[Sticky] Poll: What do you earn?

Living from disability benefits I’m in the £10k-£20k, so does that mean I’ll get targeted adds for charity shops, food banks etc?

Nah, weed and expensive credit

A big fat zero (currently unemployed). 👎 

Posted by: Rubber_Buccaneer

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Living from disability benefits I’m in the £10k-£20k, so does that mean I’ll get targeted adds for charity shops, food banks etc?

Nah, weed and expensive credit

Thanks, but I'm sorted for weed.....(I'm not really, so send it my way please as I can no longer grow. weed helps my spms....this pic was taken 15 years ago when my body was functional enough to tend to my plants)

😉

[img] [/img]

I'm a Firefighter so get what we get. Think it's about 37k now? Pension costs nearly £400 pm though so that makes a dent but then I get to retire early. Some opportunity for over time but not that much.

You can include your full time job too. 

Many people under 4( will be reducing their income by having to contributed 6-15%

Don't forget the student loans! That's another 15% if you took a postgraduate loan too

Only the shit ones. I was earning more than that 17 years ago when I took early retirement.

OK Bill Gates, you're my hero

Units - GBP?

Only the shit ones. I was earning more than that 17 years ago when I took early retirement.

Scotroutes - earnings in IT and IT-type roles, especially compared to others, have come down over the last couple of decades (based on my 40 years of working within 'IT', and still working).

I went back 'on the tools' after the Financial Crash and have only recently gone passed what I was earning 20 years ago (equivalent perm role).  Contract-wise roles like mine are paying what I was earning in the very early 2000's.

All those cliches about overpaid IT mtbers appear to be true!

Oi!

Some of us are overpaid in other sectors actually... 

Not sure how advanced this new polling function is yet, but it might have been interesting to see how wage, age and gender look combined for the STW demographic. 

My suspicion is that salaries (nationwide) still map in favour of us "stale, male and pale" types, but obviously my suspicions ain't facts... 

@FuzzyWuzzy - at least I'm IT literate enough to be able to use the Quote button.

@intheborders - intereresting. Thanks for the feedback. I know some ex-colleagues who've continuted to do comparatively well, but I guess a relatively stagnant salary might be expected now that ChatGPT can do the job for "free". 

Does anyone else think this is an exercise in adding info to their user profile for remarketing purposes?  I'm never comfortable with these sorts of 'polls' without knowing why and what is done with the data.

I'm a Firefighter so get what we get. Think it's about 37k now? Pension costs nearly £400 pm though so that makes a dent but then I get to retire early. Some opportunity for over time but not that much.

You can include your full time job too. 

Whilst filming Ambulances for the BBC and working in the joint Fire / Ambulance stations .....

One station on a night shift I was told I could sleep with the Firefighters in their rec room if I needed to, I didn't I had work to do.

Another station we were told to not work in the station overnight as it disturbed their sleep 😂

Do we need a Fire Brigade, yes. Do we also need to mock them for the amount of work they don't do, also yes 😂

Does anyone else think this is an exercise in adding info to their user profile for remarketing purposes?  I'm never comfortable with these sorts of 'polls' without knowing why and what is done with the data.

Probably / sort-of 

It's mentioned in the opening post.

The internet in general probably has a much more accurate idea anyway.  Google/ Facebook / X / others will know exaclty what ads you click on, what you pause to look at for more than a few seconds, and from that will have a pretty detailed view of your income and even what day your paid.  

STW knowing that only 15% of respondents earn less than the UK average is fairly crude data by comparison.  Although might help them sell more expensive adds than say MBUK where the average reader probably still receives pocket money.

Posted by: Daffy

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Quite a few people over 45 might be lucky enough to have a final salary pension which is paid almost entirely by their employer.

Such as?

Completed it for myself, which on the face of it is a decent amount (in the modal bracket at the time I'm writing this), but as a household income for a family of four, it doesn't go so far these days. 

I have a suspicion don't people may be adding household income

18+% of contributors on over £100k doesn't seem to fit the general feeling on here. I could be wrong 🤷

Posted by: thisisnotaspoon

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Another station we were told to not work in the station overnight as it disturbed their sleep 😂

Yeah I got told not to make a noise when coming in for our break when I worked shifts on a shared station. It had the opposite effect and they tried to ban me from returning to cover more shifts. 

Strange that the only person who was honest about their earnings and about the profession is the only one getting criticism. £37,000 for working shifts and weekends doesn’t appear excessive to me, perhaps we could have some honesty from some of the keyboard warriors on here too?

Such as?

Such as, what?

I was honest with my Salary

Whilst filming Ambulances for the BBC and working in the joint Fire / Ambulance stations .....

One station on a night shift I was told I could sleep with the Firefighters in their rec room if I needed to, I didn't I had work to do.

Another station we were told to not work in the station overnight as it disturbed their sleep 😂

Do we need a Fire Brigade, yes. Do we also need to mock them for the amount of work they don't do, also yes 😂

Water off a ducks back mate, quiet nights were a god send when the kids were infants! They tried to come after our beds once but when we said '"Fine, let's discuss the shift allowance you're going to pay, with the Police as a starting point" they went strangely off the idea.

You can include your full time job too. 

Don't have one, spend too much time playing with my bikes.

Nice. The way it should be, enjoy. 

Posted by: Daffy

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Quite a few people over 45 might be lucky enough to have a final salary pension

🤣 🤣 🤣 

I wish I was one of those few. Especially with the recent Trumpian chaos and its effects on investments.

Final salary schemes were already disappearing before the turn of the century. My option for one disappeared in about 2001. In every pension scheme I've been in there have been employee and employer contributions. Reasonably, several of those had compulsory employee contributions even before it was mandated.

Maybe more likely in public service but even there many pensions have changed so those over 45 are likely to have a mix of final salary and average earnings. For which they will have made contributions from their salaries too.

Gross salary is a reasonable measure to choose.

Pension is a different concept from salary. Perhaps you're getting at the 'total benefits' package idea espoused by employers who want to suggest that the £25,000 per year salary is more like £35,000 when you consider the employer pension contributions, benefits in kind, and other ways to make it feel like pay hasn't been stagnating in the UK for the past 20 years?

Current average (Based on mid range values and assuming all 200k+ are actually 200) after 500+ responses is £67k

Oi @scotroutes & @fuzzywuzzy 

How does this topic result in you both throwing insults at each other? Pack it in.

Huh. Apparently I earn less than I did 10 years ago, both in salary (before I left the UK) and in terms of inflation.

Not really sure I care too much about that though, my quality of life is a damn sight better than it was when I was in the UK.

Posted by: Mark Alker

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Current average (Based on mid range values and assuming all 200k+ are actually 200) after 500+ responses is £67k

I took a wrong turn in life somewhere! 😬 🤦‍♂️

Posted by: Daffy

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Such as?

Such as, what?

Such as which jobs attract a final salary where the employee doesn’t have to contribute?

I'm going to post a household income poll next week.

Such as which jobs attract a final salary where the employee doesn’t have to contribute?

Call me naive, but it had literally never occurred to me until today that this might ever have been a thing.

Really? No employee contributions??

I'm off to tap up my dad for £20

Very few places now have a zero contribution from employees. We have a Local Govt Scheme, which my employer puts in 16% plus, and we put in about 5%-8% depending on Salary. but many staff complain it's expensive - alot aren't considering the future as they can't afford things as they are.   

Personally we're on one salary as my wife only does a day a week in a local shop for minimum wage, as she's had some previous employers who were horrible, so she's taken a break - the job is in the area of her hobbies. I've still got two adult kids at home, but lucky no debt or mortgage now, so we manage OK. If the 'kids' ever get financially independent, I may look to retire !

I have never heard of one where it’s optional to contribute to the scheme, there may have been some but it’s probably extremely rare. 

Current average (Based on mid range values and assuming all 200k+ are actually 200) after 500+ responses is £67k

Median is your most valid estimate for "average" salary, and with over 500 samples, that is an accurate estimate. Trimmed mean is also possible, or just swap 200k to 400k and see how it changes. Don't use AVERAGE in XL though 😉 Median is in the 50-60k range, with 54.7% cumulative., so about £57k.

You didn't ask about full vs, part-time vs. retirement, but the UK median full-time salary in 2024 for full time employees was £37k. Hence the "average" STW responder to a survey on income earns about 50% more than the typical UK employee.

My final salary pension (which closed in 2021) was non-contributory. BUT if I made contributions it accrued faster (1/60th vs. 1/80th). Of course I contributed. Now in a defined contribution scheme.

Posted by: Rubber_Buccaneer

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All the tradesmen would like to know whether to include the cash in hand jobs?

It's only massively overcharging the IT workers who ask for cash in hand prices that allows me to go on 4 biking holidays a year!

 

 

Mine is entirely company paid with no contribution required, nor is there any optional component, but it's not as good as TiRed's as mine is only 1/100th and no way to alter that.  I can pay in additional voluntary contributions into an additional pot which the employer matches to a small value (4%, I think) and the max total contribution to this is 17% including the employer part. 

This is why I was saying this is a substantial potential component.  My employer lists is at 24-25% contribution, but it's somewhat irrelevant.  From my PoV it's the fact that there's no salary reduction to fund it.  I do pay into AVCs. but not as much as I possibly should.  

Posted by: TiRed

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You didn't ask about full vs, part-time vs. retirement, but the UK median full-time salary in 2024 for full time employees was £37k.

Does that matter? They only need to know how much cash you have to spend on mopeds eBikes! Not your shift pattern or where the money is coming from. 😀

It matters when one wants a valid comparator to published official statistics, but I agree, those eBikes won't buy themselves!

According to the ONS, the £200k threshold was met by approx 1% of workers. but 3% of STW respondents. That's likely to be a valid comparison since both are likely to be full time (or some STWs have the very best pensions). However, for full time workers the ONS first percentile is £12,800, hence the lowest band for STW is too high for FTEs.

Mine is entirely company paid with no contribution required, nor is there any optional component,

Very nice but I suspect you’ll be of a very tiny minority, not many companies did private pensions or if they did weren’t particularly great. Hope it works out well for you as it’s lovely having a bit of a fall back on retirement. 

My original employer had a non-contributory pension scheme, and a good one at that, but if you compared annual salary with other organisations, it appeared to be a bit low, so it all sort of balanced out.

I have never heard of one where it’s optional to contribute to the scheme, there may have been some but it’s probably extremely rare. 

My first full time job back in 86 was working on occupational pensions for a wide variety of companies and industries.  Final salary was the norm and low or no employee contributions also common, especially for manager grades and up.  Over the years I have seen various stupid government policy allow that situation to change to where we are now, defined contributions with a hefty dose of employee contribution for most.

Hope it works out well for you as it’s lovely having a bit of a fall back on retirement. 

With it being 1/100 it certainly does focus one’s attention on promotion prospects rather than simply riding out a comfy job to retirement.  It was a significant consideration in my recent application to a more senior position from a job which I actually love…much of the time.

So if my quick adding up is correct 60% of STW's earn 50k plus, probably would have guessed about that, based on general browsing of thread over the years.

An interesting metric to see would be level of earnings v number of posts to see which level has the most time.

cash in handjobs?

What sort of "tradesmen" are you talking about?

An interesting metric to see would be level of earnings v number of posts to see which level has the most time.

The individual results can’t be seen but it’s Ernielynch. 

It's mentioned in the opening post.

Ah didn't see that as the On the second page the poll comes up but not the text, sorry

Posted by: ScotRoutes

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Posted by: weeksy

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Yeah but none of them can afford £20 a month to watch Cycling

I wouldn't watch cycling on TV if you paid me £20 a month!

This. Watching the odd "sick edit" on youtube/pinkbike is ok and Red Bull Hardline is mildly interesting but any form of racing is dull as... Said it before and I'll say it again - its like motorsport. Brilliant to take part in, absolutely awful to watch.

Motorsport absolutely awful to watch aye right

Cricket,snooker and cycling I might agree on