Salary Story: I Was Offered 12k More Elsewhere, So My Employer Matched It
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: 28 Location: Leeds Current industry and job title: UX, user research manager Current salary: £72,000 Number of years employed since school or university: Six
Starting salary: £16,000 in 2015 Biggest salary jump: £60,000 to £72,000 in 2021 Biggest salary drop: Never dropped, luckily
Biggest negotiation regret: When accepting the initial job offer with my current company I wish I had pushed for a higher salary. When I found out how much everybody else earns I felt very underpaid for the amount of work I was doing.
Best salary advice: When applying for jobs, never tell them your actual salary as if you’ve been with your current company a while you’re probably underpaid compared to the market. Tell them what you think you should be earning as your market value, then you’ll be offered a better salary.
I did a degree in sociology and wanted a role which allowed me to use what I’d learned in my degree.
I’d never heard of UX or the role I applied for but it was advertised on the university jobs board and sounded semi-relevant, and asked some preliminary questions about research best practice on the application.
I think I just stumbled into the industry at the right time, fortunately, and started as a UX practitioner on £16,000.
This company increased my pay to £18,000, then £23,000, before ending on £25,000 within the space of a few months. They promoted me and three other people to the same title – lead UX practitioner – but assigned us ‘secret levels’ where we were all paid different amounts based on our skills. Unfortunately for them we were all close friends so discussed this openly with each other and for this behaviour all four of us left for another company within a month of each other. The pay rise was due to the increased skill levels I had from doing the role for over two years (and being very underpaid compared to market rate).I was ready to get experience working in another company and switched to work for a consultancy working with the public sector. I thought £30,000 was a decent salary but as the company was contracting me out for a day rate and only paying me a salary I soon realised it wasn’t that great.This was a pay rise in my yearly review to £35,000. I asked for this much money and my company agreed. Soon after they tried to send me to work at the opposite end of the country for four days a week, so I left.As mentioned above, I moved roles as I felt my company was taking advantage and putting me in an unfair situation regarding work location. I took a role with a small pay increase to £37,000 but hated it and left after only four days.I went to work for a charity for £37,500. I was the first UR in this role and thought it had the potential to go places, however the company did a market review of salaries when I joined and said I was at the top end market-wise for this role. Therefore progression within the company became nonexistent. I left within a year.I took a role in a consultancy organisation I had previously worked in, however this time I had all the benefits of permanent staff on £45,700. It was a two-year fixed contract and so I knew that I needed to keep an eye on the job market. Add the fact that I joined the week COVID hit and we went into lockdown and I became concerned the job market wouldn’t bounce back. I was offered a permanent role somewhere else and left after three months.I wish I had negotiated more in this role as I was one of the more experienced on the team but I was just so happy to have a permanent role at £50,000 in a company with great benefits. I got the opportunity to take on a manager role, which was the experience I was really looking for in my career. My salary was bumped by £5,000 and then by another £5,000 within a month without me even asking. My manager clearly knew I was underpaid but I was just glad for the experience of getting to manage a team. Later on I realised I was managing people who were paid significantly more than me (and not worth it, if you ask me). I brought this up with my manager who said I wouldn’t be eligible for another pay rise until six months had passed.I handed in my notice to my manager for the reason mentioned above and the company counter-offered and matched the salary offer from my new company of £72,000. I didn’t want to leave so it was a win-win situation.
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