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Salary Story: I Always Find Out What The Maternity Package Is

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.

Age: 28
Location: West Midlands
Current industry and job title: Construction, Senior Engineer
Current salary: £45,000
Number of years employed since school or university: Seven
Starting salary: £21,500
Biggest salary jump: From £27,000 to £35,000 in 2021.
Biggest salary drop: From £26,000 to £20,800, as I took a 10% pay cut during the pandemic, then was furloughed in 2020.

Biggest negotiation regret: I asked to be promoted in 2019 as I was two years post graduating and was taking on the same responsibilities as project engineers (the next level above). I was told that I wouldn’t be recommended that year as my managers felt it was too soon. I accepted their decision at the time but in hindsight, I should have fought to be promoted. 2020 was a complete pause for me professionally due to furlough and I didn’t end up promoted until June 2021 when I had four years experience, despite colleagues being promoted with two years under them.

Best salary advice: Make sure you know your worth monetarily but also in terms of the benefits you get. I currently prioritise maternity support as my partner and I would like to have children in a few years and some companies in construction still have just statutory maternity pay.

Been in the workforce for at least five years and interested in contributing your salary story? Submit your information here. Published stories receive £100.

I had nothing to go on with whether this was a decent salary for the industry, but I had received the job offer based off work placements so hadn’t needed to formally apply or do any interviews. This felt like a huge win, so I accepted.
I had just finished my probation when the salary review came around, so I got a £1,500 raise. This was 7% and seemed reasonable to me so I accepted it without asking for more. I also got a £500 bonus which seemed very exciting!
I got another raise in my end-of-year review. I currently had about 18 months experience post-graduating so was happy with the raise. I was happy that the student loan repayment threshold kept moving ahead of my salary, so I wasn’t paying it back yet. The Christmas bonus also came in at £750.
I got another raise but no change in my job title as my managers thought I may not be ready. I spoke to them about the promotion in summer 2019 and ironically had fulfilled the items and knowledge they said was outstanding by Christmas for a title change, I felt fed up. My bonus was £750 again.

I was so disappointed that I didn’t even bring up pay. In hindsight, I had no idea how to advocate for myself at this point and no knowledge of market rates for my role. It definitely damaged my self confidence for a while.

My salary fluctuated from March 2020 to November 2020 due to a pay cut and furlough. I was living with my partner at this time and we rented a one bedroom flat, which helped me manage financially.
My new manager sat me down in my review and was confused as to why I still referred to myself as a graduate. It turned out I should have been promoted. The pay raise was the minimum 3% with £500 bonus due to Covid. I accepted it at the time, as I was starting to think about leaving.
The long-awaited promotion happened in the summer with both my managers vouching for me. The title change went smoothly but the salary took four negotiations. I had an offer from another firm at this point for £42,000, (but the benefits were not great at all) which helped.

It enabled me to have some leverage over my current company. My manager at this point also fought for me and refused some of the offers my company were going to present to me before I even saw them. I felt a bit dirty having to do it this way, but it worked and I ended up with a salary that I felt represented my worth.

My promotion came with a 10% payrise and my bonus paid out at nearly £1,500 for the year. A competitor offered me the same role on the same salary so it’s good to know I’m on industry standard now.

To get the promotion, I requested a meeting with my director and had read through the job description, putting together examples and evidence of how I fulfilled the role. Again, I was chatting to another company and had an offer that I could use to counter. I didn’t even get the chance to argue my case though as my director started the meeting by congratulating me on my new role. The salary matched the offer from the other company, so I decided to accept it and not bring up the other offer. I also get excellent benefits with my current employer so chose to stay.

I got my chartered engineer qualification this year, so on top of my pay rise and annual bonus, I got an additional £2,000 bonus.

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