Salary Story: I Was Told “No” To A Pay Rise… Until I Resigned
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: Sustainability communications manager, financial services Current salary: £62,000 Number of years employed since school or university: Eight
Starting salary: £21,000 in 2015. Biggest salary jump: From £45,000 to £62,000 in 2022. Biggest salary drop: N/A
Biggest negotiation regret: I should have pushed for a salary increase earlier. I knew I wasn’t earning enough, as I did a maternity cover role where I was expected to do the same amount of work but for significantly less pay.
Best salary advice:Discuss your salary. I got a significant increase because I found out my male colleague’s salary, which was totally out of line with mine. People often are coy or say not to compare yourself but I was open with my manager about the issue and it led to a pay rise for me.
I considered a master’s but chose a graduate scheme because it paid. I sort of fell into communications and really enjoyed it. The salary was £21,000, which was more or less average at the time. This was a job change at the end of my graduate programme and came with a small pay rise. Nothing groundbreaking but I was pleased with the increase. This was a promotion, which I requested as a next step in my career. It was partly prompted by me finding another job and considering leaving. I did this a few times throughout my career. In hindsight, it’s frustrating that often my well-deserved promotions or pay rises had to be prompted by me finding a new job elsewhere and the company I was already working for wanting me to stay. This was the next step on the career ladder. In some ways, these “new jobs” weren’t really new jobs as my small team didn’t recruit anyone new and I retained my old tasks on top of the new ones. I found out my male colleague was earning significantly more than me. I took this to my line manager, which I was very nervous about. I knew I deserved a pay rise and that I was more than achieving the same things as him. I presented my case to her rationally and calmly. This was a maternity cover I did to try and expand my horizons and consider different career options. I agreed to stay on the same wage despite the normal role-holder being paid more, which I regret given the workload in the end. This was a really helpful career step though as it got me thinking about the future of my career and taught me about something I definitely didn’t want to do! I finally decided it was time to leave my company and went through a recruiter. This was a significant pay jump and also a learning experience for me as my old company offered to match it. It made me realise that perhaps they didn’t value me enough. They were more than happy to match the higher salary when I was going to leave but had made no moves to give me a pay rise before that. I discovered that moving companies can often be the best opportunity for a major pay rise.
Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
