In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young women more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.
Been in the workforce for at least five years and interested in contributing your salary story? Submit your information here.Published stories receive £100.
Age: 32 Location: London, UK Current industry and job title: Commercial manager in the tech/recruitment industry Current salary: £66,000 (inc. 20% bonus) plus shares currently worth £5,200 Number of years employed since school or university: 10
Starting salary and year: £7 p/h in 2011 Biggest salary jump: From £45,300 to £56,500 in 2020 Biggest salary drop: Not happened yet
Biggest negotiation regret: When I started at my current company I was desperate to leave my previous, very toxic job and I didn’t properly research market averages for the role I was applying for. The salary was wide open and I could definitely have negotiated a higher starting salary and bonus but at the time I was so overjoyed to be moving that it didn’t seem like a priority. I was also at the time under the impression that negotiating on salary was a no-go and was nervous at the thought of doing so. I’ve since discovered that this is extremely common in younger female professionals and safe to say I would have no such qualms in the future!
Best salary advice: Know your worth, quantify the value you add, use your leverage and do your research. You should be keeping a record of your achievements and accomplishments on an ongoing basis, making sure that these are at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds and that you can succinctly detail what you have been doing and how this has improved outcomes. Your line manager will have a difficult time turning down a £5,000 pay rise if you can demonstrate how you’ve saved the company £50,000 or won contracts generating £1 million of new business. You will need to do this for performance reviews anyway but really it should be something you track and update regularly – it’s so useful on a personal level to look back on and a record of your demonstrable contributions will be invaluable for salary negotiations. It’s also great for a pick-me-up on those days where you’re facing impostor syndrome or need a little ego boost.
It can feel so obnoxious to promote your own success and shout about your achievements but you need to fly that flag high – trust me, nobody is going to do it for you and your manager won’t know what you’re up to half the time. Shout it from the rooftops!
£7 per hour – yep, I was on an hourly wage and being horribly exploited. Looking back, I don’t think I even received holiday pay and was given responsibilities far in excess of my lowly status and pay grade. It was my first big-girl job though and I gained some valuable experience.Following a bereavement I went freelance as I wanted more flexibility with my schedule. Self-employment is perfect for some but it didn’t work out very well for me. I prefer to have a sense of routine and would often be working very long hours and travelling all over the UK and occasionally to Ireland. Exhausting! My day rate varied between £100 and £220 and I kept forgetting to send my invoices.I was craving routine and accepted the first job I came across, working as an operations manager at an events agency on £20,000. Again I was horribly underpaid and lacked the confidence to negotiate a higher starting salary. I did receive small bonuses but there was deliberate obfuscation with the bonus schemes so nothing worth shouting about. I did develop my professional skills somewhat and learned a lot about bureaucracy.I needed a change and decided to move to London and change industry slightly to experiential and events. I set out my stall during interview and negotiated an increase to £35,800 (including a 5% bonus) from the £32,000 I was originally offered. I also said I wanted to work towards a promotion and pay rise within a few months’ time. I had to drunkenly corner the founder at a Christmas party and remind him of this but I got it in the end. I wouldn’t recommend this course of action, by the way. Although it served a purpose, I still cringe when I think about it.I got my promotion in the end (to £39,000 plus bonus and overtime) and bitterly regretted it once I realised what a toxic shambles the company was. After working around 30 days in a month I went on a yoga retreat in Goa, found myself and quit my job the minute I got back, with nothing lined up. Experiencing serious burnout, stress, anxiety and insomnia, plus a relapse of my eating disorder, I negotiated an extended notice period on a day rate and used the extra money to take six weeks off when I finally left.Partially recovered from burnout, I joined a wonderfully chaotic tech startup on £45,000 (with 5% bonus) following a referral from a friend and former colleague who now worked there. I didn’t negotiate at the time because I was so grateful for the culture change. In hindsight I wish I had negotiated on salary, bonus and pension contributions, which were the statutory minimum. I was promoted after just over a year in the middle of a pandemic after some seriously stressful home working. I was originally offered £45,000 base but negotiated this up to £50,000 base plus bonus after doing some research on industry average and pointing out that this offer was well below and did not reflect my contributions to the company (of which I had an inexhaustible list to hand, of course).I received a 10% raise and a 7% bonus increase following salary reviews. I was also awarded £5,200 worth of shares in the company and received an additional three days’ annual leave due to length of service. I am now working toward my next promotion and will be aiming for a base salary of £60,000 plus £12,000 bonus. I’m also hoping to do some background work on the pension contributions.
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