Salary Story: I Got A 17k Pay Rise For The Same Role In A Different Industry
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.
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Age: 26 Location: London Current industry and job title: Senior performance marketing manager in tech Current salary: £60,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 4.5
Starting salary: £19,000 in 2017 Biggest salary jump: £30,000 to £47,000 in 2020 Biggest salary drop: N/A
Biggest negotiation regret: I was desperate to have something confirmed after uni so I took the first offer I got with absolutely no negotiation. I even had a few more interviews coming up but cancelled them and ended up super broke for my first year in London.
Best salary advice: If you’re working in a role which exists in a lot of industries, consider overall pay as well as your passions. I might not be an engineer but working in tech means they pull my pay up.
I took this job because I was desperate to move to London after uni and wanted something confirmed – no negotiations and I didn’t even wait to finish my other interviews before accepting on £19,000. I was overexcited to finally be in London and didn’t know how to manage my money so ended up in the deep end of my graduate overdraft – only escaping because I signed up to a direct debit for a charity and won their £1,000 lottery in the first month. I didn’t really enjoy the role but used the opportunity to look around and work out what I might want to do in the future and what skills I could practise to get there.I applied for this company when I was still in university and was rejected for lack of experience. It had a great training scheme so I reapplied nearly a year later and made it in. I was told that my salary (£25,000) was the top end of their salary range so didn’t even consider negotiating. I loved the job once I was in.There was a lot of secrecy around salaries at the company and I didn’t even know an annual review raise was a thing – I just attended a feedback meeting and was told at the end that I would also get a £2,000 raise. I think it was a fair reflection of my increase in skill and workload but wish I’d engaged with the conversation more just to have the experience.I spent WEEKS before my meeting looking up advice for salary negotiations, working out what the industry standard was and what number I’d be happy with in the end. Once I got to the meeting, I bottled it and took what I was offered (£30,000). I was still very happy with it, just disappointed with myself (again) for not using the opportunity to practise a negotiation.I wasn’t looking to change jobs but got a recruiter message one day for a role in an industry I was really passionate about. The recruiter said on the phone, “Obviously as it’s in-house, it’ll be much better paid,” which hadn’t been obvious to me at all. I used all of the research from my botched negotiation before and gave a desired salary range starting at my target number, was offered £45,000 and bartered it up to £47,000. The actual role was great (as was the salary) but the company culture was awful and I decided to leave after less than a year.I spoke to a recruiter who was genuinely shocked by my previous salary and said I should never expect to match it so I adjusted my expectations to accept a drop if it meant a better culture. I ended up finding my role through Otta, which listed a general salary range starting at my previous salary. I felt confident giving a desired salary of £60,000, expecting to end up somewhere between the two. The company accepted (with £10,000 stock options on top) and I decided against negotiating – I know my salary is at the high end for my role and industry, and I didn’t want to argue for the sake of it. This role is my first to have proper salary transparency (candidates can see the exact ranges before they apply) and it means there’s really no doubt that we’re being paid well for our roles and industry.
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