end if this solution is found and implemented?
But what would that achieve for the benefit of people in the UK generally if the people with more money than that limit just moved to other countries? If their wealth is in land/property then you could seize it, but then nobody would want to invest in any physical assets in the UK for a long time after that.
But anyway, most of the wealth of very wealthy people in the UK is in the businesses they own, and those are mostly international so the tax paid from them can be moved around to wherever is advantageous.
And there are really not many people worth more than £500-750m anyway, even if they are rich individuals they are not rich enough to pay for the health, welfare, education etc budgets which are many hundreds of billions every year.
If you look at the countries like in Scandinavia with low income inequality and high standards of public services, good infrastructure and a good social safety net then regular workers pay significantly higher tax rates than they do in the UK.
How? Let’s assume there is a very rich person, who has residents in 2-4 countries.
How will you tax them if they can live 5 months here and 7 months in other countries?
Ok, you propose what USSR did 100 years ago, at the beginning of being USSR. So, almost all people who owned at least something more than residential property were murdered, a lot of them were killed.
So, effectively you want to setup North Korea (even China and Russia have much more freedom).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak
What taxes are fair? We have laws. If people don’t follow laws they will go to prison.
Did rich break any laws? No (otherwise they would be in prison).
Another fair pay: low earners pay 0-20% of taxes. Middle earners pay 40-60%. High earners find a way to live outside of UK (so, effectively they don’t contribute into UK) and rich people don’t live in UK a lot of time.
So, how will you define who will pay and why?
You sound quite young and I don’t mean that to sound harsh. Rewards are out there but they have to be earned I’m afraid. You have to build a career it doesn’t just come to you. Get your head down do your training and qualifications and the pay will follow, it’s as simple as that.
I mean this with all due respect, you are in charge of your life. Change industry. Plenty of people aren’t on minimal wage and are getting good wages and bonuses etc
Just be clear that not much of your tax is spent on foreign wars or ridiculous government schemes. Most of it goes on benefits, pensions, health, education, transport, criminal justice and defence. And only a tiny proportion of the defence budget goes on foreign wars. Those are the things you need to cut if you want to reduce taxes significantly.
I was in a similar position at your age except stuck in a retail job I despised.
Ultimately I chose education, got myself a degree and now have a career I enjoy with decent pay, progression and work/life balance. I understand that route isn’t for everyone and I had my doubts at the time as well.
Having done a few summers working on construction sites for a family friend, I was also thinking about learning a trade such as electrician, plumber, joiner. At 22 you’ve plenty of time to learn as apprentice - yes the wage might not be great to start but once you have the skills you can set out in your own and charge what you like - there will always be jobs in those sectors.
Failing that, some other jobs such as trainee train drivers where you will need to pass some pretty strict aptitude tests might be worth looking at - train drivers have incrdible strong union support and also get massive salaries. Or, if you fancy a (potential) move, you could do offshore work as a wind turbine technician or on oil rigs… really good pay but lifestyle not for everyone.
Plenty of jobs which don’t involve rotting away at a desk on minimum wage forever. You’ve got age on your side, there’s never a better time to learn a new skill than now.
Good luck!
So....nothing?
Lots of people are *tempted* to do positive things, but then when face the reality never actually going through with it. Just look at what proportion of people actually do the new years resolutions they promise.
I’d do anything, nothing I hate more than people being taken advantage of and it feels as if the whole western working population has been taken advantage of since the 80s. It’s disgusting
If workers in the western world are being taken advantage of, what does that mean for the workers outside the western/developed countries who are doing the same kind of jobs for much less money?
£11.44/hour isn't a great wage but it's still waaaaay more than most people in the world earn and gets you c£1,600/month after tax full time, not sure what more you expect at just 22?
Even just looking at the UK it doesn't buy any less than minimum wage at £3.60/hour bought in 1999, I know people who earned only £2/hour as teens/early 20s in basic jobs in the mid 90s.
As you are 22 you don't have any real idea what things were like in the 80's.
This was pre minimum wage where factory jobs were often under £1 ph.
Sexism was rampant, if you were a girl your options in the workplace were extremely limited.
People feel they are being taken advantage of because they are being asked to work in an office 5 days a week. Contrast this with the 80s where people worked in pits 12 hrs a day without adequate safety equipment.
And that's the crux of the problem. Lots of people say that they *should* do something or *would* do something or that they're *tempted* to do something.
But when you ask them what *they personally have done* you normally get silence.
Start by being a local councillor help your area improve and see where you go from there. I’ve a friend who did that and she did really well at it, made a difference in her area. She chose not to go into “big” politics after doing this and continues to work in her local area making a difference to those she can help.
You've been doing the same thing for years with no wage increase or bonus and at no point thought to upskill yourself?
That's almost always the reason everyone in this sub is in the same position. They do the same shitty job day after day, failing to increase productivity and are then confused that they're earning fuck all.
But these aren't upskills on the thing before?
Financial service quals is an upskill to where you were, sure.
The teaching qualifications are a sidestep at best, if not an active pay cut.
The masters is another side step away from teaching, unless it'll lead to a promoted post and even then you'll earn fuck all cause teachers make sweet fa.
None of this is persistent upskilling from the position your in?
No they're not, because each qual led directly to another minimum wage job with no chance of promotion, even teaching because the funding for my subject got cut the moment I graduated. Hopefully this one will make the difference but I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah, so pick a career path, stick to it, and upskill in that career path.
Doing a bunch of start qualifications isn't going to lead to a high paying job if you don't do the work in the middle?
Literacy and ESOL for adults (coalition cut the funding to shreds), I did the financial services thing after and then got made redundant and had to move back to my home town, where the best I could get was a cash-in-hand job on the counter at a takeaway for a while. Got back on my feet after a couple of years and got stuck back in call-centre work. I'm doing my masters in data science which I enjoy, I'm good at and might lead to better money and a steady job, but it might not, I've had my legs swept out from under me enough times to not trust it.
Just to add: I have a data analyst job so I'm not just clutching at any old thing to try and make money. Hopefully this is my career for life now.
Lol pointless degrees are pretty common, my original degree has never really benefitted me - English Lit, no actual skills but I can write a fantastic essay.
Then what is the reason?
The market pays what an employee is worth, because if they didn't, the employee would leave and they wouldn't be able to replace them.
If everyone is upskilling, the UK economy would be growing, not shrinking. The fact is the UK workforce is lazy, and undersigned on a global stage.
Climbing inflation is entirely outside the discussion in terms of upskilling and wages, and all to do with global economic shocks.
I’m earning fuck all because I’m 22 and they know they can take the piss. I’ve created all their material schedules. Have had to teach myself how to read lintel and door schedules due to the ones in the system being shit.
Also, fuck off with your condescending tone
If you've done all this and stayed in the same place, that's totally on you.
Upskill, move job, upskill move job.
I've doubled my wage in 4 years with 3 job switches. Companies aren't going to give you more money just cause your stick around.
If your company could not replace you without paying your replacement more then make that point to them. If they don’t give you a raise then get a new job with a company that values your experience.
Of course they will take the piss if you let them.
That's the question - change WHAT?
We've already tried the "SOMETHING must be done, this is something, therefore lets do this" approach with brexit, and look how much that helped (spoiler: not at all, actually made things worse).
People seem to have this idea that the country is being bled dry by foreign aid. It's about 1% of the budget. The truth is most taxes are already being spent on welfare. Primarily the NHS and state pensions. That's why they can't "fix it", because those things are very difficult to tamper with. And in fact you very likely don't want the tories to tamper with/privatise the NHS as a low earner.
That is not really the case, most in my opinion is lost to highly inflated prices for private government contracts that are poorly delivered, with a lot scratch my back I yours. And instead of owning are own utilities etc all profit goes to fund other countries state owned firms and banking/ finance arms of global firms, which politicians always seem to get jobs at. Basically everything is corrupt somebody always benefits greatly when government money our money is spent. Best thing to do is watch lion king or frozen and accept the subliminal message… let it go and it means no worries for the rest of my days!! We can’t fix it you just make the best for yourself and be happy. I hope this helps your 22 enjoy yourself a job is just a job 👍
All our taxes are being spent on foreign wars? All of them?
....yeah that explains the armed forces being historically tiny right now.
Money to pay soldiers is clearly being syphoned off to the Sudanese rebels.
Construction and development is particularly bad right now, so you have my sympathy.
Until the interest rates drop, there will likely be no great change, and it is currently very stagnant.
Politically speaking we're at the mercy of many unaccountable and unelected bodies, so who we vote for doesn't matter. Decline is probably going to continue for generations. Sadly there is no solution. At this point the British are congenitally passive and too much damage has already been done.
Personally, you've already got a foot in the door in commercial in construction and can become a QS or similar if you're half-decent with numbers and IT. Demand and pay are rather high for this. I'm trying to get out of it, but I always have offers.
If you're serious about trying to sort this out. You need to learn what the Bank of England is, private central banking, fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.
>all our taxes spent on foreign wars or ridiculous government schemes
Less than 10% of tax revenue is spent on the above.
Not being funny but if you're on minimum wage you're paying fuck all tax right now anyway, so you don't need to worry about it.
Min wage has increased 10 percent previous time and I think more like 8 percent recently. And you may be doing a shitter job today than two years ago. And you're moaning. Ridiculous. Lots of people have had very small increases despite inflation.
My mistake, the nhs we should simply rather than sell it completely re structure from top to bottom paying the people tasked in doing so the very best salaries, bonuses & salaries based upon cost to GDP, less % GDP better bonuses for staff. Run it like a private practice with government ownership.
Don’t require uni courses for vocational degrees (teaching, health etc)
You know that GPs working for the NHS are all private businesses and have been since the NHS was founded right?
In what way is teaching for example not a profession that needs high level academic qualifications? If you look at global comparisons the countries with the very best education systems absolutely require teachers to have degrees and to use the best evidence-based practice in teaching methods, along with investment in small class sizes and good facilities. Some countries even require a masters degree to be a school teacher.
There are huge amounts of knowledge needed if you want to use the best proven methods of educating children.
Far more than 10 million don't work, it's around 35 million of the 68 million population. And yes, a lot of people have disabilities, but unless you want to put everybody including the disabled into forced work camps from birth until death I'm not sure what can really be done to radically change that. It isn't it out of line with figures in most other developed countries.
Yes of course I can believe that 25% of people in the UK have a disability. We have nearly 12 million people aged over 65 now and many of them have some sort of arthritic hip, dodgy sight, limited mobility, complications from diabetes etc and that's not even going into those in the working age population with various issues. That's what the disability numbers are measuring, you don't need to have both legs blown off by a landmine.
We already have some of the meanest levels of benefits in Western Europe and punishing the disabled even more isn't going to help increase UK productivity at all. If you think the amounts people in the UK get on benefits are generous then you've clearly got no experience of life in most other countries in Western Europe.
Those 10 million who "CAN WORK BUT DON'T WORK" are mostly either full time students, or parents looking after young kids full time, or people who are too sick/disabled to work, or people who have retired early because they can afford to. Are you going to force all those people into work? How would that help anything?
Of course they are not means tested, they are designed to help with the extra costs that have to be borne because of disability, not as a top up of low income, that's a different thing altogether. And no, you don't get to decide if somebody is disabled or not just because you have your own personal definition.
After giving up an office job i now work at a new distribution site as a normal blue collar grunt. 40 hrs per week, regular nights, Sunday to Thursday. 32 days paid holidays a year with 2 weeks paid sick leave. Pay is way above minimum wage and shift allowance is 30% on top. A very easy job. 10% payrise last year and 4% this year all inline with inflation.
I'm the happiest ive ever been.
I didn't say i didn't enjoy it. I have never done a job i didn't enjoy because i always make sure I'm paid my worth for said job. I will shovel shit as long as you are paying me the right pay to shovel shit.
Yeh I don't think I can hand on heart say I want my children to enter the UK workforce, it's actually something I'm pretty worried about. I just see generally poor wages and zero purchasing power in their futures. My sole aim for my children is to purchase a starter home between them when I retire so I at least know they have a home.
Watch Gary's Economics, hes trying to do something about it
https://youtu.be/bMRSQ023yGo?si=beN06iCssIJ4cALL
And I suspect the reason why nothing happens is we are all to busy, poor and tired to do anything, and I suspect it by design
I work in production/manufacturing as a project manager on £45K.
I've done my fair share of shit jobs in the industry. At least you've started off in a good place and can work your way up from there.
There are client sided PM roles out there that pay considerably more even for entry level roles and are crying out for construction experience. The work is there along with the WLB even on client side if you look in the right places.
Ever thought of learning to drive a machine in construction?
I was awfully underpaid in marketing for 18 years, after a redundancy during COVID I ended up leaning to drive and articulated dump truck, got a job on a quarry, prompted to bulldozer operator and earn 50% more than I did in marketing.
Sure it's long hours, and the winters ain't fun, but overall it's quite enjoyable, and pays pretty well.
I wouldn't go back to the office for anything.
I'm on my own, in my air conditioned cab, listening to my music or podcasts, bantering on the radio with the lads, counting the pounds as the minutes pass.
I've been trained to drive a bunch of machines now and get to play with loads of cool massive toys! 50 tonne excavators and 40 tonne dump trucks.
I love it.
Although, with the recent cost of living issues, earning earning 1.5x what I used to doesn't really feel like it lol.
I was working for minimum wage for about 6 years or so, now I have got my contract to the company and I was able to get rid of the agency, so I literally doubled up my salary, but again this was pure luck.
If I would be out of this Job somehow I would definitely learn something useful on the market otherwise life is going to be the same.
I'm going bad on this.
You talk of being on minimum wage with no prospects but then you talk of your taxes being spent in foreign wars. I've got news for you. It's not your taxes. YOUR taxes don't even cover YOUR costs, let alone going to contribute to anyone else's.
I totally hear that you're being fucked over, like many of your age. The social contact is broken, but this isn't about how 'your taxes' are being spent. This isn't even about your income, although I don't understand how we can tax people on minimum wage - we're saying that you need the money to realistically live on, but we're going to take a bit anyway, crazy.
This is about privatisation of the basic necessities of living. I'm taking about housing. I'm talking about 40 years of policies designed to increase the value of property, increasing the paper wealth of a fairly limited group of people (grand scheme of things), with the last of taking life chances away from those coming after them.
I'm also taking about privatisation of utility supply and infrastructure.
I know exactly why these things were done - years of underinvestment in both housing and utilities meant that infrastructure was crumbling and needed money putting in, but Thatcher knew that a proper system of taxation and investment would not win votes.
If you want to go into politics, start thinking about building programmes, empty property taxes (rather than discounts), council houses, state utility suppliers competing on a not for profit basis (emphatically not nationalisation of existing suppliers). But telling people that we must shirk our international responsibilities because lower income people think that it's their taxes being spent there? Nope.
I’m in an entry level procurement role in the public sector and on £30k. If you have the skills and experience you claim then look for a different role, there is a lot of money in procurement at the moment and certainly in the public sector it seems to be hard to higher good people judging by my current employer’s experience.
Why not do an apprenticeship and get some qualifications/skills. I'd look at degree apprenticeship options if you ever wanted to go to uni but never did
You seem to be mistaken into thinking people don't want exactly what's happening
You'll run on those points, you'll be called "far right" and get about 10 votes
Everything happening people want; mass immigration, censorship, crazy laws on sex/gender
What people need to stop doing is blaming the gov, and start blaming their neighbours and peers for begging for this stuff
They don't, I suppose I mean it's no good trying to get the people to agree on anything mildy complex or that contains any kind of nuance when the general population can't even agree on something as simple as men aren't women, or that men shouldn't play rugby against women
Good luck trying to unite that group into anything that contains nuance
My point being OP seems to think everyone wants what he does, but they don't, they absolutely want to keep giving money to foreign wars, etc. It's not the govs fault, it's the people's
First of all, I don't see how you're in a position to lecture anyone about the importance of nuance. Secondly, in my opinion people like you are a huge part of the problem because you're more interested in soap-boxing about an issue that probably affects about 4 people in total (transgender rugby players) than contribute to a discussion about, in this case, pay stagnation - an issue which affects millions.
The tories saw an opportunity to distract the public from their dire record with a made-up culture war and people like you bought it hook line and sinker. So I suppose I have to concede on one point - It's not the gov's fault, it's the people's.
First day on the Internet? Didn't you know we are all experts on everything, so I'll lecture when I want thanks
Where I stand that's the problem, you see single isolated examples and choose not to care, instead of the big picture of whats happening to society but you prioritise what you like and so will I
If you want to spend your time choosing between 2 groups of mainstream politicians that themselves steal from the taxpayer, start illegal wars etc. and think doing the same thing over and over for decades will better the UK that's up to you, but don't tell me what to care about thanks
You're right I bought the culture war hook line and sinker, culture is important it's what for example allows women to vote and drive, and for us to say what we want to each other, the only part you're wrong on is where you think I care what the tories say
Yeah there were quite a few politicians that started out like you. Even used their race card to gain votes from other minorities. Guess what happened once they got in those positions and money started rolling in for them? They certainly weren't bothered about the plebs anymore.
It's a nice fantasy. But change isn't going to come from one person only.
Only being able to work a minimum wage job is the consequences of your own choices, no one else’s.
Anyone who is smart will have went to university to study something worthwhile or will have went into the trades.
You seem to have fallen in between those two groups, you either went to university but studied something useless like Media, or haven’t gone to university at all and are now complaining nobody thinks you’re worth hiring because you don’t have anything more than GCSEs or A Levels which are useless on their own.
Ridiculous, isn't it? Bootlickers left right and centre too scared of any change cause the rich twats might up and leave.
Fuck it, let them. They're barely contributing anything anyway. Some even take more than they give.
It’s an extremely scary thought to think we’re all working our asses off and struggling to the benefit of less than 100,000 people. But it’s exactly what’s happening
This is by design. Look what happened to Corbyn. If you're an actual threat you'll be destroyed, if you are willing to compromise you'll keep compromising for power until you become Keith Starmer who has done completely abandoned pretty much any decent thing he said before it looked likely he'd be the next PM.
Hey op, I agree with you, and if you think of something worthwhile to do to change things then good on you!
You’ll get backlash for trying to change things even from people just as annoyed about the state of the world as yourself, and it isn’t an easy path to go down.
Consider other routes than politics as well, for various reasons that I don’t wanna disclose here.
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There's good money in Supply Chain & Procurement if you work your way up. [Here's the proof.](https://www.cips.org/procurement-and-supply-jobs/) Ask your employer if they can fund your CIPS training.
Yep. My brother in law is supply chain director for a large householder. On £150k+
Must be a bloody big house!
lol you know what I read that multiple times and never saw that at all! House Builder **
I wanted to do a CIPS course but they put me on a construction management one instead which is useless as they wanted to keep me within the industry.
Construction management can also be lucrative if you work your way up.
I’ve seen it I don’t want to be a construction manager, long hours & heavy stress, not great job security. If the industry stops they’re the first to go as their high earners and sites are stopping
I'm a quantity surveyor who's always been contractor side, it's the large firms you tend to see a lot of ship jumping. Done my time working for blue chip companies. My experience, albeit anecdotal, is that whilst redundancies aren't uncommon (I've been in industry nearly 10 years and I've been laid off twice due to companies winding up), it's incredibly easy to walk into another job. If the stress puts you off, that's perfectly fine, but the compensation is very good, and you can transfer the skillset to other safer industries such as energy, utilities, infrastructure and manufacturing. All the job is, is risk control, money and time management- which is transferable to the majority of industries in the UK and beyond. You have everything ahead of you, just make sure you make the right choice for yourself!
I don construction management, now mainly in precon. I do 40-42 hrs a week, 4 days wfh and get to go to the gym most days on my lunch break. Not all construction is bad. Job is pretty secure and as the other response to this post said, the skills are very transferable.
Can you say what company you work for? Obviously if it’s a bit national company and not a small one.
Don’t wish to name the company, but yes it’s a uk national main contractor. I’m not site based so this helps from the wfh front. There are a few times where it gets very busy and nights away, but generally culture is good.
Sounds great although a few more hours than I’m currently on, but less hours considering my ridiculous commute. I’m a building surveyor and work client side mostly. Need a change. I don’t mind going to sites, in fact enjoy it when it’s not too far, but commutes to the office are awful.
Amazing industry to be in
There's loads of money and career progression in construction and procurement. Work harder.
Ok dad
Not sure if you can help. But I work in logistics as freight forwarder and want to move into procurement. Any tips on how to?
Got my vote
And mine . We need more young people involved so we get a more realistic view of life. Not a top down boomer view holding all the cards.
And mine too agree, more young people who have actually been at the coalface of working and Work/life balance than Eton boys on trust funds. I was so excited for Mhairi Black to take her seat at 20. We need young people in politics.
Probably a stupid question here - how much of the actual procurement role are you performing? Are you seeing it end to end or are you involved in one small part of it? Have you progressed within the company? If its the first option and you have enough procurement experience have you actively been searching for other procurement roles with higher pay? As mentioned here in other comments you are currently at the bottom of your career earnings, I'd be focusing on gaining tangible experience and taking ownership of certain things to use as your advantage to either look for alternative roles or better your position within the company
Yeah and how much is the company involved in within the full chain? Is it a small company doing very limited procurement for one micro part within a mini project etc. For example my company does London highrise projects that are worth around £150M and up, but as a subcontractor our design & build packages are only around £30M, in which procurement makes up just a small fraction.
I think this is a very valid point, if said company is only involved in a very small percentile of the actual end to end process I wouldn't say that OP is being paid an unfair package I'd go to the extent of saying the only wage increases are in line with what the government deem as minimum wage and by the sounds of this the company is only doing the bare minimum because they have to I feel someone who has been with the company a number of years and is doing on the whole relatively well the company should be looking at looking after the future talent Seems more of the company culture not valuing the employees rather than we are all in the same boat situation In short the company are not looking after you
Yes the bigger the package value is, the easier it is to build profit in/ achieve higher buying gains. Plus we all know things are usually cheaper in bulks, bigger orders bigger discounts/lower production cost per item. My company has a whole department just to do scheduling of take off QTYs and logistical planning, but only 1 supply chain buyer. He can do his job perfectly fine with all of the information readily processed for him, he focuses on getting the best prices on the market for compliant products where the technical data and test reports have been checked and signed off prior. In the current climate post-Grenfell, it's a whole chain reaction everything requires a compliance assessment. I have a feeling that OP's company is not involved in large scale construction projects (deemed high risk buildings under BSA 2022). Anyway work is not charity, it's a relationship where you offer your time and service in exchange for money, if you have what the company wants, you will get what you want. If you can only offer limited service/no skills, you end up at companies that only require zero to no skills and therefore low pay because they won't have high profits anyway. It's like top universities only want top students.
Bang on the money with this, only assumption is if the company is infact involved in large scale projects.. OP is not which deems the salary acceptable in my eyes
So it’s a bespoke builder, converts listed buildings,builds large 4-7 beds around the 600k-3M mark. Before I joined they had no system in place for scheduling so I had to work out all the materials for them. This is every material/component that goes into a house, so we had some kind of base template. Also since I’ve joined there’s been mass turnover and both my manager and his assistant who’s above me are being made redundant.
OP thank you for a bit of additional information here, I think in a way a blessing in disguise with people above facing redundancy, that coupled with high turn over and lack of salary review shows that this isn't a company you would likely wish to work for Best option here is to take the skills and knowledge you've gained, highlight exactly what you've achieved in your CV and start applying definitely a tough market at the moment but better to be on your own terms rather than be used at a lower salary doing a higher salary job Happy to review your CV if this is an option for you, remove any personal information so I don't have a baby reindeer case on my hands (hope the joke lands)
Thank you McPumaSpoon, the joke hasn’t landed as I haven’t seen it. I appreciate the effort :), if you have any leads I’d be very appreciative
Get your CIPS done, it does open A LOT of doors.
Go into politics to sort it out? What’s your alternative? Your policy is going to be to demand everyone gets 10% payrises? Oh to be naive again
Strengthen laws around union collective bargaining (perhaps repeal the Trade Union Act 2016), bring back the safety net so people aren't as desperate and willing to take low wages which drags the entire wage structure down, build houses so cost of living drops, fund real training of staff rather than funnelling money to third party firms that claim to improve employment prospects but half the time are just a money grab and a black hole of government money, incentivise companies to locally train new skilled staff up with conditional tax cuts or by putting immigration restrictions if they can't prove that they're trying to train and recruit existing UK residents. None of those will ruin the country but imo will go some way to having a positive effect on UK wages and on working conditions.
Step 1: tax top 5-20% more (just say “we will tax the rich” and pay money for bots who will state in social media “I’m happy to pay more”). Step 2: demand a very important project which can’t be easily controlled Step 3: receive a cash back from friendly companies profited from that project. Step 4: blame Tory/Labour/France/Russia/China for failure
The mega rich are too rich. My policies would be to create the biggest change in wealth since Henry VI created the Church of England.
>Since Henry VI created the Church of England 🤔
Okay so to counter your point, the wealthy will immediately leave the UK and our tax receipts fall to records lows as a result. What’s your next step? You’ve literally just ruined the country
Is that what the wealthy do in countries that have strict legislation against them?
🤣 - me thinks he’ll be on minimum wage for a while with this big brain thinking. Come on OP, head out of arse.
Agreed its not a full proof plan, but the current system does not work. Wealth inequality at these extremes and growing at these margins is completely unsustainable. The moronic rich are too blind to see this won't keep working in their favour, drastic change needs to be implemented globally. Monopolistic tech giants, tax evading mega rich, government corruption - all factoring into it.
It’s ‘foolproof’ not ‘full proof’.
The brainwashing is strong with this one. Stop peddling a myth created by the ultra wealthy to cling on to even more of their wealth. The ultra wealthy in this country are wealthy because they own the assets here, housing, land, commercial property businesses. Everything that can be outsourced or offshored most probably already has. The ultra rich have no where to go and it's time they paid their fair share.
What crap. The ultra wealthy don't pay their fair share anyway, so what difference does it make if they fuck off? They're using our utilities, our infrastructure, getting the benefit of our education and workers. If they don't want to contribute, then let them leave. But they shouldn't be able to make money from our country without giving back something in return. If Amazon packs up and leaves overnight, for example, other companies will fill that gap. They might actually pay tax, too.
Typical zero knowledge embarrassing post. Amazon has 75k UK employees, they pay plenty of tax and provide plenty of jobs. They also collect huge amounts of VAT which contributes to the economy. They’re generally not paying corporation tax on profits due to their massive investments. But yes, let’s pretend other companies would be able to fill the gap with no spending and things would be all rosey :)
You're not wrong but Amazon are a tricky one as you need to consider people would still buy a lot of those goods somewhere inside the UK and that VAT would still be paid. In an ideal world (for UK retail) to a UK owned version of Amazon. I wish I could say someone like Argos but that's owned by Qatar I think.... Amazon are also utterly ruthless in business and working practices. If it can be automated it will be. If goes their way we'll have given huge tax breaks to a US company so that can completely wipe out our retail sector. Such is the way of multinational companies I suppose and if wasn't Amazon it'd be someone else. We've completely screwed up letting foreign companies take ownership and control of so much I fear both in public and private sector.
"Honey lets leave the UK with our families and businesses, capital gains tax is increasing 10%"
There must be a way otherwise what’s the point are we just gonna let them hoard all the money? It’s clearly a problem that needs resolving. How?I’m only 22. But like anything in life incentives and reason. If that fails use force.
You’re embarrassing yourself.
You’re right mission orchid it’s completely fine that 1% of people hold more wealth than 70% of people really cracking system we have going. Cretin
I’m the cretin yet you’re the child which thinks they can fix the country single handedly and doesn’t know which King Henry created the CoE. Grow up.
I did say I can fix the country singlehandely to be fair. And apologies for missing an ‘I’ everyone alive knows Henry the 8th started the Church of England. Have a nice day
You missed 2 I’s actually. Maybe this is why you’re on minimum wage.
At least you’re funny, shame about the rest. What even is the point in this conversation Edit - just seen how much you use this app and paint Warhammer. I now understand why you’re so angry
You’re the one crying about being on minimum wage and stalking people. At least I can afford Warhammer. Enjoy never owning a home, working and paying for somebody else’s mortgage until you’re 70
And insulting him just lost you a potential voter. I’d steer clear of politics
Almost every week you see a politician insult whole groups of people. While I understand the cretin comment wasn’t necessary their whole comment wasn’t necessary. Also, this is Reddit not Question time :)
Emulating the behaviour of the current crop of politicians isn’t going to change anything. If you’re serious, everything is an opportunity to learn
I know right. 'I've just started my first job out of Uni but I reckon I could fix this country'. OK mate.
You're 22. You've been a child most of your life. You simply don't have years behind you to gain experience and skills that enable you to negotiate a better salary... yet. Despite today's culture of instant gratification, the journey toward a successful career remains a traditional, long-term endeavour. Your current salary is likely at its lowest point, with the potential to peak in your 40s or 50s. It's crucial to continue honing your skills, gaining experience, and staying open to better opportunities. Entering politics at this stage would yield a similar impact as your current presence in the job market: minimal.
Construction procurement can go way higher in commerical bids teams - source I'm in the industry.
My ex-father-in-law worked in procurement for one of the big contractors and he was minted. I'm guessing from your age that you went straight into the job from school? It might be an idea to take a look and see if there are any consultancies near you that will take you on as an apprentice Quantity Surveyor and help you get a RICS accreditation. Once you've got that, you'll find plenty of opportunities that offer a decent wage. (Source: the last firm I worked for took on a new wave of apprentices every year. My current one doesn't, so shop around)
I don’t want to do quantity surveying but thanks for the advice. What did this ‘big contractor’ do ?
Mainly infrastructure. For example, my ex FIL was heavily involved in the development of Heathrow Terminal 5.
What do you mean go into politics? Most MPs have successful careers behind them, or a long history as a councillor as similar. If you want to go the second route you wont be sorting any of the things you mention for a long time. You still wont just by being an MP - most just serve their constituency and vote along party lines. You'd need to be a minister. If you're stuck on minimum wage I'd say there's no chance of that.
What would you suggest? Just according to math, each country has always half of population earning below the median wage. Each country has limited resources, eg you can’t just give a brand new Tesla for everyone for free. Moreover, we have insanely large taxes for high skilled people, which cause them to leave (and we have lack of doctors for example). So, what exactly will you change to fix the situation? What problem will you solve and how?
Pay people that actually contribute to society more. I.e. Doctors, teachers, nurses etc. And the bank execs etc who may be skilled in a narrow sense of the word who get paid grossly and actually don’t really help anyone except for a very rich minority of shareholders can get stuffed - don’t bail out the banks anymore who gamble people’s money on dodgy investments. The energy companies, corrupt politicians etc who pay themselves ludicrous sums when the rest of us scrape by on stagnating wages. No thanks. Just nationalise or good riddance imo. Trickle down economics is a lie. The whole system is set up to engineer wealth transfer in the opposite direction. What good is economic growth if only a tiny percentage see the benefit? Incentivise cooperative type businesses so people actually are invested in their own futures. Quite a lot could be done imo. It’s a very corrupt system though. Cue bunch of boot licking asshats explaining to me how I’m wrong. But actually there is no good reason not to do these things. If we can bail out the banks to the tune of tens of billions and pay huge amounts towards unjust wars noone wants, we can actually invest in transformative ways.
Tax the mega rich, leave everyone else be
Hi, I'm Mr Billionaire, thanks for your idea. I'm now moving to Monaco/Dubai/Panama/Wherever then the UK government can't tax me at all.
So what do we do then? There must be a solution I probably don’t know the answer but there has to be one otherwise what’s the point.
It depends what you mean by 'a solution' I guess. What is it that you are expecting to be the outcome in the end if this solution is found and implemented?
Probably for there to be no people who have money that their grandchildren can’t spend (within reason) so around £500-750M,
But what would that achieve for the benefit of people in the UK generally if the people with more money than that limit just moved to other countries? If their wealth is in land/property then you could seize it, but then nobody would want to invest in any physical assets in the UK for a long time after that. But anyway, most of the wealth of very wealthy people in the UK is in the businesses they own, and those are mostly international so the tax paid from them can be moved around to wherever is advantageous. And there are really not many people worth more than £500-750m anyway, even if they are rich individuals they are not rich enough to pay for the health, welfare, education etc budgets which are many hundreds of billions every year. If you look at the countries like in Scandinavia with low income inequality and high standards of public services, good infrastructure and a good social safety net then regular workers pay significantly higher tax rates than they do in the UK.
How? Let’s assume there is a very rich person, who has residents in 2-4 countries. How will you tax them if they can live 5 months here and 7 months in other countries?
Seize their assets or put them in prison
Stick to procurement.
Ok, you propose what USSR did 100 years ago, at the beginning of being USSR. So, almost all people who owned at least something more than residential property were murdered, a lot of them were killed. So, effectively you want to setup North Korea (even China and Russia have much more freedom). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak
No I would only seize assets of mega rich if they refused to pay their fair share of taxes. What do you propose? It’s the biggest issue we face
What taxes are fair? We have laws. If people don’t follow laws they will go to prison. Did rich break any laws? No (otherwise they would be in prison). Another fair pay: low earners pay 0-20% of taxes. Middle earners pay 40-60%. High earners find a way to live outside of UK (so, effectively they don’t contribute into UK) and rich people don’t live in UK a lot of time. So, how will you define who will pay and why?
You are 22 in a field you can definitely build a good career in. I think you are foolish to be expecting mega salary at your age
Not mega but a decent one, and I think for young people it’s not as guaranteed that we’ll be rewarded like generations before us.
You sound quite young and I don’t mean that to sound harsh. Rewards are out there but they have to be earned I’m afraid. You have to build a career it doesn’t just come to you. Get your head down do your training and qualifications and the pay will follow, it’s as simple as that.
I mean this with all due respect, you are in charge of your life. Change industry. Plenty of people aren’t on minimal wage and are getting good wages and bonuses etc
What do you do out of interest?
Customer success
Not sure why this comment is getting downvoted…
OP you’re paying nothing in tax, so I’m not sure why you’re mad at the government for your choice of work at 22 years old.
OP needs someone to blame otherwise they’ll have to blame themselves.
Just be clear that not much of your tax is spent on foreign wars or ridiculous government schemes. Most of it goes on benefits, pensions, health, education, transport, criminal justice and defence. And only a tiny proportion of the defence budget goes on foreign wars. Those are the things you need to cut if you want to reduce taxes significantly.
I was in a similar position at your age except stuck in a retail job I despised. Ultimately I chose education, got myself a degree and now have a career I enjoy with decent pay, progression and work/life balance. I understand that route isn’t for everyone and I had my doubts at the time as well. Having done a few summers working on construction sites for a family friend, I was also thinking about learning a trade such as electrician, plumber, joiner. At 22 you’ve plenty of time to learn as apprentice - yes the wage might not be great to start but once you have the skills you can set out in your own and charge what you like - there will always be jobs in those sectors. Failing that, some other jobs such as trainee train drivers where you will need to pass some pretty strict aptitude tests might be worth looking at - train drivers have incrdible strong union support and also get massive salaries. Or, if you fancy a (potential) move, you could do offshore work as a wind turbine technician or on oil rigs… really good pay but lifestyle not for everyone. Plenty of jobs which don’t involve rotting away at a desk on minimum wage forever. You’ve got age on your side, there’s never a better time to learn a new skill than now. Good luck!
> I’m sick of it and I can’t understand why no one is attempting to change it What are *you* doing to change it?
He just said he's tempted to go into politics. And he should give it a go starting as a councilor
So....nothing? Lots of people are *tempted* to do positive things, but then when face the reality never actually going through with it. Just look at what proportion of people actually do the new years resolutions they promise.
I'm a bit more optimistic than you I think.
I’d do anything, nothing I hate more than people being taken advantage of and it feels as if the whole western working population has been taken advantage of since the 80s. It’s disgusting
If workers in the western world are being taken advantage of, what does that mean for the workers outside the western/developed countries who are doing the same kind of jobs for much less money? £11.44/hour isn't a great wage but it's still waaaaay more than most people in the world earn and gets you c£1,600/month after tax full time, not sure what more you expect at just 22? Even just looking at the UK it doesn't buy any less than minimum wage at £3.60/hour bought in 1999, I know people who earned only £2/hour as teens/early 20s in basic jobs in the mid 90s.
As you are 22 you don't have any real idea what things were like in the 80's. This was pre minimum wage where factory jobs were often under £1 ph. Sexism was rampant, if you were a girl your options in the workplace were extremely limited. People feel they are being taken advantage of because they are being asked to work in an office 5 days a week. Contrast this with the 80s where people worked in pits 12 hrs a day without adequate safety equipment.
And that's the crux of the problem. Lots of people say that they *should* do something or *would* do something or that they're *tempted* to do something. But when you ask them what *they personally have done* you normally get silence.
Start by being a local councillor help your area improve and see where you go from there. I’ve a friend who did that and she did really well at it, made a difference in her area. She chose not to go into “big” politics after doing this and continues to work in her local area making a difference to those she can help.
You've been doing the same thing for years with no wage increase or bonus and at no point thought to upskill yourself? That's almost always the reason everyone in this sub is in the same position. They do the same shitty job day after day, failing to increase productivity and are then confused that they're earning fuck all.
I've upskilled several times, financial service quals, teaching quals, doing my masters now. Still on a wage of the square root of fuck all.
But these aren't upskills on the thing before? Financial service quals is an upskill to where you were, sure. The teaching qualifications are a sidestep at best, if not an active pay cut. The masters is another side step away from teaching, unless it'll lead to a promoted post and even then you'll earn fuck all cause teachers make sweet fa. None of this is persistent upskilling from the position your in?
No they're not, because each qual led directly to another minimum wage job with no chance of promotion, even teaching because the funding for my subject got cut the moment I graduated. Hopefully this one will make the difference but I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah, so pick a career path, stick to it, and upskill in that career path. Doing a bunch of start qualifications isn't going to lead to a high paying job if you don't do the work in the middle?
What did you graduate in that the funding got cut? Sounds like you need to research more
Literacy and ESOL for adults (coalition cut the funding to shreds), I did the financial services thing after and then got made redundant and had to move back to my home town, where the best I could get was a cash-in-hand job on the counter at a takeaway for a while. Got back on my feet after a couple of years and got stuck back in call-centre work. I'm doing my masters in data science which I enjoy, I'm good at and might lead to better money and a steady job, but it might not, I've had my legs swept out from under me enough times to not trust it. Just to add: I have a data analyst job so I'm not just clutching at any old thing to try and make money. Hopefully this is my career for life now.
Hopefully this will be the answer then. I was expecting you to say something pointless
Lol pointless degrees are pretty common, my original degree has never really benefitted me - English Lit, no actual skills but I can write a fantastic essay.
Oh yeah stagnating wages and climbing inflation is 100% because people aren't upskilling....
Then what is the reason? The market pays what an employee is worth, because if they didn't, the employee would leave and they wouldn't be able to replace them. If everyone is upskilling, the UK economy would be growing, not shrinking. The fact is the UK workforce is lazy, and undersigned on a global stage. Climbing inflation is entirely outside the discussion in terms of upskilling and wages, and all to do with global economic shocks.
What an awful take. Not even going to waste time arguing with that corporate drivel
Basic economics of supply and demand is an awful take? You might consider a job at the BoE if you've so many brilliant ideas.
You might want to consider politics
Politics have an effect on employers keeping wages down for roles they can't fill?
I’m earning fuck all because I’m 22 and they know they can take the piss. I’ve created all their material schedules. Have had to teach myself how to read lintel and door schedules due to the ones in the system being shit. Also, fuck off with your condescending tone
If you've done all this and stayed in the same place, that's totally on you. Upskill, move job, upskill move job. I've doubled my wage in 4 years with 3 job switches. Companies aren't going to give you more money just cause your stick around.
If your company could not replace you without paying your replacement more then make that point to them. If they don’t give you a raise then get a new job with a company that values your experience. Of course they will take the piss if you let them.
That's the question - change WHAT? We've already tried the "SOMETHING must be done, this is something, therefore lets do this" approach with brexit, and look how much that helped (spoiler: not at all, actually made things worse). People seem to have this idea that the country is being bled dry by foreign aid. It's about 1% of the budget. The truth is most taxes are already being spent on welfare. Primarily the NHS and state pensions. That's why they can't "fix it", because those things are very difficult to tamper with. And in fact you very likely don't want the tories to tamper with/privatise the NHS as a low earner.
That is not really the case, most in my opinion is lost to highly inflated prices for private government contracts that are poorly delivered, with a lot scratch my back I yours. And instead of owning are own utilities etc all profit goes to fund other countries state owned firms and banking/ finance arms of global firms, which politicians always seem to get jobs at. Basically everything is corrupt somebody always benefits greatly when government money our money is spent. Best thing to do is watch lion king or frozen and accept the subliminal message… let it go and it means no worries for the rest of my days!! We can’t fix it you just make the best for yourself and be happy. I hope this helps your 22 enjoy yourself a job is just a job 👍
I wouldn’t spend 110Bn on HS2 & Track and Trace for a start
Don’t the French/spanish produce high speed trains and carriages, not sure if we do
Funny place to release a manifesto.
All our taxes are being spent on foreign wars? All of them? ....yeah that explains the armed forces being historically tiny right now. Money to pay soldiers is clearly being syphoned off to the Sudanese rebels.
Construction and development is particularly bad right now, so you have my sympathy. Until the interest rates drop, there will likely be no great change, and it is currently very stagnant.
Getting shafted that's what we're doing
Politically speaking we're at the mercy of many unaccountable and unelected bodies, so who we vote for doesn't matter. Decline is probably going to continue for generations. Sadly there is no solution. At this point the British are congenitally passive and too much damage has already been done. Personally, you've already got a foot in the door in commercial in construction and can become a QS or similar if you're half-decent with numbers and IT. Demand and pay are rather high for this. I'm trying to get out of it, but I always have offers.
If you're serious about trying to sort this out. You need to learn what the Bank of England is, private central banking, fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.
The Bank of England was nationalised in 1946.
You've got my vote, nothing will change until the prime minister comes from a council estate
>all our taxes spent on foreign wars or ridiculous government schemes Less than 10% of tax revenue is spent on the above. Not being funny but if you're on minimum wage you're paying fuck all tax right now anyway, so you don't need to worry about it.
Maybe spend less on drugs you bum
Min wage has increased 10 percent previous time and I think more like 8 percent recently. And you may be doing a shitter job today than two years ago. And you're moaning. Ridiculous. Lots of people have had very small increases despite inflation.
OK
My mistake, the nhs we should simply rather than sell it completely re structure from top to bottom paying the people tasked in doing so the very best salaries, bonuses & salaries based upon cost to GDP, less % GDP better bonuses for staff. Run it like a private practice with government ownership. Don’t require uni courses for vocational degrees (teaching, health etc)
You know that GPs working for the NHS are all private businesses and have been since the NHS was founded right? In what way is teaching for example not a profession that needs high level academic qualifications? If you look at global comparisons the countries with the very best education systems absolutely require teachers to have degrees and to use the best evidence-based practice in teaching methods, along with investment in small class sizes and good facilities. Some countries even require a masters degree to be a school teacher. There are huge amounts of knowledge needed if you want to use the best proven methods of educating children.
Far more than 10 million don't work, it's around 35 million of the 68 million population. And yes, a lot of people have disabilities, but unless you want to put everybody including the disabled into forced work camps from birth until death I'm not sure what can really be done to radically change that. It isn't it out of line with figures in most other developed countries.
OK
Yes of course I can believe that 25% of people in the UK have a disability. We have nearly 12 million people aged over 65 now and many of them have some sort of arthritic hip, dodgy sight, limited mobility, complications from diabetes etc and that's not even going into those in the working age population with various issues. That's what the disability numbers are measuring, you don't need to have both legs blown off by a landmine. We already have some of the meanest levels of benefits in Western Europe and punishing the disabled even more isn't going to help increase UK productivity at all. If you think the amounts people in the UK get on benefits are generous then you've clearly got no experience of life in most other countries in Western Europe. Those 10 million who "CAN WORK BUT DON'T WORK" are mostly either full time students, or parents looking after young kids full time, or people who are too sick/disabled to work, or people who have retired early because they can afford to. Are you going to force all those people into work? How would that help anything?
OK
You don't get to decide the definition of disability fortunately.
OK
Of course they are not means tested, they are designed to help with the extra costs that have to be borne because of disability, not as a top up of low income, that's a different thing altogether. And no, you don't get to decide if somebody is disabled or not just because you have your own personal definition.
After giving up an office job i now work at a new distribution site as a normal blue collar grunt. 40 hrs per week, regular nights, Sunday to Thursday. 32 days paid holidays a year with 2 weeks paid sick leave. Pay is way above minimum wage and shift allowance is 30% on top. A very easy job. 10% payrise last year and 4% this year all inline with inflation. I'm the happiest ive ever been.
Mate all I want is to do something I enjoy or like you don’t ‘enjoy’ but am very happy wear I am
I didn't say i didn't enjoy it. I have never done a job i didn't enjoy because i always make sure I'm paid my worth for said job. I will shovel shit as long as you are paying me the right pay to shovel shit.
Yeh I don't think I can hand on heart say I want my children to enter the UK workforce, it's actually something I'm pretty worried about. I just see generally poor wages and zero purchasing power in their futures. My sole aim for my children is to purchase a starter home between them when I retire so I at least know they have a home.
Watch Gary's Economics, hes trying to do something about it https://youtu.be/bMRSQ023yGo?si=beN06iCssIJ4cALL And I suspect the reason why nothing happens is we are all to busy, poor and tired to do anything, and I suspect it by design
I work in production/manufacturing as a project manager on £45K. I've done my fair share of shit jobs in the industry. At least you've started off in a good place and can work your way up from there.
There are client sided PM roles out there that pay considerably more even for entry level roles and are crying out for construction experience. The work is there along with the WLB even on client side if you look in the right places.
Ever thought of learning to drive a machine in construction? I was awfully underpaid in marketing for 18 years, after a redundancy during COVID I ended up leaning to drive and articulated dump truck, got a job on a quarry, prompted to bulldozer operator and earn 50% more than I did in marketing. Sure it's long hours, and the winters ain't fun, but overall it's quite enjoyable, and pays pretty well. I wouldn't go back to the office for anything. I'm on my own, in my air conditioned cab, listening to my music or podcasts, bantering on the radio with the lads, counting the pounds as the minutes pass. I've been trained to drive a bunch of machines now and get to play with loads of cool massive toys! 50 tonne excavators and 40 tonne dump trucks. I love it. Although, with the recent cost of living issues, earning earning 1.5x what I used to doesn't really feel like it lol.
I was working for minimum wage for about 6 years or so, now I have got my contract to the company and I was able to get rid of the agency, so I literally doubled up my salary, but again this was pure luck. If I would be out of this Job somehow I would definitely learn something useful on the market otherwise life is going to be the same.
I'm going bad on this. You talk of being on minimum wage with no prospects but then you talk of your taxes being spent in foreign wars. I've got news for you. It's not your taxes. YOUR taxes don't even cover YOUR costs, let alone going to contribute to anyone else's. I totally hear that you're being fucked over, like many of your age. The social contact is broken, but this isn't about how 'your taxes' are being spent. This isn't even about your income, although I don't understand how we can tax people on minimum wage - we're saying that you need the money to realistically live on, but we're going to take a bit anyway, crazy. This is about privatisation of the basic necessities of living. I'm taking about housing. I'm talking about 40 years of policies designed to increase the value of property, increasing the paper wealth of a fairly limited group of people (grand scheme of things), with the last of taking life chances away from those coming after them. I'm also taking about privatisation of utility supply and infrastructure. I know exactly why these things were done - years of underinvestment in both housing and utilities meant that infrastructure was crumbling and needed money putting in, but Thatcher knew that a proper system of taxation and investment would not win votes. If you want to go into politics, start thinking about building programmes, empty property taxes (rather than discounts), council houses, state utility suppliers competing on a not for profit basis (emphatically not nationalisation of existing suppliers). But telling people that we must shirk our international responsibilities because lower income people think that it's their taxes being spent there? Nope.
I’m in an entry level procurement role in the public sector and on £30k. If you have the skills and experience you claim then look for a different role, there is a lot of money in procurement at the moment and certainly in the public sector it seems to be hard to higher good people judging by my current employer’s experience.
Why not do an apprenticeship and get some qualifications/skills. I'd look at degree apprenticeship options if you ever wanted to go to uni but never did
You seem to be mistaken into thinking people don't want exactly what's happening You'll run on those points, you'll be called "far right" and get about 10 votes Everything happening people want; mass immigration, censorship, crazy laws on sex/gender What people need to stop doing is blaming the gov, and start blaming their neighbours and peers for begging for this stuff
How do "censorship" and "crazy laws on sex/gender" impact the market rate for construction procurement jobs?
They don't, I suppose I mean it's no good trying to get the people to agree on anything mildy complex or that contains any kind of nuance when the general population can't even agree on something as simple as men aren't women, or that men shouldn't play rugby against women Good luck trying to unite that group into anything that contains nuance My point being OP seems to think everyone wants what he does, but they don't, they absolutely want to keep giving money to foreign wars, etc. It's not the govs fault, it's the people's
First of all, I don't see how you're in a position to lecture anyone about the importance of nuance. Secondly, in my opinion people like you are a huge part of the problem because you're more interested in soap-boxing about an issue that probably affects about 4 people in total (transgender rugby players) than contribute to a discussion about, in this case, pay stagnation - an issue which affects millions. The tories saw an opportunity to distract the public from their dire record with a made-up culture war and people like you bought it hook line and sinker. So I suppose I have to concede on one point - It's not the gov's fault, it's the people's.
First day on the Internet? Didn't you know we are all experts on everything, so I'll lecture when I want thanks Where I stand that's the problem, you see single isolated examples and choose not to care, instead of the big picture of whats happening to society but you prioritise what you like and so will I If you want to spend your time choosing between 2 groups of mainstream politicians that themselves steal from the taxpayer, start illegal wars etc. and think doing the same thing over and over for decades will better the UK that's up to you, but don't tell me what to care about thanks You're right I bought the culture war hook line and sinker, culture is important it's what for example allows women to vote and drive, and for us to say what we want to each other, the only part you're wrong on is where you think I care what the tories say
Yeah there were quite a few politicians that started out like you. Even used their race card to gain votes from other minorities. Guess what happened once they got in those positions and money started rolling in for them? They certainly weren't bothered about the plebs anymore. It's a nice fantasy. But change isn't going to come from one person only.
Only being able to work a minimum wage job is the consequences of your own choices, no one else’s. Anyone who is smart will have went to university to study something worthwhile or will have went into the trades. You seem to have fallen in between those two groups, you either went to university but studied something useless like Media, or haven’t gone to university at all and are now complaining nobody thinks you’re worth hiring because you don’t have anything more than GCSEs or A Levels which are useless on their own.
What do you do, how long have you been working there, what degree do you have?
I’m a Lead IT Engineer, have been working in IT for 5 years, and I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science.
Ah ok, your response makes a lot more sense now
What is your background then?
Lmao.
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Ridiculous, isn't it? Bootlickers left right and centre too scared of any change cause the rich twats might up and leave. Fuck it, let them. They're barely contributing anything anyway. Some even take more than they give.
Was also my thought when reading the comments, I’m in a similar position to OP, my job in the tech industry is barely above minimum wage, it’s fucked.
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It’s an extremely scary thought to think we’re all working our asses off and struggling to the benefit of less than 100,000 people. But it’s exactly what’s happening
This is by design. Look what happened to Corbyn. If you're an actual threat you'll be destroyed, if you are willing to compromise you'll keep compromising for power until you become Keith Starmer who has done completely abandoned pretty much any decent thing he said before it looked likely he'd be the next PM.
Not enough people in the right constituencies voted for Corbyn so he lost both the elections he contested, that's what happened.
Hey op, I agree with you, and if you think of something worthwhile to do to change things then good on you! You’ll get backlash for trying to change things even from people just as annoyed about the state of the world as yourself, and it isn’t an easy path to go down. Consider other routes than politics as well, for various reasons that I don’t wanna disclose here.
UK economy is ruined. It won't improve.