Salary Story: My Leap Of Faith Paid Off & I’m Earning 13k More
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: 28 Location: Yorkshire Current industry and job title: Flood risk consultant Current salary: £38,000 Number of years employed since school or university: Six
Starting salary: £20,000 Biggest salary jump: £25,000 to £38,000 in 2021 Biggest salary drop: £31,000 to £25,000 in 2019
Biggest negotiation regret: I started a new role within the public sector. A few months in, they wanted to use my skills in another team and called it a ‘development opportunity’. I later realised they had me covering maternity leave for a colleague who had been paid on the grade above me and I was carrying out exactly the same work. I wish I had considered the opportunity more. I said yes and was appeasing as it was a fairly new role and I wanted to please people.
Best salary advice: Always negotiate. They always have a number they can push to, even if it is just a couple of grand more. Every little helps!
I signed up to a few recruitment agencies after university and took the first role they offered, which was luckily within my type of industry at £20,000.I found the recruitment agency that placed temps at a place I wanted to work at (through someone I knew who worked there). I managed to get an entry-level job, on a temp contract to begin with, at £22,000. It was a great foot in the door.I applied for a permanent role at the place where I was temping. My experience helped hugely and I had help from colleagues with the application and interview. Becoming a permanent member of staff employed by the organisation meant I got a lot more perks: a pay rise to £24,000, more holidays and flexi-time working, plus an excellent pension.I moved back to Yorkshire and decided it was worth the pay cut to £25,000 to be able to save money and buy a house. I applied for this job as I knew the manager at the company and had a chat with him – networking always comes in handy! People are usually happy to help even if you haven’t spoken in years. It’s worth an email or a call.Until now, all my roles had been in public sector organisations or local authority. There isn’t much room for negotiation in these types of workplaces, however there are usually good perks such as pensions and flexi-time working. I was fed up with my current role and my responsibilities didn’t reflect the pay. Once I told my manager I was leaving, he agreed with me on this! They blamed the pandemic and budgets for not being able to offer me more money.
I received a message on LinkedIn from a private consultancy who find you work secondments but you are permanently employed by them. This was a completely new field for me as I had not worked for a private consultancy before. I had a chat with them, they asked my salary expectations and I said around £32k. Before I knew it, they had found me a perfect role and offered an excellent package including a company car allowance. I did some research on the market value of my role and managed to negotiate a little more than they first offered as well. The company was so keen to have my skills, I didn’t even have a proper interview. I am a remote worker now so I don’t have any travel costs either, which is a huge bonus. I took a chance and went out of my comfort zone and I’m so happy I did.
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