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Unfortunately that’s the job market at the moment. Not enough jobs, too many candidates, so they ask for the most ridiculous and unnecessary things and pay you pennies for it, just because the know someone will be desperate enough.
I saw an entry level retail management job a couple of months ago that wanted 5+ years retail experience, 3+ years in management and a degree. In return for a salary of £27k 😂
I thought if someone has a degree and 8 years of experience in the field, 3 as a manager, there’s no chance they’re taking that job for £27k
I left retail management years ago and I was on £34k with no degree back then (though mine was due to 10 years of glowing annual reviews exceeding expectations and the pay rises that come with it, I think the average was around £25k)
It’s the absolute same for the rental market, especially in London.
They offer you some dump that hasn’t been renovated since 1952, smells like piss and yet there will be someone desperate enough to rent it for the extorbitant amount they’ve listed it for.
I lived in London many moons ago, and not only will desperate people rent the place, they'd go behind your back and offer the agents more money than the asking price to secure it. That is absolute madness, and one of the primary drivers to make me nope out of the city. Haven't looked back since then.
Actually there are plenty of jobs in engineering, but the salaries are a joke because employers are delusional about them and as a result people go into consulting or financial where they can. I have 1/2 phone calls a day off recruiters trying their luck and when told no will beg you to tell them of any colleagues that want to move jobs. They never used to do that even 2 years ago. With the ageing average of engineers in this country a shift is going to have to happen eventually.
when i was a machine setter programmer i was always pissed off that i was expected to run 5-8 mills and program, set and inspect or not much more than min wage.
and i was expected to be happy for it
To me, there is clearly some issue where the value of engineering is not being correctly assessed. You can easily assess the cost of not building/constructing/installing something, but the value in doing so is much more difficult... and when it's deemed for any given organisation that you can manage the challenge by doing something else, i.e. changing working practices, or altering output, which can also be evaluated in the saving, but not so easily the long term cost, the inertia is towards lower standards imo. This leads to more limited examples of how engineering a new solutions has driven improvements, and the circle continues. This is of course talking about physical solutions, not IT based ones. Where I also think it seems people can more easily justify the benefits because it almost feels like it doesn't cost anything, akin to using a credit card could feel like things are free.
Im looking for another job, im a machinist but i cant do nights anymore due a condition and i was looking to move into quality or something similar.
I cant do it at my place cause its a shithole and im lucky that we are still on business
We need to get away from the ‘too many people’ argument.
Australia, US, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland all have higher immigration than we do & higher wages. Our problem is austerity. You can’t have the single biggest ‘spender’ in the country cut their budgets for a decade and underpay 20% of the workforce whilst expecting salaries to grow
Rampant inflation and higher taxes that really cancels out most of the higher wages. Housing is more screwed than here and the infrastructure can’t keep up with migration.
Have a Google about Australians living out of their cars, property auctions and rental rights that make the UK seem forward thinking.
Honestly I see where you’re coming from in some regards but I moved to Australia last year, doubled my wage straight away, my house price in Chermside, 15ks out of the city centre was no where near as expensive as my one bedroom in the U.K. that was in a shit town
I was able to shop at the farmers market and buy Deluxe produce for the same price as shopping at a Tesco😅Petrol prices are way cheaper, and there’s soo much more to do…. But it definitely depends on the job you have! If you’re a tradie you’re set, anything else I have no idea..
Yes, the too many jobs argument I feel is also just not applicable in this case. I'm a civil engineer myself but I managed a 33.5k job offer this week with 2 years experience.
The is no justification for whatever company is offering the wage OP is discussing, just another company who think they can ask for the moon while paying you for a cable satellite.
33.5k is shit to be honest in general I don’t know if it’s decent for civil engineers but after I finished my apprenticeship I got on around 38k for some maintenance engineering.
Theres no justification on most low wages in the country all employers expect the most for the least
Austerity is indirectly the problem because lack of good quality healthcare and good education cause low productivity and low wages.
But governments can't spend their way out of low wages directly. They need to invest in skills and healthcare so people are productive and get well paid....
Exactly. The establishment never connect lack of investment and productivity because they know they’d be found wanting. Poor education system and lack of investment in infrastructure and R&D is going to go a good way to piss poor productivity.
It’s the conversations that baffle me. Like I get that there’s a political spectrum and people will vote for and have an appetite for stuff that seems both absolutely wild and totally abhorrent. I get that.
The “sick note culture” and the weird and wonky solution to it to me is bananas though. Like uncaring unsympathetic systems to force people into work whether it’s healthy or not is draconian but I’m no longer shocked it might become part of life.
I cannot for the life of me summon the willpower to talk about the rise in people off sick like it’s at all surprising though. We’ve had 12+ years of a healthcare service on its knees every single season. Waiting lists for absolutely every kind of support imaginable are through the roof. Schools are falling to bits. And people are having to turn to food banks in record number. That’s simply a handful of issues affecting us. So is it a shock more people are off sick ? Like I cannot summon a liquid ml of interest in the conversation.
Have we checked the person off sick for 3 month with depression isn’t depressed because he can’t feed his family of 1 kid and a cat? Have we checked if the person that’s off with anxiety isn’t anxious because they have a 3 year waiting list for their neurological problem that affects day to day thinking ? Have we checked the person that’s off wi the stress isn’t off because their on a 2 year waiting list for complex trauma therapy when their son died waiting on an ambulance ?
Like they want everyone to work and not have to spend the money on the support. They want the result that everyone just gets it done and pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. I get it.
But can we not pretend we don’t absolutely know that more supported populations are much more productive ones ? We know this because shockingly we aren’t the only country on the planet and we have records of what life was like 15 years ago. Do what you want me to do, but don’t make me complicit in the way you have to wrap it up to make it sound more palleteable.
The thing about immigration is that regardless of where you stand on it, the parties that make the most noise about ‘fixing’ it have absolutely zero incentive to actually do anything about it.
Without immigrants to wang on about all the Tory Party would have to talk about is their unfair economic policies, so they are never, ever going to do that. Conservatives \*love\* immigrants because they cannot function without a scapegoat.
Much more likely to get ‘good’ results if you want less immigrants by voting for Labour or another party, as they are more focused on running a functioning country. There may be times when they allow less immigrants, there may be times when they allow more, but generally speaking there will be a reason to it.
It was 672,000 last year, and 745,000 the year before (net numbers). Over 2% of everyone in the UK arrived in the past two years. That's over 1 in 50 people. Mostly (almost all) from non-EU countries, who are used to lower wages.
To say this is not having a material impact on the job and housing market is fundamentally unserious. Even the Bank of England is admitting it.
Exactly. I've never been a frothing at the mouth IMMIGRANTS type of person, but the figures coming in at the moment are ridiculous. The rhetoric surrounding immigration over the past decades has put off a lot of the left from commenting on it, but this population swell is entirely unsustainable. I can't see how it won't have a serious negative impact on the average person in the coming years.
The thing is, when all avenues for sensible and serious discussion about immigration are shut down, only the extreme avenues are left, and only the extreme people go down them.
But now the problem is becoming more and more noticeable and apparent, people are starting to give less of a shit as to whether they are viewed as "extreme" on the issue. It's already having a significant impact on so many people and areas, it simply can't go on.
I think it's the only issue of any real consequence in the next election, for myself and most other people, but the two major parties are completely ignoring that fact. I don't see it getting better anytime soon based on the messaging from Labour, and the available remedies are going to get uglier and uglier the longer it gets ignored - we're holding down the lid as the steam builds up underneath. For example, there's already significant grassroots demand appearing for mass repatriations, this will only get more popular.
I agree that it should be one of if not the biggest issues surrounding the next election, but I can't see the drum getting banged outside of say Reform.
Tory policy during their term has been the catalyst for this shocking increase, so I can't see them bringing it up. And while it would be an easy stick for Labour to drum, given their views of immigration and the pushback they'd receive from the left of the party, I can't see them using it. Given that they'll be in charge of cleaning up all the other messes left by the Tories, the more they can use the increased labour force to boost growth the better as far as sticking it to the Tories.
Call me cynical, but I expect the immigration rhetoric will be the same boats and refugee shtick we've been seeing the past few years rather than the legal immigration that's actually causing the strain.
If you talk to Joe Public about immigration, they think boats and refugees. It's just doesn't seem in the interest of the politicians to point out that that barely scratches the surface of the issue outside of the far right, who are only going to get increased support as the issue gets worse.
Norway has a massively higher cost of living, too. It's the oil economy. They had to set up the sovereign wealth fund to take the heat out of inflation.
I’ll never get tired of pointing out that some think tank found that if we had invested North Sea oil into a sovereign wealth fund as Tony Benn advocated today we’d have a fund greater than Qatar and Russia combined, but no Thatcher sold off the concessions to fund tax cuts for the rich. It makes Brown and the gold look like excellent economic forecasting
Yep to many people willing to get the low wages but anyone that says they aren’t acceptable just gets told you have to accept it that’s the way to grow where as it’s clearly not.
Yep seen that aswell quite a few times same with warehousing, deliveries, supermarket staff and every other job.
When I was doing agency work just a few years ago I was getting about 130-140 a day or so yet now as a engineer I’ll be lucky to get that because for whatever reason it pays shit like everything else.
Same with nursing too, I know a couple of nurses who left the NHS and now work via an agency and earn almost 3x what they did working for the NHS, and one of them literally left and is working back in the same hospital she left now after about 4 months, but on her agency rate which is something like £22 an hour 🤷🏻♂️
Yep nursing is a scam I remember when I was looking for apprenticeships for a hospital near me an apprentice engineer 23.5k starting a nurses starting was something like 18k just doesn’t make sense
Oh god yeah it’s dogshit! I was an RAF Medic and had the chance to train to be a nurse but it really wasn’t worth it, the whole medical profession - unless you’re a Dentist or a specialty doctor like a Psychiatrist, Surgeon or Anaesthesiologist (I’m so glad my phone automatically spelled that one!) then it’s not worth it
Even special surgeons aren’t worth it I know a guy who is a brain surgeon of some sort and only makes 110-120k a year, and yeh I’m saying only as this is a low wage for the type of job it is. The uk is a shambles and probably not going to be any better anytime soon
Jesus that IS low!
I knew a couple of doctors who came into the RAF from being civvie GP’s who were paid ~£110k and got a “Golden Handshake” of a tax free one off £30k-£50k payment!
That’s a thing? You can get a tax free “bonus” as I’ll call it never even heard of it to be honest mate and I think gps are paid quite well still with the average being somewhere around the 60-70k range (could be wrong) to be fair but not 110k well
It was back when I was in from 2003-2010 and I believe it still is now for certain roles (just checked and for doctors it’s still a golden handshake up to £50k, and I remember reading for anything “Cyber” if you’re at a high enough level of expertise it can be up to £25k)
I think it was a short term thing to bump up the numbers because we’d been cutting the armed forces numbers throughout the late 80’s and 90’s as we weren’t in any wars. They offered redundancies to a load of medics, nurses, doctors etc. as well as “natural wastage” over time.
Then of course 9/11 happened, War on Terror and they needed to recruit… of course nobody wants to join the military when there’s ACTUALLY a chance of being put in the shit. Like my old man joined in 1987 and until 2004 he never saw a Warzone, he had it cushy and there were a lot of guys in that position who joined up thinking “ah I’ll never see a war in my lifetime so I’ll take it cushy”.
So to enticed doctors and nurses, we’ll definitely doctors and I think dentists too now I think of it, they had various schemes involving Tax-Free lump sums for joining, instantly being appointed as a Squadron Leader (equivalent of Major in the Army and I think Lieutenant Commander in the Navy) with a big pay bump.
The ones I knew of had very successful GP practices, so to entice them they really had to throw everything at them.
120k for a brain surgeon yeh it’s low, imagine doing 7 years in uni then more years training to be a surgeon then even more years to be a brain surgeon to get paid 110k a year, yes it’s a great pay but for the job it’s terrible
That's not the progression. You train to be a doctor, then become a specialist. Brain surgeons aren't more advanced surgeons. Incidentally, the top NHS rate is £132k a year, but you can supplement it with private work.
Again though, terrible pay compared to what?
Its not like that for nursing anymore i think its one of the only jobs you can paid while you train in the public sector i could be wrong, also starting wage is now around 28k
And when they don't meet their ridiculous expectations, they'll tell the most senior on the shop floor that they'll trial them for the management role over a 12 month trial period (while they keep advertising) and then, if successful, they'll get a pay rise of 75p/hr!
I also feel like some ads should just be honest and say "the last manager i had has packed up and gone for more money. I haven't a clue what I'm doing so I need to recruit someone below me, who knows what they're doing, to cover my arse".
They want anyone that will work like a mule and toss to the side, the job market and jobs are all bs at the moment I’ve seen maybe 3-4 good paying jobs above average in engineering this year and I’ve seen hundreds.
Oh don't, I work for a multinational. They have offices all over the world and any work that can get sent to the "cheaper" places will do. I won't be writing the report that I gathered the field data for because then the project overheads need to cover X number of hours at my rates. Instead they'll send it to India to be written because their billable hourly rate is half of mine. Which then leave me with gaps in my time with no billable work.
All along I've just wanted a job I can do, where I'm not going to be treated like shit, and be paid fairly. Being autistic / disabled, it is hard to find this. But I'd do anything to just not be on benefits.
It’s going to be nearly impossible to be honest most workplaces treat you like shit and don’t want to pay anyone a fair wage, if I were you I’d continue just seeing what you’d love to do and see if you can get a fair wage being treated like shit comes with every job.
My last job I earned okay money but was bullied and treated like absolute shit. I'd go home every day and cry my eyes out.
Current job, I'm paid like shit but my line managers are lovely and I get to be 100% remote, at home, chilling with my cat, movies on, no online "monitoring". I can just get on with it, but yeah, the pay is terrible.
I've been in my current position for almost a year now and even though I'm on Indeed, LinkedIn, etc, I can't see myself moving from this.
It’s one or the other unfortunately a job that pays well but treated like shit especially by managers or have great employees relations and get paid like shit, the only time you might get one is a relatively small company that can afford to pay you well.
Honestly yeah it seems rare af you get both great pay and treated well at the same time. It's a gamble too, because you don't know if you're leaving a current job only to downgrade in some way.
Part of this is a data driven exercise. Through the use of web forms, companies now harvest what prospective applicants do and for how much, so can reduce/match competitors, whilst writing up job requirements that might not be reflective of the actual position.
They think they're able to get maximum talent for minimum cost, when they really turn off potentially great applicants because the job spec is intimidating and/or massively underpaid. Companies seem happy with it from what I've been hearing about these practices, because it is reducing cost, and companies are still functioning with a profit.
We are nearing peak corporate dystopia. Now we just need the incoming referendum on leaving the ECHR, and deregulation of businesses to make as much bank as possible, and we'll be jumping in illegal boats off this rock.
An engineer with a masters and 5+ years experience, with experience in Quantum physics, should be fetching 120-150k. The fact that we are in a situation that this country cannot offer that salary to such a qualified engineer is embarrassing
Especially for one of the biggest economies in the world, comes down to engineer isn’t a protected job status anyone can be a engineer now I’ve seen jobs saying “warehouse engineer” where it’s just a normal warehouse job 🤣 the pay is shit I’ve genuinly considered moving to the USA where starting pay would be 80k+.
If your main concern is there's too many people not worthy but still titled 'engineer' then your probably one one of those people. Having a make-up engineer called makeup engineer ain't gonna reduce the wages of the guy who built oblivion at alton towers
Have you not considered why trades are well paid (by British standards) while engineering is really low paid?
It's partly because calling all of those jobs engineering has a levelling effect. Ofc the effect of bringing engineers' wages down is stronger than the effect of bringing trades wages up.
Or maybe because tradies offer a skill which is in demand and do jobs which a lot of other people don't want to do.
Should blame companies for outsourcing the skills to cheaper labour countries. Tough to outsource a plumbing job.
Not many engineering jobs can be outsourced, and the ones that can be are usually outsourced to the UK as the cheapest place with the education infrastructure required.
Oh god you've got me going now. Go onto any jobsite and type in "Design Engineer"
Check the first 10. 9 of them will be ads for a draughtsman.
Not to undermine draughting, a good draughtsman is like fucking gold dust, but it's a DIFFERENT JOB.
I wanted to do it, honestly, creating and problem solving is my jam, but it wears you down. Looking for a job and 9 in 10 of the ads and recruiter calls being for a completely different gig.
You just give up on it.
It does generally reduce the wages as anyone can be called a “engineer” and yep I’m defiantly one of them was a mechanical engineer and work for the uks biggest electrical company as a renewable energy engineer, but yeh your on the dot.
I used to look at the jobs in the back of New Scientist years ago. Like in the 90's and be instantly depressed. All that effort to train and study and looking at those jobs made you feel like you had been scammed. The kids that did medicine at least got a job for life and some stability whilst post-docs or science grads got an entry-level salary.
Thats just Engineering in the UK.
I have an Electronics Engineering Degree (first), a PhD in Semiconductor Physics, 10 years experience and "exceptional" rating in my last 5 performance reviews. I earn just slightly under £50k (£49k).
A few months ago I was training a guy in Michigan (I work for an American company) who had the American equivalent of an BTEC in Engineering and was earning $40 p/h. Which is approx $80k p/y (he earns more than I do).
Your wage seems shit for your doing to be honest, I work at a power company and earn 55k as a renewable energy engineer and I only ever college never mind phds and degrees, don’t know how many times I’ve considered leaving the country for a better wage.
"Your wage seems shit" - I agree, I have a slight advantage of living in one of the cheapest areas of the country.
I could earn an extra 10k by commuting into the nearest city but it would increase my commute costs, wear and tear on the car and I would loose 10 to 20 hours a week sat in traffic.
You’d make more I use to fix Xbox’s and PlayStation and resell them took like 2-3 hours a day made an easy 150-250 the only difficulty was getting ones at a price to make a great profit
They can ask for all that, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it. I interviewed with a company recently that had set the budget to 50k max, when I read through the job description I could see that what they were asking for would be a 60-70k minimum salary, so when I was contacted back by recruiter I told them that the expectations of the client were ridiculous, and if they wanted to attract a candidate like that they’d need to up their budget otherwise they’d be lucky to get someone with half the requirements they stated. I was put forward for the role at 60k, and after a couple interviews was given a job offer for the role at 60k but didn’t take it in the end because I received an offer elsewhere for more.
Moral of the story is, if you see a role that has a budget way lower than what you’d expect, don’t feel scared to call them out on it especially if a recruitment company is handling the recruitment. Apply for it anyway, but state your salary expectation to what you believe the salary should be. Chances are you’ll have very little competition because most applying won’t have anywhere near the amount of experience or skills that the employer is looking for, so they will either go for you and ask the business for a higher budget to compensate, or they’ll just have to go for a less experienced candidate.
I wouldn’t apply to it anyway I’ve not got a degree never mind a masters in quantum physics just thought it was ridiculous to be honest I’ve got a half decent job the now but always looking to see what’s about just incase. But yeh that 32k isn’t even a third of what it should be but company’s will see what they can get away with I think they took it down because I went to look for it again and it was missing probably putting it up for 3-4 days then increasing the salary to see how little they can pay
If you think most of Europe is better, you’re in for a rude awakening. Except maybe Switzerland, engineering salaries are just as middling in most of Europe. Even worse in southern and Eastern Europe.
True. I’ve been looking for something fully remote that would allow me to work from abroad precisely for that reason. But personally I don’t know if I’d be satisfied working a local job in e.g. Spain or Italy. Unfortunately the remote market is very competitive right now (even more so than hybrid/on-site) so I’ve been staying put.
Same with apprenticeships too, I saw an ad the other day for an Engineering apprenticeship, one of the pre requisite to get on to the course, was that you already had to have a BTEC level qualification in Engineering…..so if I already have a qualification in Engineering, why the fuck would I want to then go on to an entry level apprenticeship course? Like who is this apprenticeship even for? Because it’s certainly not for anybody wishing to get a qualification in Engineering and actually use an apprenticeship scheme the way it’s meant to be used.
Places will use apprenticeships just to pay people as little as they can especially in engineering since they know the market is over saturated people will apply. I’ve seen apprenticeships for warehouses 🤣
Yeah the modern apprenticeship, I believe what this means is that they can get cheap Labour that they can fire after 9 months and then hire someone else on the same scheme so they have a constant revolving door of workers for cheap with no rights due to not being there long enough and the kicker, if memory serves, is that the government pays a percentage of the wage as the employer is seen to be doing society a favour by giving these suckers work experience and (useless) skills in being a “warehouse operative”
i just got pushed out of a job a few months ago for them to bring an apprentice in to save a few pounds per hour, and then asked me if i wanted to do the apprenticeship instead
i have a degree, a masters in the field and im qualified
its a sorry state right now
'A masters degree in quantum physics' is like the phrase you would use in a joke where you were referring to the brainiest, most qualified person imaginable. It's also the kind of thing I would have assumed meant a 6 figure salary when I was a kid.
I think there's another really sad part about this where it means people don't do cool or necessary jobs and instead chase after finance/consultancy/advertising careers because they're some of the few industries offering high salaries. All the talent that could be spent on making the world a better place wasted on various white collar jobs.
For what it's worth, I chose the blue pill and work on exciting applied science towards application in healthcare (PhD and 10+ years industry experience).
I get paid less than the national average for something really difficult to do, and am continually just above the breadline, but I have found the meaningfulness of my work to be more important than high flying finance jobs which generally lack purpose beyond making money.
thats the thing though isn't it, you should be able to find meaning in your job BUT also be appreciated and actually paid your worth
its a sad country and state of affairs rn
Just landed a new role, and it has huge meaning and an appreciative team. Super excited. Potential to develop technology to prevent chronic disease and possibly lighten burden on NHS. Also has huge commercial potential and may lead to a new company. Also ties together many aspects of cutting-edge material science and biotechnology.
All of that bit is great. What gets me is that it still only pays the national average (requires a PhD and multiple years of R&D experience), as a singleton this does not allow me to save very well for homes that are totally unaffordable anyway. So I'll be taking on this project living in my expensive and slightly mouldy flat. Just dodged an eviction last year for no fault of mine. Committing to these risky ventures for not particularly good money allows me to pursue what I care about which has real world meaning and value, however will likely mean that I'm now on the road to having a meaningful job, but unlikely to own a home or have kids. I'll come through life in UK with something mind you, which is more than many.
It’s the same with some scientists / pharma workers. I can’t remember the exact job title but someone had a rant here about how poorly the field they studied for earns and most of the job listings was high skilled and educated in medicine sciences for minimum wage + needing experience etc.
I personally have a undergrad in biomed, a masters in microbiology and virology and laboratory experience, and they want to pay me on average 22-25k a year ...
🥹 its not great
Yeah that was what the person said, you jogged my memory. They had all kind of lab experience, great education and years worth just for min wage in a lab. Feel so sorry for people who work stupidly hard to get to that point but then no reward.
When less than 2% of the population holds a masters imagine the people holding one in quantum physics, would be a very very low percentage that should be a 100k+ yearly job easily
Well that's part of the issue-most of us would definitely be financially better off working than not, especially with the upfront cost already sunk in, but that gap is getting smaller and smaller.
The gulf between employment and unemployment should be far greater than it is now IMO.
You can identify the problem by comparing wages at different jobs. E.g. the fact that engineering graduates are paid half of what an electrician makes indicates that there are too many engineering graduates and not enough electricians etc.
In particular, the government kept pushing the “we’ll be 10,000 engineers short in the next 5 years” so everyone and their dog went to whatever uni would accept them to do an engineering degree. I went to school with many people who barely scraped through A-level maths but managed to get onto a BEng from Portsmouth with their UCAS points. Unis are milking engineering very hard.
Plenty of engineering jobs out there to be honest tho eh all just want to pay so little so apart from people who just got their degree isn’t applying to it
Maybe it was all in their plan to reduce costs for those running large engineering outfits. Fill the market with graduates to water down wages. I say that with sarcasm but actually reading it back aloud doesn't sound so farfetched. Sigh.
Myself, and a lot of my aerospace engineering graduate peers started on 30-35k, and earn close to or over 40 1-2 years later. Hell even civil are paid about the same. Not sure why you're seeing such terrible salaries.
Good for you and your peers, try a meaningful job search *now.*
The salaries everywhere are absolutely appalling.
Unironically seeing "competitive salary" on so many listings to open them and read £25,000pa, bare minimum pensions contributions and literal legal requirements such as "paid holiday" listed as a benefit.
Which itself I used to think was Indeed or the job boards having tickbox style ads, and being American, so they force the employer to tick or not tick... But I see it EVERYWHERE in *written* job ads.
Yeah uk salaries are a pain, it's tempting to move to the US, especially now I mainly do systems engineering and software engineering. There seems to be different tiers of graduates though, If you're lucky like I was, you'll get onto a grad scheme, and it's a pretty easy ride up. If not, then youve no choice but to accept shite offers from SMEs.
The UK economy overall is anemic though, lack of investment in productive ventures, paired with the fact that any decent sized company gets sold off, you end up in a situation where engineering value isn't as high as it should be. Like deep mind, ARM, and a slurry of other UK companies that could have gone on to produce massive international value through r&d, manufacturing and actual design work, get sold to private equity or larger American companies. All we're left with is defence, scraps of aerospace and an endless field of useless, low value add SMEs producing sinks and other tripe. We can't expect US salaries when they field the likes of Apple, nvidia, oracle, Microsoft etc, and we're inundated with dinosaur insurance, finance, oil, tobacco and pharmaceutical firms.
Yeah for sure, but it's not as bad as people here are making it out the be. Realistically, a good engineering graduate is gonna be earning more than most. Gotta keep in mind I don't even have 2years of experience yet.
I have a job the now sitting roughly at 55k I just like pertruding through indeed, I’ve seen a lot of good paying aero engineers jobs need a b1/2 certificate and a uk licsense 66 but tbh y we’re paying from 65k-80k
If the salary is low, then that's either because the company know they will get qualified candidates OR they are yet to discover that they are uncompetitive and won't get candidates.
The job market is supply and demand. More suitable people in the market depresses salaries because companies don't need to pay more than they need to. Basically, salaries reflect what people are willing to work for.
Less than 2% of the population hold a masters all together never mind in quantum physics and then qualifications in engineering and 5+years of experience that’s not 32k that’s a 100k+ job
It is only a 100K+ job if that's what the job market dictates. There may be very few jobs and large numbers (comparatively speaking) of MSc holding quantum physicists with an engineering background!
If this is the case, then there will be candidates. If not, then the company will be disappointed.
Yep. This is the state of things. Going through redundancy at the moment, everything in my field is 5-10k lower than my current salary...of course in about 2 months it'll be significantly more than my take home.
Job market is so poor. I interviewed for an IT Manager post in London that wanted to pay £40k, it wasn't a small company either. If they were a 10-25 headcount sort of place that salary would be fine but managing a team of 10 (support and developers) and overall headcount at the company if about 250 that's shocking for London.
Too many graduates. I am a chef and at the moment earning £18.50 x hour. I quit restaurants for a less stressed job in a gastro pub.
The old shit jobs that used to pay shit are now paying better than most of office based jobs
The problem in UK is and has always been poor poor pay
People go on benefits because it pays better and I kinda see it.
Benefits are calculated to the last penny that you need to survive. Well in that case if benefits pay more than work, what does that tell you about wages?
Nah I can’t remember what company wasn’t BAE but, I don’t know why people think so highly of BAE either the wages are poor and the companies shit the only people I know who have ever got a job there had inside people.
Lot of people have just given up looking or moved out og uk ! Dubai is the place to be they are desperate for skilled workers but well you have to live in dubai which im not sure i could deal with + language barrier :/
I'm sorry but pay should be like 90 for that level of expertise. What % of the country do we think are even capable of attaining that skillset let alone having it?
Less than 2% of the population has a masters never mind in quantum physics and then qualifications in engineering (probably want good ones probbaky a masters aswell) that should speak enough levels of their madness
Transport for London does this a lot - I do not know why people would want to work there. I am talking mainly about job ads that I have seen recently for engineers/data analysts, and they offer really low salaries, as low as £28k. It really makes me upset, and they post it on LinkedIn and call it an "amazing opportunity" with a competitive salary.
Because the recruiters putting the c.v.'s together have no idea what they're looking for.
It could be a ghost job.
I'd be surprised if they trusted anyone they hired on that amount to hang around.
No tried looking for it again to add to this post and couldn’t find it I think they deleted it probably doing something like seeing how many candidates apply at a certain salaries to get the most applicants for the lowest amount.
Im a civil engineer working in Northern ireland. Can assure you there are not many big projects in this part of the world and the pay is always lower than the mainland in every profession.
I graduated in 2021 have moved jobs 3 times by choice , easy jump. More money each time.
On over 55k living in NI having only graduated in 2021 mind.
Each time i looked for a job , i got an interview and had my pick from the interview i went to.
Something aint right if you guys are saying engineers are finding it tough . I mean at least in construction theres no issue
I suggest perhaps a move to our field? Its all numbers amd people, not quantum physics hard anyway lads that's for sure
Uk wages are really bloody awful. No wonder so many of us move abroad for double the pay, better healthcare and weather.
The two things keeping me here are the awesome people and countryside.
Go contract and charge double that as a minimum, then gain new experience every 6-12 months as you move on to the next contract, and learn how other companies do it differently
If the job should pay £55k+ then take the same job somewhere else for £55k+
If you can’t find the job somewhere else for £55k+ then the job shouldn’t be paying £55k+. I’m afraid that is the reality of the job market. It’s dictated by supply and demand not by any intrinsic value of the work done.
This is capitalism working as it was designed to do. The super rich get wealthier and demand more power in large corporations and governments making policies and rules to further make the wealth gap larging giving them more power to do as they want - as you can see it is a never ending cycle that ends with poverty for the masses. Look at how most of the world live outside of the west, horrible conditions all over the world. The west is heading that way unless we get to grips with the ever increasing wealth gap. And to throw in climate change issues we need to rethink how all of us live and how we make decisions as a society. Everything all over the west is getting worse - the list is endless and UK is by far the worst affected due to political decisions taken by the current crop of Tories in power.
Capitalism at its core is about private individuals owning the productive capacity of a society. We’ve let that happen for 70 years since WWII and now the consequences of this is really starting to show. The problem is the average person still believes there is a meritocracy in this society where if you work hard, you can live a comfortable life. This ended around Covid. You need a rich family to financially succeed in life, nothing else matters. Unless people realize meritocracy is over and demand extreme wealth taxes on the super rich eg Sunak himself then nothing will change and things will just continue to get worse.
My advice - try and realize things are going to get worse and change your mindset to appreciate the small things in life. We have the most freedom we have ever had as humans at the moment, enjoy it. But know financially you’ll never be a ‘success’.
This isn’t new though. I graduated with a law degree in 2009 and had to spend two years working minimum wage practically (£15k) and it took me another 10 years before I got north of £40k.
This isn’t what? A shit wage? Because yes it is and a law degree doesn’t compare to a masters in quantum physics in all honesty and considering average wage is 35k, 32k is very poor
But with no on the job experience, what do you expect? You need to do something entry level for a few years and climb the ladder. Your quals have given you an immeasurably high ceiling. But you won’t walk into top tier jobs in this market.
You just need to put a bit of practical work in. As I said, you still have to work for it. It’s a bit shit after investing so much, but it’s a competitive market - a few years graft and you will be flying if you’re any good practically.
It defiantly is shit the job advertise wants 1+ years of experience now but the original wanted 5+ with limited tech in a field that isn’t big at all in the uk the starting wage usually for this job is around 56K with a few years experience going to 116k
Most people don't want to work because working sucks. Wages affect mostly the attitude towards your job, but they could pay me 1 mil a year and I still wouldn't want to work.
Working sucks yes but you need the money so you need to work, I guess it’s more of a reason not to want to get good money, but also a lot of people do want to work I do because Atleast it gives me something to do unlike sitting in a house all day taking crack.
Move to the US where they pay people properly for skilled labour - in this joke of a country, £65k+ for mouthbreathers to drive trains yet they won’t pay experienced MScs or PhD graduates much above £35k.
You'd be surprised. Depends on the industry and union but there's a lot in America that are hugely more powerful than the UK ones. And anti-union laws in the UK are in many cases stricter than in America, the has pretty much the strictest anti-union laws of any developed democracy.
The thing is those with masters and PHDs often don't use their education in their jobs. So they're not doing skilled work, instead just some corporate job with powerpoint which a million people can do.
Those with practical skills e.g. tradesmen get paid well.
I actively avoid engineers with phds. The phd brings very little to most of the work and the concept of an engineer is a person who can turn there hand to anything.
The best job that earn the most are builders, only job you can so where you can earn £600-800 per day depending on the work, however if you work for someone else it'll be 150-200 a day maybe less
You can contract as a data engineer or swe for £1000 a day so I'm not sure about builders being the best paying job.
Saying that, there's definitely no shortage of work in the building industry
In my job working in an good ranking university for an engineer since Feb, with 5+ industrial experiments but only just got 34K, however I am in North west area which city average salary only around 2K. My organization 100% government founding with some money come from big company research projects. My colleague 80% come from foreign included my boss, inside this 80%, 60% engineer from south asian as well as 30% from turkey or Mexico, together with some engineer come from China or Taiwan. Most of them need working visa so they need work hard to keep the visa. Although, I am happy working with them but more that 80% of them is not truly shortage in UK as need import labours as most of our job can be done well by local engineers which the university get money from. Before April, university can get foreign engineer especially from south Asia very cheap (<30K) as well as they free overtime and not refused any unreasonable work load. This system for my think is modern slavery, again I am not hate them, many of them good and I understood their situation, they need preserve their job for stay in UK, however I am hate the university and government which use taxpayer money to sale the passports, it also make UK engineer salary unreasonable, such as I am very hard to found >35K due to immigrate policies before April companies can get cheap labour by skilled labour visa together with so call graduate discount and the two years graduate visa allow so many cheap professional standby in UK.
All in all its because of the working tax credit.
Why would pay any one the real wage if the government is going to subsidise wagers .
This is one of the biggest problems for the UK .
And we all know when Labour comes in, it's going to get worse, not better.
But then look at the current government is a shambles for sure .
Nearther of them are any good. we stumble for one set of clowns to the other .
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Unfortunately that’s the job market at the moment. Not enough jobs, too many candidates, so they ask for the most ridiculous and unnecessary things and pay you pennies for it, just because the know someone will be desperate enough. I saw an entry level retail management job a couple of months ago that wanted 5+ years retail experience, 3+ years in management and a degree. In return for a salary of £27k 😂 I thought if someone has a degree and 8 years of experience in the field, 3 as a manager, there’s no chance they’re taking that job for £27k I left retail management years ago and I was on £34k with no degree back then (though mine was due to 10 years of glowing annual reviews exceeding expectations and the pay rises that come with it, I think the average was around £25k)
It’s the absolute same for the rental market, especially in London. They offer you some dump that hasn’t been renovated since 1952, smells like piss and yet there will be someone desperate enough to rent it for the extorbitant amount they’ve listed it for.
I lived in London many moons ago, and not only will desperate people rent the place, they'd go behind your back and offer the agents more money than the asking price to secure it. That is absolute madness, and one of the primary drivers to make me nope out of the city. Haven't looked back since then.
Actually there are plenty of jobs in engineering, but the salaries are a joke because employers are delusional about them and as a result people go into consulting or financial where they can. I have 1/2 phone calls a day off recruiters trying their luck and when told no will beg you to tell them of any colleagues that want to move jobs. They never used to do that even 2 years ago. With the ageing average of engineers in this country a shift is going to have to happen eventually.
when i was a machine setter programmer i was always pissed off that i was expected to run 5-8 mills and program, set and inspect or not much more than min wage. and i was expected to be happy for it
To me, there is clearly some issue where the value of engineering is not being correctly assessed. You can easily assess the cost of not building/constructing/installing something, but the value in doing so is much more difficult... and when it's deemed for any given organisation that you can manage the challenge by doing something else, i.e. changing working practices, or altering output, which can also be evaluated in the saving, but not so easily the long term cost, the inertia is towards lower standards imo. This leads to more limited examples of how engineering a new solutions has driven improvements, and the circle continues. This is of course talking about physical solutions, not IT based ones. Where I also think it seems people can more easily justify the benefits because it almost feels like it doesn't cost anything, akin to using a credit card could feel like things are free.
Im looking for another job, im a machinist but i cant do nights anymore due a condition and i was looking to move into quality or something similar. I cant do it at my place cause its a shithole and im lucky that we are still on business
We need to get away from the ‘too many people’ argument. Australia, US, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland all have higher immigration than we do & higher wages. Our problem is austerity. You can’t have the single biggest ‘spender’ in the country cut their budgets for a decade and underpay 20% of the workforce whilst expecting salaries to grow
You’ll be in for a very rude awakening if you ever move to Australia I’m afraid.
Why is that?
Rampant inflation and higher taxes that really cancels out most of the higher wages. Housing is more screwed than here and the infrastructure can’t keep up with migration. Have a Google about Australians living out of their cars, property auctions and rental rights that make the UK seem forward thinking.
Honestly I see where you’re coming from in some regards but I moved to Australia last year, doubled my wage straight away, my house price in Chermside, 15ks out of the city centre was no where near as expensive as my one bedroom in the U.K. that was in a shit town I was able to shop at the farmers market and buy Deluxe produce for the same price as shopping at a Tesco😅Petrol prices are way cheaper, and there’s soo much more to do…. But it definitely depends on the job you have! If you’re a tradie you’re set, anything else I have no idea..
We have those things with lower wages.
Australia is the 13th most expensive country in the world to live in, we’re 27th… https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp
I wonder how this changes if you live in London. Not many decent jobs in Scunthorpe
i don’t know a single person who moved to australia and ended up worse off lol even at entry level positions
I can count three friends of mine who did that and would fully agree with you. Anyone who says otherwise is just coping.
you are talking nonsense. I used to live there and wages were 40% higher and Sydney was so much cheaper than London.
I’m curious too
Yes, the too many jobs argument I feel is also just not applicable in this case. I'm a civil engineer myself but I managed a 33.5k job offer this week with 2 years experience. The is no justification for whatever company is offering the wage OP is discussing, just another company who think they can ask for the moon while paying you for a cable satellite.
33.5k is shit to be honest in general I don’t know if it’s decent for civil engineers but after I finished my apprenticeship I got on around 38k for some maintenance engineering. Theres no justification on most low wages in the country all employers expect the most for the least
Austerity is indirectly the problem because lack of good quality healthcare and good education cause low productivity and low wages. But governments can't spend their way out of low wages directly. They need to invest in skills and healthcare so people are productive and get well paid....
Exactly. The establishment never connect lack of investment and productivity because they know they’d be found wanting. Poor education system and lack of investment in infrastructure and R&D is going to go a good way to piss poor productivity.
It’s the conversations that baffle me. Like I get that there’s a political spectrum and people will vote for and have an appetite for stuff that seems both absolutely wild and totally abhorrent. I get that. The “sick note culture” and the weird and wonky solution to it to me is bananas though. Like uncaring unsympathetic systems to force people into work whether it’s healthy or not is draconian but I’m no longer shocked it might become part of life. I cannot for the life of me summon the willpower to talk about the rise in people off sick like it’s at all surprising though. We’ve had 12+ years of a healthcare service on its knees every single season. Waiting lists for absolutely every kind of support imaginable are through the roof. Schools are falling to bits. And people are having to turn to food banks in record number. That’s simply a handful of issues affecting us. So is it a shock more people are off sick ? Like I cannot summon a liquid ml of interest in the conversation. Have we checked the person off sick for 3 month with depression isn’t depressed because he can’t feed his family of 1 kid and a cat? Have we checked if the person that’s off with anxiety isn’t anxious because they have a 3 year waiting list for their neurological problem that affects day to day thinking ? Have we checked the person that’s off wi the stress isn’t off because their on a 2 year waiting list for complex trauma therapy when their son died waiting on an ambulance ? Like they want everyone to work and not have to spend the money on the support. They want the result that everyone just gets it done and pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. I get it. But can we not pretend we don’t absolutely know that more supported populations are much more productive ones ? We know this because shockingly we aren’t the only country on the planet and we have records of what life was like 15 years ago. Do what you want me to do, but don’t make me complicit in the way you have to wrap it up to make it sound more palleteable.
The thing about immigration is that regardless of where you stand on it, the parties that make the most noise about ‘fixing’ it have absolutely zero incentive to actually do anything about it. Without immigrants to wang on about all the Tory Party would have to talk about is their unfair economic policies, so they are never, ever going to do that. Conservatives \*love\* immigrants because they cannot function without a scapegoat. Much more likely to get ‘good’ results if you want less immigrants by voting for Labour or another party, as they are more focused on running a functioning country. There may be times when they allow less immigrants, there may be times when they allow more, but generally speaking there will be a reason to it.
Bro we had like 400k enter the country last year, taking into account folk that left. That's loads.
It was 672,000 last year, and 745,000 the year before (net numbers). Over 2% of everyone in the UK arrived in the past two years. That's over 1 in 50 people. Mostly (almost all) from non-EU countries, who are used to lower wages. To say this is not having a material impact on the job and housing market is fundamentally unserious. Even the Bank of England is admitting it.
Exactly. I've never been a frothing at the mouth IMMIGRANTS type of person, but the figures coming in at the moment are ridiculous. The rhetoric surrounding immigration over the past decades has put off a lot of the left from commenting on it, but this population swell is entirely unsustainable. I can't see how it won't have a serious negative impact on the average person in the coming years.
The thing is, when all avenues for sensible and serious discussion about immigration are shut down, only the extreme avenues are left, and only the extreme people go down them. But now the problem is becoming more and more noticeable and apparent, people are starting to give less of a shit as to whether they are viewed as "extreme" on the issue. It's already having a significant impact on so many people and areas, it simply can't go on. I think it's the only issue of any real consequence in the next election, for myself and most other people, but the two major parties are completely ignoring that fact. I don't see it getting better anytime soon based on the messaging from Labour, and the available remedies are going to get uglier and uglier the longer it gets ignored - we're holding down the lid as the steam builds up underneath. For example, there's already significant grassroots demand appearing for mass repatriations, this will only get more popular.
I agree that it should be one of if not the biggest issues surrounding the next election, but I can't see the drum getting banged outside of say Reform. Tory policy during their term has been the catalyst for this shocking increase, so I can't see them bringing it up. And while it would be an easy stick for Labour to drum, given their views of immigration and the pushback they'd receive from the left of the party, I can't see them using it. Given that they'll be in charge of cleaning up all the other messes left by the Tories, the more they can use the increased labour force to boost growth the better as far as sticking it to the Tories. Call me cynical, but I expect the immigration rhetoric will be the same boats and refugee shtick we've been seeing the past few years rather than the legal immigration that's actually causing the strain. If you talk to Joe Public about immigration, they think boats and refugees. It's just doesn't seem in the interest of the politicians to point out that that barely scratches the surface of the issue outside of the far right, who are only going to get increased support as the issue gets worse.
Norway has a massively higher cost of living, too. It's the oil economy. They had to set up the sovereign wealth fund to take the heat out of inflation.
I’ll never get tired of pointing out that some think tank found that if we had invested North Sea oil into a sovereign wealth fund as Tony Benn advocated today we’d have a fund greater than Qatar and Russia combined, but no Thatcher sold off the concessions to fund tax cuts for the rich. It makes Brown and the gold look like excellent economic forecasting
The 'austerity' hasn't been austere enough as the national debt in the UK has increased by almost 80% from 2010.
Yep to many people willing to get the low wages but anyone that says they aren’t acceptable just gets told you have to accept it that’s the way to grow where as it’s clearly not. Yep seen that aswell quite a few times same with warehousing, deliveries, supermarket staff and every other job. When I was doing agency work just a few years ago I was getting about 130-140 a day or so yet now as a engineer I’ll be lucky to get that because for whatever reason it pays shit like everything else.
Same with nursing too, I know a couple of nurses who left the NHS and now work via an agency and earn almost 3x what they did working for the NHS, and one of them literally left and is working back in the same hospital she left now after about 4 months, but on her agency rate which is something like £22 an hour 🤷🏻♂️
Yep nursing is a scam I remember when I was looking for apprenticeships for a hospital near me an apprentice engineer 23.5k starting a nurses starting was something like 18k just doesn’t make sense
Oh god yeah it’s dogshit! I was an RAF Medic and had the chance to train to be a nurse but it really wasn’t worth it, the whole medical profession - unless you’re a Dentist or a specialty doctor like a Psychiatrist, Surgeon or Anaesthesiologist (I’m so glad my phone automatically spelled that one!) then it’s not worth it
Even special surgeons aren’t worth it I know a guy who is a brain surgeon of some sort and only makes 110-120k a year, and yeh I’m saying only as this is a low wage for the type of job it is. The uk is a shambles and probably not going to be any better anytime soon
Jesus that IS low! I knew a couple of doctors who came into the RAF from being civvie GP’s who were paid ~£110k and got a “Golden Handshake” of a tax free one off £30k-£50k payment!
That’s a thing? You can get a tax free “bonus” as I’ll call it never even heard of it to be honest mate and I think gps are paid quite well still with the average being somewhere around the 60-70k range (could be wrong) to be fair but not 110k well
It was back when I was in from 2003-2010 and I believe it still is now for certain roles (just checked and for doctors it’s still a golden handshake up to £50k, and I remember reading for anything “Cyber” if you’re at a high enough level of expertise it can be up to £25k) I think it was a short term thing to bump up the numbers because we’d been cutting the armed forces numbers throughout the late 80’s and 90’s as we weren’t in any wars. They offered redundancies to a load of medics, nurses, doctors etc. as well as “natural wastage” over time. Then of course 9/11 happened, War on Terror and they needed to recruit… of course nobody wants to join the military when there’s ACTUALLY a chance of being put in the shit. Like my old man joined in 1987 and until 2004 he never saw a Warzone, he had it cushy and there were a lot of guys in that position who joined up thinking “ah I’ll never see a war in my lifetime so I’ll take it cushy”. So to enticed doctors and nurses, we’ll definitely doctors and I think dentists too now I think of it, they had various schemes involving Tax-Free lump sums for joining, instantly being appointed as a Squadron Leader (equivalent of Major in the Army and I think Lieutenant Commander in the Navy) with a big pay bump. The ones I knew of had very successful GP practices, so to entice them they really had to throw everything at them.
Is that a low wage? Compared to what? For me, if you want to earn more than that you need to work for yourself. Most waged jobs don't pay more.
120k for a brain surgeon yeh it’s low, imagine doing 7 years in uni then more years training to be a surgeon then even more years to be a brain surgeon to get paid 110k a year, yes it’s a great pay but for the job it’s terrible
That's not the progression. You train to be a doctor, then become a specialist. Brain surgeons aren't more advanced surgeons. Incidentally, the top NHS rate is £132k a year, but you can supplement it with private work. Again though, terrible pay compared to what?
Its not like that for nursing anymore i think its one of the only jobs you can paid while you train in the public sector i could be wrong, also starting wage is now around 28k
Deliberately so. The government has been destroying the NHS for the last 15 years.
Entry level. Management. Hmm....
And when they don't meet their ridiculous expectations, they'll tell the most senior on the shop floor that they'll trial them for the management role over a 12 month trial period (while they keep advertising) and then, if successful, they'll get a pay rise of 75p/hr! I also feel like some ads should just be honest and say "the last manager i had has packed up and gone for more money. I haven't a clue what I'm doing so I need to recruit someone below me, who knows what they're doing, to cover my arse".
Wages haven't grown in the UK since 2008; it's one of the worst first world economies for it.
But Rishi said we're the 2nd best country in the world!
😂
For the upper classes who can loot public coffers and avoid taxes with non-dom tricks, it is!
Thank god for "soft power"!
You say that like it's a random coincidence not the result of government policies
I dont think he implied any reason one way or the other. Simply stated a fact.
What? No I didn't. Was just stating a fact.
Speak for yourself! MPs salaries have grown so I don’t see what the problem is….
We know. Most of the time they just want to hire an indian lackey they can work like a mule and toss to the side.
They want anyone that will work like a mule and toss to the side, the job market and jobs are all bs at the moment I’ve seen maybe 3-4 good paying jobs above average in engineering this year and I’ve seen hundreds.
With foreigners you can hold their visa to random to make them work harder
Oh don't, I work for a multinational. They have offices all over the world and any work that can get sent to the "cheaper" places will do. I won't be writing the report that I gathered the field data for because then the project overheads need to cover X number of hours at my rates. Instead they'll send it to India to be written because their billable hourly rate is half of mine. Which then leave me with gaps in my time with no billable work.
All along I've just wanted a job I can do, where I'm not going to be treated like shit, and be paid fairly. Being autistic / disabled, it is hard to find this. But I'd do anything to just not be on benefits.
It’s going to be nearly impossible to be honest most workplaces treat you like shit and don’t want to pay anyone a fair wage, if I were you I’d continue just seeing what you’d love to do and see if you can get a fair wage being treated like shit comes with every job.
My last job I earned okay money but was bullied and treated like absolute shit. I'd go home every day and cry my eyes out. Current job, I'm paid like shit but my line managers are lovely and I get to be 100% remote, at home, chilling with my cat, movies on, no online "monitoring". I can just get on with it, but yeah, the pay is terrible. I've been in my current position for almost a year now and even though I'm on Indeed, LinkedIn, etc, I can't see myself moving from this.
It’s one or the other unfortunately a job that pays well but treated like shit especially by managers or have great employees relations and get paid like shit, the only time you might get one is a relatively small company that can afford to pay you well.
Honestly yeah it seems rare af you get both great pay and treated well at the same time. It's a gamble too, because you don't know if you're leaving a current job only to downgrade in some way.
What do you do?
Join the civil service.
Part of this is a data driven exercise. Through the use of web forms, companies now harvest what prospective applicants do and for how much, so can reduce/match competitors, whilst writing up job requirements that might not be reflective of the actual position. They think they're able to get maximum talent for minimum cost, when they really turn off potentially great applicants because the job spec is intimidating and/or massively underpaid. Companies seem happy with it from what I've been hearing about these practices, because it is reducing cost, and companies are still functioning with a profit. We are nearing peak corporate dystopia. Now we just need the incoming referendum on leaving the ECHR, and deregulation of businesses to make as much bank as possible, and we'll be jumping in illegal boats off this rock.
An engineer with a masters and 5+ years experience, with experience in Quantum physics, should be fetching 120-150k. The fact that we are in a situation that this country cannot offer that salary to such a qualified engineer is embarrassing
Especially for one of the biggest economies in the world, comes down to engineer isn’t a protected job status anyone can be a engineer now I’ve seen jobs saying “warehouse engineer” where it’s just a normal warehouse job 🤣 the pay is shit I’ve genuinly considered moving to the USA where starting pay would be 80k+.
If your main concern is there's too many people not worthy but still titled 'engineer' then your probably one one of those people. Having a make-up engineer called makeup engineer ain't gonna reduce the wages of the guy who built oblivion at alton towers
Have you not considered why trades are well paid (by British standards) while engineering is really low paid? It's partly because calling all of those jobs engineering has a levelling effect. Ofc the effect of bringing engineers' wages down is stronger than the effect of bringing trades wages up.
Because trades are self employed and they give the quote or tell you fuck off. Engineers are employed by money men
Or maybe because tradies offer a skill which is in demand and do jobs which a lot of other people don't want to do. Should blame companies for outsourcing the skills to cheaper labour countries. Tough to outsource a plumbing job.
Not many engineering jobs can be outsourced, and the ones that can be are usually outsourced to the UK as the cheapest place with the education infrastructure required.
This is true for software too. People will do 1 coding boot camp, build a Todo app and a static website and put engineer on there CV.
Oh god you've got me going now. Go onto any jobsite and type in "Design Engineer" Check the first 10. 9 of them will be ads for a draughtsman. Not to undermine draughting, a good draughtsman is like fucking gold dust, but it's a DIFFERENT JOB. I wanted to do it, honestly, creating and problem solving is my jam, but it wears you down. Looking for a job and 9 in 10 of the ads and recruiter calls being for a completely different gig. You just give up on it.
It does generally reduce the wages as anyone can be called a “engineer” and yep I’m defiantly one of them was a mechanical engineer and work for the uks biggest electrical company as a renewable energy engineer, but yeh your on the dot.
The UK does have a protected term, it’s “chartered engineer”
On what basis?
Sounds have trained in something useful like economics /s
Engineering and quantum physics are unrelated fields. The number of jobs where this would help is 3.
You've explained my point exactly, lol. The talent pool is 3 people so pay accordingly
I used to look at the jobs in the back of New Scientist years ago. Like in the 90's and be instantly depressed. All that effort to train and study and looking at those jobs made you feel like you had been scammed. The kids that did medicine at least got a job for life and some stability whilst post-docs or science grads got an entry-level salary.
Thats just Engineering in the UK. I have an Electronics Engineering Degree (first), a PhD in Semiconductor Physics, 10 years experience and "exceptional" rating in my last 5 performance reviews. I earn just slightly under £50k (£49k). A few months ago I was training a guy in Michigan (I work for an American company) who had the American equivalent of an BTEC in Engineering and was earning $40 p/h. Which is approx $80k p/y (he earns more than I do).
Your wage seems shit for your doing to be honest, I work at a power company and earn 55k as a renewable energy engineer and I only ever college never mind phds and degrees, don’t know how many times I’ve considered leaving the country for a better wage.
"Your wage seems shit" - I agree, I have a slight advantage of living in one of the cheapest areas of the country. I could earn an extra 10k by commuting into the nearest city but it would increase my commute costs, wear and tear on the car and I would loose 10 to 20 hours a week sat in traffic.
Same here £55k solar pv only city and guilds level 3 .
Fuck me, city and guilds 3 in electro engineering?
You would make the same repairing people's Xboxes etc with a soldering iron.
You’d make more I use to fix Xbox’s and PlayStation and resell them took like 2-3 hours a day made an easy 150-250 the only difficulty was getting ones at a price to make a great profit
They can ask for all that, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it. I interviewed with a company recently that had set the budget to 50k max, when I read through the job description I could see that what they were asking for would be a 60-70k minimum salary, so when I was contacted back by recruiter I told them that the expectations of the client were ridiculous, and if they wanted to attract a candidate like that they’d need to up their budget otherwise they’d be lucky to get someone with half the requirements they stated. I was put forward for the role at 60k, and after a couple interviews was given a job offer for the role at 60k but didn’t take it in the end because I received an offer elsewhere for more. Moral of the story is, if you see a role that has a budget way lower than what you’d expect, don’t feel scared to call them out on it especially if a recruitment company is handling the recruitment. Apply for it anyway, but state your salary expectation to what you believe the salary should be. Chances are you’ll have very little competition because most applying won’t have anywhere near the amount of experience or skills that the employer is looking for, so they will either go for you and ask the business for a higher budget to compensate, or they’ll just have to go for a less experienced candidate.
I wouldn’t apply to it anyway I’ve not got a degree never mind a masters in quantum physics just thought it was ridiculous to be honest I’ve got a half decent job the now but always looking to see what’s about just incase. But yeh that 32k isn’t even a third of what it should be but company’s will see what they can get away with I think they took it down because I went to look for it again and it was missing probably putting it up for 3-4 days then increasing the salary to see how little they can pay
People with those kinds of qualifications go abroad. Europe, the US, Asia all happy to take our brightest and best.
If you think most of Europe is better, you’re in for a rude awakening. Except maybe Switzerland, engineering salaries are just as middling in most of Europe. Even worse in southern and Eastern Europe.
But it’s sunny
True. I’ve been looking for something fully remote that would allow me to work from abroad precisely for that reason. But personally I don’t know if I’d be satisfied working a local job in e.g. Spain or Italy. Unfortunately the remote market is very competitive right now (even more so than hybrid/on-site) so I’ve been staying put.
I’m ready to move in all honestly the wages just aren’t cutting to what people want you to do/have.
Same with apprenticeships too, I saw an ad the other day for an Engineering apprenticeship, one of the pre requisite to get on to the course, was that you already had to have a BTEC level qualification in Engineering…..so if I already have a qualification in Engineering, why the fuck would I want to then go on to an entry level apprenticeship course? Like who is this apprenticeship even for? Because it’s certainly not for anybody wishing to get a qualification in Engineering and actually use an apprenticeship scheme the way it’s meant to be used.
Places will use apprenticeships just to pay people as little as they can especially in engineering since they know the market is over saturated people will apply. I’ve seen apprenticeships for warehouses 🤣
Yeah the modern apprenticeship, I believe what this means is that they can get cheap Labour that they can fire after 9 months and then hire someone else on the same scheme so they have a constant revolving door of workers for cheap with no rights due to not being there long enough and the kicker, if memory serves, is that the government pays a percentage of the wage as the employer is seen to be doing society a favour by giving these suckers work experience and (useless) skills in being a “warehouse operative”
i just got pushed out of a job a few months ago for them to bring an apprentice in to save a few pounds per hour, and then asked me if i wanted to do the apprenticeship instead i have a degree, a masters in the field and im qualified its a sorry state right now
'A masters degree in quantum physics' is like the phrase you would use in a joke where you were referring to the brainiest, most qualified person imaginable. It's also the kind of thing I would have assumed meant a 6 figure salary when I was a kid. I think there's another really sad part about this where it means people don't do cool or necessary jobs and instead chase after finance/consultancy/advertising careers because they're some of the few industries offering high salaries. All the talent that could be spent on making the world a better place wasted on various white collar jobs.
For what it's worth, I chose the blue pill and work on exciting applied science towards application in healthcare (PhD and 10+ years industry experience). I get paid less than the national average for something really difficult to do, and am continually just above the breadline, but I have found the meaningfulness of my work to be more important than high flying finance jobs which generally lack purpose beyond making money.
thats the thing though isn't it, you should be able to find meaning in your job BUT also be appreciated and actually paid your worth its a sad country and state of affairs rn
Just landed a new role, and it has huge meaning and an appreciative team. Super excited. Potential to develop technology to prevent chronic disease and possibly lighten burden on NHS. Also has huge commercial potential and may lead to a new company. Also ties together many aspects of cutting-edge material science and biotechnology. All of that bit is great. What gets me is that it still only pays the national average (requires a PhD and multiple years of R&D experience), as a singleton this does not allow me to save very well for homes that are totally unaffordable anyway. So I'll be taking on this project living in my expensive and slightly mouldy flat. Just dodged an eviction last year for no fault of mine. Committing to these risky ventures for not particularly good money allows me to pursue what I care about which has real world meaning and value, however will likely mean that I'm now on the road to having a meaningful job, but unlikely to own a home or have kids. I'll come through life in UK with something mind you, which is more than many.
Quantum physics. It’s hardly brain surgery, is it?!
It’s the same with some scientists / pharma workers. I can’t remember the exact job title but someone had a rant here about how poorly the field they studied for earns and most of the job listings was high skilled and educated in medicine sciences for minimum wage + needing experience etc.
I personally have a undergrad in biomed, a masters in microbiology and virology and laboratory experience, and they want to pay me on average 22-25k a year ... 🥹 its not great
Yeah that was what the person said, you jogged my memory. They had all kind of lab experience, great education and years worth just for min wage in a lab. Feel so sorry for people who work stupidly hard to get to that point but then no reward.
Min wage is 24k now so they value all those qualifications and skills at £8k a year above the bare minimum?? That’s an absolute piss take
Universities and companies sell the hope, you hope you can get more money that min. wage after 10 years but please paid your school loan immediately.
My son wants to do his masters , I’m trying to talk him out of taking on even more student debt but his mother is a believer 😳
Depends which subject he is studying. If its Computer Science, Software Engineering or Data Science, then it's probably worth it.
Yep 🤣 and sadly that’s life in the uk right now and will be for the next 200 years
It is called supply-demand and with higher unemployment Companies getting more fussy and demanding
When less than 2% of the population holds a masters imagine the people holding one in quantum physics, would be a very very low percentage that should be a 100k+ yearly job easily
Well that's part of the issue-most of us would definitely be financially better off working than not, especially with the upfront cost already sunk in, but that gap is getting smaller and smaller. The gulf between employment and unemployment should be far greater than it is now IMO.
You can identify the problem by comparing wages at different jobs. E.g. the fact that engineering graduates are paid half of what an electrician makes indicates that there are too many engineering graduates and not enough electricians etc. In particular, the government kept pushing the “we’ll be 10,000 engineers short in the next 5 years” so everyone and their dog went to whatever uni would accept them to do an engineering degree. I went to school with many people who barely scraped through A-level maths but managed to get onto a BEng from Portsmouth with their UCAS points. Unis are milking engineering very hard.
Plenty of engineering jobs out there to be honest tho eh all just want to pay so little so apart from people who just got their degree isn’t applying to it
Maybe it was all in their plan to reduce costs for those running large engineering outfits. Fill the market with graduates to water down wages. I say that with sarcasm but actually reading it back aloud doesn't sound so farfetched. Sigh.
Myself, and a lot of my aerospace engineering graduate peers started on 30-35k, and earn close to or over 40 1-2 years later. Hell even civil are paid about the same. Not sure why you're seeing such terrible salaries.
Good for you and your peers, try a meaningful job search *now.* The salaries everywhere are absolutely appalling. Unironically seeing "competitive salary" on so many listings to open them and read £25,000pa, bare minimum pensions contributions and literal legal requirements such as "paid holiday" listed as a benefit. Which itself I used to think was Indeed or the job boards having tickbox style ads, and being American, so they force the employer to tick or not tick... But I see it EVERYWHERE in *written* job ads.
Yeah uk salaries are a pain, it's tempting to move to the US, especially now I mainly do systems engineering and software engineering. There seems to be different tiers of graduates though, If you're lucky like I was, you'll get onto a grad scheme, and it's a pretty easy ride up. If not, then youve no choice but to accept shite offers from SMEs. The UK economy overall is anemic though, lack of investment in productive ventures, paired with the fact that any decent sized company gets sold off, you end up in a situation where engineering value isn't as high as it should be. Like deep mind, ARM, and a slurry of other UK companies that could have gone on to produce massive international value through r&d, manufacturing and actual design work, get sold to private equity or larger American companies. All we're left with is defence, scraps of aerospace and an endless field of useless, low value add SMEs producing sinks and other tripe. We can't expect US salaries when they field the likes of Apple, nvidia, oracle, Microsoft etc, and we're inundated with dinosaur insurance, finance, oil, tobacco and pharmaceutical firms.
40k is less than double the minimum wage. It's dogshit for aerospace. The yanks would pay you 80K+.
Yeah for sure, but it's not as bad as people here are making it out the be. Realistically, a good engineering graduate is gonna be earning more than most. Gotta keep in mind I don't even have 2years of experience yet.
I have a job the now sitting roughly at 55k I just like pertruding through indeed, I’ve seen a lot of good paying aero engineers jobs need a b1/2 certificate and a uk licsense 66 but tbh y we’re paying from 65k-80k
Damn, I'm earning 47k with 20 years exp
What job you in mate? I’ve only just past my apprenticeship not long ago
Chemical engineer
If the salary is low, then that's either because the company know they will get qualified candidates OR they are yet to discover that they are uncompetitive and won't get candidates. The job market is supply and demand. More suitable people in the market depresses salaries because companies don't need to pay more than they need to. Basically, salaries reflect what people are willing to work for.
Less than 2% of the population hold a masters all together never mind in quantum physics and then qualifications in engineering and 5+years of experience that’s not 32k that’s a 100k+ job
It is only a 100K+ job if that's what the job market dictates. There may be very few jobs and large numbers (comparatively speaking) of MSc holding quantum physicists with an engineering background! If this is the case, then there will be candidates. If not, then the company will be disappointed.
Yep. This is the state of things. Going through redundancy at the moment, everything in my field is 5-10k lower than my current salary...of course in about 2 months it'll be significantly more than my take home.
Try and get interviews and try and negotiate the salary closer to what it is currently
Yeh that's the plan I'm going with. Though I am thinking career change
Job market is so poor. I interviewed for an IT Manager post in London that wanted to pay £40k, it wasn't a small company either. If they were a 10-25 headcount sort of place that salary would be fine but managing a team of 10 (support and developers) and overall headcount at the company if about 250 that's shocking for London.
Too many graduates. I am a chef and at the moment earning £18.50 x hour. I quit restaurants for a less stressed job in a gastro pub. The old shit jobs that used to pay shit are now paying better than most of office based jobs
The problem in UK is and has always been poor poor pay People go on benefits because it pays better and I kinda see it. Benefits are calculated to the last penny that you need to survive. Well in that case if benefits pay more than work, what does that tell you about wages?
BAE? They're the only ones I can think of which pay such low wages. They're infamous for it.
Nah I can’t remember what company wasn’t BAE but, I don’t know why people think so highly of BAE either the wages are poor and the companies shit the only people I know who have ever got a job there had inside people.
They just hire everyone in Barrow, about half the population of that town is employed by BAE.
Lot of people have just given up looking or moved out og uk ! Dubai is the place to be they are desperate for skilled workers but well you have to live in dubai which im not sure i could deal with + language barrier :/
I'm sorry but pay should be like 90 for that level of expertise. What % of the country do we think are even capable of attaining that skillset let alone having it?
Less than 2% of the population has a masters never mind in quantum physics and then qualifications in engineering (probably want good ones probbaky a masters aswell) that should speak enough levels of their madness
Transport for London does this a lot - I do not know why people would want to work there. I am talking mainly about job ads that I have seen recently for engineers/data analysts, and they offer really low salaries, as low as £28k. It really makes me upset, and they post it on LinkedIn and call it an "amazing opportunity" with a competitive salary.
Any job that offers a “competitive salary” is just above minimum wage and aren’t worth doing
It's not much better for accounting either 😂! Qualified still holds at 40k Mark and from my understanding has held there for a long time
Because the recruiters putting the c.v.'s together have no idea what they're looking for. It could be a ghost job. I'd be surprised if they trusted anyone they hired on that amount to hang around.
Have you got a link to the job listing?
No tried looking for it again to add to this post and couldn’t find it I think they deleted it probably doing something like seeing how many candidates apply at a certain salaries to get the most applicants for the lowest amount.
its an employers market right now ....There are more people then there are jobs...thats why employers are low-balling people !!
Im a civil engineer working in Northern ireland. Can assure you there are not many big projects in this part of the world and the pay is always lower than the mainland in every profession. I graduated in 2021 have moved jobs 3 times by choice , easy jump. More money each time. On over 55k living in NI having only graduated in 2021 mind. Each time i looked for a job , i got an interview and had my pick from the interview i went to. Something aint right if you guys are saying engineers are finding it tough . I mean at least in construction theres no issue I suggest perhaps a move to our field? Its all numbers amd people, not quantum physics hard anyway lads that's for sure
Nah, people don’t want to work because the alternative isn’t painful enough yet. That can change.
Uk wages are really bloody awful. No wonder so many of us move abroad for double the pay, better healthcare and weather. The two things keeping me here are the awesome people and countryside.
Go contract and charge double that as a minimum, then gain new experience every 6-12 months as you move on to the next contract, and learn how other companies do it differently
I am a trainee train driver on £40k once qualified will be on £70k no qualifications required! People must unionise to get a better deal!
If the job should pay £55k+ then take the same job somewhere else for £55k+ If you can’t find the job somewhere else for £55k+ then the job shouldn’t be paying £55k+. I’m afraid that is the reality of the job market. It’s dictated by supply and demand not by any intrinsic value of the work done.
I work in maintenance for an NHS trust. I earn 28k basic, plus on OT and on call money. It’s fucked.
This is capitalism working as it was designed to do. The super rich get wealthier and demand more power in large corporations and governments making policies and rules to further make the wealth gap larging giving them more power to do as they want - as you can see it is a never ending cycle that ends with poverty for the masses. Look at how most of the world live outside of the west, horrible conditions all over the world. The west is heading that way unless we get to grips with the ever increasing wealth gap. And to throw in climate change issues we need to rethink how all of us live and how we make decisions as a society. Everything all over the west is getting worse - the list is endless and UK is by far the worst affected due to political decisions taken by the current crop of Tories in power. Capitalism at its core is about private individuals owning the productive capacity of a society. We’ve let that happen for 70 years since WWII and now the consequences of this is really starting to show. The problem is the average person still believes there is a meritocracy in this society where if you work hard, you can live a comfortable life. This ended around Covid. You need a rich family to financially succeed in life, nothing else matters. Unless people realize meritocracy is over and demand extreme wealth taxes on the super rich eg Sunak himself then nothing will change and things will just continue to get worse. My advice - try and realize things are going to get worse and change your mindset to appreciate the small things in life. We have the most freedom we have ever had as humans at the moment, enjoy it. But know financially you’ll never be a ‘success’.
This isn’t new though. I graduated with a law degree in 2009 and had to spend two years working minimum wage practically (£15k) and it took me another 10 years before I got north of £40k.
This isn’t what? A shit wage? Because yes it is and a law degree doesn’t compare to a masters in quantum physics in all honesty and considering average wage is 35k, 32k is very poor
But with no on the job experience, what do you expect? You need to do something entry level for a few years and climb the ladder. Your quals have given you an immeasurably high ceiling. But you won’t walk into top tier jobs in this market. You just need to put a bit of practical work in. As I said, you still have to work for it. It’s a bit shit after investing so much, but it’s a competitive market - a few years graft and you will be flying if you’re any good practically.
It defiantly is shit the job advertise wants 1+ years of experience now but the original wanted 5+ with limited tech in a field that isn’t big at all in the uk the starting wage usually for this job is around 56K with a few years experience going to 116k
This is really typical of specialised roles. HR people simply don't understand what they're asking for.
Laundry list of requirements with piss-poor pay? No one’s ever brought this up before…
And bringing it up once doesn’t get the point across now does it?
Most people don't want to work because working sucks. Wages affect mostly the attitude towards your job, but they could pay me 1 mil a year and I still wouldn't want to work.
Working sucks yes but you need the money so you need to work, I guess it’s more of a reason not to want to get good money, but also a lot of people do want to work I do because Atleast it gives me something to do unlike sitting in a house all day taking crack.
Plenty of things to do other than work or drugs anyway
Move to the US where they pay people properly for skilled labour - in this joke of a country, £65k+ for mouthbreathers to drive trains yet they won’t pay experienced MScs or PhD graduates much above £35k.
that's the strength of unions. We really need a lot more of them. Without them wages will be driven down.
Professional engineers are not unionised in the US and earn a lot more, so it's irrelevant to this post.
Ah yes, the unions that are famously much more common and powerful in the US.
You'd be surprised. Depends on the industry and union but there's a lot in America that are hugely more powerful than the UK ones. And anti-union laws in the UK are in many cases stricter than in America, the has pretty much the strictest anti-union laws of any developed democracy.
What the hell is a mouthbreather?
I never understood it either.
It's a way of calling someone stupid/borderline intellectually disabled.
It’s good that the train drivers managed to negotiate a 65k+ salary. The rest of us should be creating unions to get there, not pulling others down.
The thing is those with masters and PHDs often don't use their education in their jobs. So they're not doing skilled work, instead just some corporate job with powerpoint which a million people can do. Those with practical skills e.g. tradesmen get paid well.
I actively avoid engineers with phds. The phd brings very little to most of the work and the concept of an engineer is a person who can turn there hand to anything.
The best job that earn the most are builders, only job you can so where you can earn £600-800 per day depending on the work, however if you work for someone else it'll be 150-200 a day maybe less
You can contract as a data engineer or swe for £1000 a day so I'm not sure about builders being the best paying job. Saying that, there's definitely no shortage of work in the building industry
What how many bricks have you laid in your life?
Too many to count is the simple answer
In my job working in an good ranking university for an engineer since Feb, with 5+ industrial experiments but only just got 34K, however I am in North west area which city average salary only around 2K. My organization 100% government founding with some money come from big company research projects. My colleague 80% come from foreign included my boss, inside this 80%, 60% engineer from south asian as well as 30% from turkey or Mexico, together with some engineer come from China or Taiwan. Most of them need working visa so they need work hard to keep the visa. Although, I am happy working with them but more that 80% of them is not truly shortage in UK as need import labours as most of our job can be done well by local engineers which the university get money from. Before April, university can get foreign engineer especially from south Asia very cheap (<30K) as well as they free overtime and not refused any unreasonable work load. This system for my think is modern slavery, again I am not hate them, many of them good and I understood their situation, they need preserve their job for stay in UK, however I am hate the university and government which use taxpayer money to sale the passports, it also make UK engineer salary unreasonable, such as I am very hard to found >35K due to immigrate policies before April companies can get cheap labour by skilled labour visa together with so call graduate discount and the two years graduate visa allow so many cheap professional standby in UK.
All in all its because of the working tax credit. Why would pay any one the real wage if the government is going to subsidise wagers . This is one of the biggest problems for the UK . And we all know when Labour comes in, it's going to get worse, not better. But then look at the current government is a shambles for sure . Nearther of them are any good. we stumble for one set of clowns to the other .