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: 29 Location: London Current industry and job title: Senior policy advisor, government Current salary: £52,000 Number of years employed since school or university: Eight
Starting salary: £19,000 Biggest salary jump: £28,000 to £52,000 Biggest salary drop: £38,000 to £28,000
Biggest negotiation regret: At my first company I was offered a promotion and a pay rise of £1,000. Later I realised that a friend doing the same job for a different audience on a similar team had a more senior title and was being paid £5,000 more. I started to query it but didn’t push it as knew I would be leaving within the year. It also felt like a clear example of gender pay disparity in the workplace so I kick myself for not standing up for the obvious difference in our salaries.
Best salary advice: You never know when you’ll work with people again – or if they’ll be responsible for hiring – so always leave an excellent impression and keep the door open for the future. Several of my jobs have been through connections or my wider network.
I struggled after university to figure out what I could do. I thought this would be a suitable entry level role and also meant I was able to move out of my parents’ house and into London. My contract ended so after a brief spell of unemployment I changed jobs. I was applying for jobs absolutely everywhere and was happy with the starting salary and job I took.My company undertook a benchmarking exercise and found we were being paid less than the industry average so provided us with a raise. I felt like this was a lot of money at the time but looking back I felt taken advantage of, for the amount of work I did.I was offered a raise, given my experience and length of time at the company. Later I realised I should have negotiated, especially as a close team had a very similar role advertised at £34,000. My manager even told me when I left that I should have negotiated… *kicks self*I moved overseas and was thrilled with this job. I got the job through a huge amount of networking as it was hard for foreigners to get jobs in the country at the time. I changed sectors but had lots of transferable skills which made me appealing to the organisation. My company paid my pension as part of my paycheque as I wasn’t eligible for the state pension scheme, which was very unusual. I also only paid about £600 in tax each year so felt so wealthy in comparison to living in London.I moved back to the UK after getting a place on the UK civil service graduate scheme. I really struggled with the salary drop after such a high quality of life overseas but knew I wanted to be a permanent civil servant and this felt like the best route in. I was given lots of responsibilities but frustrated that I was paid less than people at my grade due to the additional learning and development you received on the scheme. L&D is great y’all but not when you’ve broken up with your boyfriend and have to move into a shared house for the first time in your late 20s. I knew I had more experience than many of the other people on the graduate scheme so began applying for jobs on promotion after a year (normally people do three years). Then the pandemic hit and all jobs stopped being advertised apart from temporary COVID response positions. I was lucky to get an interview with a team I knew and while I didn’t get the job I was ‘reserve listed’, which meant I could be fast-tracked into similar positions. I reached out to all my old colleagues, looking for suitable positions, and my old boss created a job for me.
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