Indeed aracer
Left to the engineers we'd still be riding around on steel rigid bikes with thumb shifters and U brakes....
I think you're getting confused about the input engineers and designers have to product development.
[i]Left to the engineers we'd still be riding around on steel rigid bikes with thumb shifters and U brakes....[/i]
Yes, the impact of graphic designers on bicycle technology is criminally under-rated... 🙄
After three years at uni, I was thrown straight into doing exactly the same job as highly experienced staff.
Yeah but Mike you were taught by Teachers to do Teaching? (might be wrong, assumptions again) So you'd expect them to totally up to speed as to what is required.
Problem is Uni's are behind industry with the courses they just don't move fast enough. (old techniques, old software) Especially in digital industries which are moving so fast that it's hard for companies to keep up.
We are seeing computer science grads still using tables in HTML still 😐
I've just learnt the hard way that its not all about the money.....
Unless things change considerably in the next 6-7 years I will be actively discouraging my daughter to go to Uni, unless of course she really wants to. Both me and Mrs STR have our own businesses, left school at 16 and seem to be doing ok.
We are seeing computer science grads still using tables in HTML still
Indeed - had numerous job applicants saying they 'proficient with table based layout' 😯
Oh well, so the only job really worth anything are being a binman & brain surgeons then! I'm sure we could do without most jobs that people on here do!
TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR - I'm with you on this one. I'd say that the amount of debt a degree will leave you in is never going to give you that much benefit in a career like graphic design.
What would you be looking at now £50k of debt? And I can't see a starting salary above what we're talking about here
I think ultimately, what we're witnessing now is the complete restructuring of our entire education system. The implications are going to be HUGE within say ten years
I'm sure we could do without most jobs that people on here do!
Yep, my job is pointless, it's like the arms race though in that way. We'd all have to agree to stop.
njee20 - MemberAverage graduate salaries are £29,000!!
Bollocks they are. I live in the South-East, work in London, graduated 3 years ago and don't know of anyone who got a graduate job anything like that!
The multinational where I work (in the South East) pays grads £15k, or £18,700 in Central London!
Ow I agree! When I moved down to London I was looking at the average wage for a grad Surveyor down here, and it was around £23,000pa
Hmmm on graduation in 2000 I started on 12,600 so I think that's an ok wage for a junior.
I'm more astounded that a degree is deemed necessary for such a post. Are degrees so devalued nowadays?
as ive said before if you go to uni either go into a course that will make you money or a course that will let you do something you love
i know too many folk that did geography/fine art/ product design and are working for peanuts despite 4 years of graft.
all my friends that did beng engineering have all got jobs on or around the graduate average of 29k.....
I'm more astounded that a degree is deemed necessary for such a post. Are degrees so devalued nowadays?
When there are close on 3 million unemployed, no degree, no interview.
Its bloody stupid, but its been heading that way for years. With tuition fees now, our whole education system needs to fundamentally change. And industries attitude to providing training.
The onus for training and education, and associated costs, has been shouldered entirely by the individual. Companies have reaped the benefits of this in highly qualified and skilled staff without contributing a penny to said education or training. They now need to start paying for some of that with apprenticeships etc. The deal has been too one sided for too long.
The simple fact is, people can no longer afford to pay for that education themselves. So industry needs to start re-thinking its aproach, or its ready supply of highly qualified and skilled staff is about to start drying up
This whole average graduate salary = 29K thing is NOT in any sense the 'average' graduate salary.
It's the average paid by the top 100 or so blue chip graduate employers and is skewed by the likes of Goldman Sachs who pay you your own weight in Faberge eggs.
the graduate average...
Always used to be the average of salaries for graduates on graduate schemes. A fraction of total graduates in any one year.
The actual graduate average includes all those that go into 'business support' roles and is much harder to establish.
What he said^^
The onus for training and education, and associated costs, has been shouldered entirely by the individual. Companies have reaped the benefits of this in highly qualified and skilled staff. They now need to start paying for some of that with apprenticeships etc. The deal has been too one sided for too long.
We are going off on one now, ...okay I agree but the problem is that employees are much more transient now. They move around much more especially when younger <30. This is a good thing I think for the individuals but makes it harder for a business case to invest heavily in people.
Times are hard so your always going to look for the person with the skills already or if you are going to invest time and training then there is a salary pay off.
+1It's the average paid by the top 100 or so blue chip graduate employers and is skewed by the likes of Goldman Sachs who pay you your own weight in Faberge eggs.
Got a few mates who strolled out of Uni into 50k+ positions a few years ago. Most of us didn't get half that though in London/SE.
The STW salary does seem about right in the current climate, most design and engineering grads have f-all practical experience and take a good while before they can earn their employers any money.
I'd say that the amount of debt a degree will leave you in is never going to give you that much benefit in a career like graphic design
Bit short sighted, if you're prepared to work hard and have talent you could be potentially earning 30k-100k in London pretty quickly, obviously that's working up the ranks, junior>middleweight>senior>art director>creative director, don't necessarily approve of the career path and titles but it's the way the creative industry works, I would also say the creative industry is pretty buoyant still, yes some large and small agencies have let people go, but from where I'm sitting there's a lot of freelancers out there in full employment, sometimes earning more than fulltime employees.
I never understand where that graduate figure comes from either. There are a few companies that pay a lot (Aldi, Accenture) but most othergood ones these days seem to be around the 25k mark (multinationals like GSK, L'oreal, P and G) for the type of job I was looking for. There are plenty that pay less. I've seen them lower than £20,000 on a regular basis. Interestingly Accenture take you on with no experience and a degree that is not even relevant to their core business of IT.
Given what they are offering I wouldn't even apply but them I'm a chemist not a graphic designer so maybe I have more choice? I didn't even apply to jobs offering less than £20,000 (in 2006 and times have changed).
[b]29K IS NOT THE AVERAGE, IT'S THE MEDIAN, WHICH IS THE MID POINT IN THE RANGE OF SALARIES ON OFFER, NOT THE AVERAGE AMOUNT EARNED[/b]
Yeah but Mike you were taught by Teachers to do Teaching? (might be wrong, assumptions again) So you'd expect them to totally up to speed as to what is required.
None of my education lecturers had been in a classroom for years. (In fact, a large part of me degree was in the physics department which didn't really help with primary teaching.) But, we went into schools on placements.
Problem is Uni's are behind industry with the courses they just don't move fast enough. (old techniques, old software) Especially in digital industries which are moving so fast that it's hard for companies to keep up.
Teesside uni's computing department is absolutely bang up to date software-wise. In fact, they're probably ahead of industry. Even in my sixth form college, we use up-to-date software (CS4 and will be upgrading to CS5 in the summer).
We are seeing computer science grads still using tables in HTML still
I did a 1 year post-grad ICT course in 2002. We were told we'd need to know HTML in the second semester's web engineering class so make sure we know it by then, so we weren't taught it at all. I didn't use tables even then.
I think some graphic design and computer science lecturers need to have a word with themselves. One good thing about the tuition fees is that students aren't going to put up with crap courses any more.
Rewski - I presume you're talking about London. The creative industry may well be pretty buoyant there still. It isn't anywhere else. It most certainly isn't in the North West of England (where this job is).
And I wouldn't think anyone outside London is earning anywhere even remotely approaching £100k in any creative industry. I'd be gob-smacked if they were
29K IS NOT THE AVERAGE, IT'S THE MEDIAN, WHICH IS THE MID POINT IN THE RANGE OF SALARIES ON OFFER, NOT THE AVERAGE AMOUNT EARNED
WRONG! the median is an average. You're thinking of the mean
BoardinBob - Member
29K IS NOT THE AVERAGE, IT'S THE MEDIAN, WHICH IS THE MID POINT IN THE RANGE OF SALARIES ON OFFER, NOT THE AVERAGE AMOUNT EARNED
I think maths education may need to be improved also 🙂
typing rubbish
I'd say that the amount of debt a degree will leave you in is never going to give you that much benefit in a career like graphic design.
Depends on your attitude to student debt. With a £15.6k salary the debt is meaningless as you'll not be paying anything towards it.
WRONG! the median is an average. You're thinking of the mean
I think maths education may need to be improved also
http://www.mathsisfun.com/median.html
The Median is the "middle number" (in a sorted list of numbers).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median
The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to highest value and picking the middle one
http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/glossary/mean.html
Middle value of a list.
From the original link
Starting salaries at the UK’s leading graduate employers in 2011 are expected to
remain unchanged from 2010 levels – [b]a median of £29,000[/b]. Salaries increased by
7.4% in 2010 and 5.9% in 2009.
Tiger6791 - Actually... I'm talking crap. For a change. Mate of mine, who did the same course as me is now earning over double that in fashion design! He's a minority of one though
IT worker in shock at what most people consider a decent graduate wage!!
Looking at the report I can't believe that it's the proper median either.
Based on the % of roles that fall in each banding it seems highly unlikely that it could be £29k.
My guess is that it's the median calculated assuming that there is just one position at each salary point.
Minimum permitted salary for trainee solicitors is £16,690.
Which is for two years after a min of 3 years at university and 1 or 2 years post grad (where fees are between £10k and £20k).
Average salary for solicitors in the UK (in 2010) was £42k. (EDIT: Apparently median being £35k.)
I'd still rather be colouring in for a living....
My guess is that it's the median calculated assuming that there is just one position at each salary point.
That is the problem. It's a crap report and the £29k thing is very misleading.
BoardingBob, you got mean wrong again. Re-read that .ox.ac.uk link
MEAN
The average value, calculated by adding all the observations and dividing by the number of observations.
binners - yep I did say London. A creative at a major global agency has the potential to earn a lot of money, there's a fair few northern designers in London town.
Totally agree... do you see my point at why it's unlikely that the true median is £29k?
Generally across a large sample the median and the mean become pretty close.
The report, as you've mentioned, is further misleading as it only looks at a small sample of graduates.
BoardingBob, you got mean wrong again. Re-read that .ox.ac.uk link
I didn't get anything wrong.
The original report states the [b]median[/b] is £29k
Median does not equal the average
Say you have three graduates
1st person earns £30k
2nd person earns £40k
3rd person earns £60k
The mean is £43,333.33
The median is £40,000
"It's the average paid by the top 100 or so blue chip graduate employers"
neither blue chip nor top 100 employers.
seems like a normal wage for a graduate my industry tbh .... therre were 14 of us on my course and all of us work for different companies - all earning similar money at the start
some of us work designing cash registers , some for BAE systems , some in oil industry
Jeez, really?Average salary for solicitors in the UK (in 2010) was £42k.
I left school with a hanful of GCSE's and got a trade - electrician.
At 17 (23 years ago) I was earning between 2.5-5k pa, but spending half my time at college
At 25 (graduate age), 15 years ago, I was earning around £25k pa
At 35 I was earning £35k pa, plus car etc
By the time I took redundancy from a Contract Managers position aged 38, I was earning £40k + with car, healthcare etc.
I now work for myself and have no idea what I've earned over the past year (books to be sorted over Christmas), but I'd say it's in excess of £50k. I'm actually doing what I was 15-20 years ago, back on the tools, but zero stress and not minding my job.
Not going to Uni hasn't hampered me.
Mrs STR earns around £25k for working 3.5 days a week - cutting mens hair.
A flaming will ensue for talking about salaries, but hey ho - just highlighting why I'm not concerned that I didn't further my education. It's not something I get hung up about and was quite happy talking about it when I earned sod all.
I'm not arguing with you Rewski. I'm just saying: what percentage of graduate designers end up working at senior creative level at a major global agency? 1% tops, maybe?
That like saying all all footballers earn a fortune because Wayne Rooney does. I'm sure the reserve goalkeeper at Charlton Athletic would take issue with you.
As an aside could one of the web experts tell me how to present a grid of information on a webpage without using html tables?
£25K for cutting hair 3 days a week.
I'm in the wrong job 😆
Median does not equal the average
If you're doing proof by link to wiki, how about this one (I had to search very, very hard to find it 🙄 )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average
There are many different descriptive statistics that can be chosen as a measurement of the central tendency of the data items. These include arithmetic mean, the median and the mode.
As an aside could one of the web experts tell me how to present a grid of information on a webpage without using html tables?
If it's tabular data, then use a table - we're not saying they're bad to use. Just wrong to use to layout a page design.
As an aside could one of the web experts tell me how to present a grid of information on a webpage without using html tables?
Why would you not use a table? Tables for presenting tabular information are fine.
Not going to Uni hasn't hampered me.
Me either, but I regret not going for a few reasons.
(experience, friends, etc.)
As an aside could one of the web experts tell me how to present a grid of information on a webpage without using html tables?
That would be the correct use of tables.
If your talking about grid systems see 960 grid, Bootstrap etc.
Median does not equal the average
It's [i]an[/i] average.
Colloquially, when people say average it's generally assumed that they mean the arithmetic mean.
But, there are lots of different averages and the misunderstanding of them was one of the reasons why people distrust statistics.
Median does not equal the averageIt's an average.
It is, but the layman doesn't interpret it that way.
However, a degree in engineering, a post graduate degree in statistics and research methods and currently holding a role as the head of pricing for Europe, the Middle East and Asia for the 4th largest private health insurer in the world, means I'm fairly confident I can distinguish between mean and median...
took me 3 years to get a design job after graduating in 2008, nowhere near average salary, interest on my student loan accrues faster than anything i pay off it,
blame the uni's for churning out low quality degrees (mine was certainly one of these), selling kids a dream that is fantasy (no different to cowell and x-factor, I am never going to design for Apple ffs)
employers are just not interested in training, watched an interview on newsnight a couple of weeks back about trying to boost manufacturing/engineering, boss of a big firm said i see engineering grads driving taxi's and working in McDs, we need money to train the guys out of uni,
most job vacancies are 80% advertising and 20% actual requirement (i wonder how many recruitment and design sites are linking to the job advert on STW)
Essential Skills…A graduate with good working knowledge of Adobe Design Suite software, specifically InDesign.
Web development skills particularly HTML and CSSDesirable Skills…
Video production using iMovie or Final Cut Pro
Experience of programming languages eg. Cocoa/Xcode, JavaScript, PHP
Interest in mountain biking (having a passion for the content drives innovation and creativity)The deal…
Full time
Starting Salary £15.6k
Going back to the OP - That's quite alot of skills for £15.5k!!
Sometimes I think companies put all the technical language requirements down without realising quite how much time it takes to learn it. HTML is easy to pick up, as is CSS, to be proficient in takes a bit of time.
However, then going on to ask for cocoa, javascript and php! Are you serious? for £15.5k?!
a degree in engineering, a post graduate degree in statistics and research methods and currently holding a role as the head of pricing for Europe, the Middle East and Asia for the 4th largest private health insurer in the world, means I'm fairly confident I can distinguish between mean and median...
But didn't result in you learning that median is an average 😯
"employers are just not interested in training, watched an interview on newsnight a couple of weeks back about trying to boost manufacturing/engineering, boss of a big firm said i see engineering grads driving taxi's and working in McDs, we need money to train the guys out of uni"
agreed.
i got lucky when i left uni -when drunk on a plane my boss turned round and said - yep you had a degree but what got you the job was the fact your called terry (so is he) and the fact you got off your arse and self funded a trip cycling round new zealand (one of my interview questions was regarding what id done with the year missing on my employment record)
If i actually knew what the job of junior designer involved and i had the relevant experience, i would move to Toddy, and work there, earning a salary and working with people who are obviously into their subject, eg bikes and riding, would be a big draw,just from reading the mag and forum you see what a talented lot they are, and to get paid,even if its a lower wage than you want, think of the experience, and the buzz.
Found a linky
http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/come-work-with-us-junior-designer-wanted/
Does making a decent cup of tea feature on the application form.
its also a starting salary though ....
But didn't result in you learning that median is an average
Sigh.
I'm not disputing that, but people are under the impression that the average salary per person is £29k but the report doesn't say that.
a degree in engineering, a post graduate degree in statistics and research methods and currently holding a role as the head of pricing for Europe, the Middle East and Asia for the 4th largest private health insurer in the world
Does that mean you're business core? 🙂
Does that mean you're business core?
more like business c0ck
Someone's got to be 🙂
That's quite alot of skills for £15.5k!!
Welcome to he modern jobs market. Graphics especially. It used to specialist areas. Now every employer wants the lot.
A really high conceptual level of Design for print - typography, magazine layout - (with all associated repro knowledge of course), and knowledge of EVERY software package to a very high degree. Then web design too, including basic level programming, Flash animation, video production, etc etc
If you don't tick all these boxes, you're ****ed!
However, then going on to ask for cocoa, javascript and php! Are you serious? for £15.5k?!
Yes, Imagine they are serious. Sounds fine to me. They are listing desirable skills there so that a potential applicant can decide whether it's the sort of post that would suite them.
Plus they are asking for 'experience of javascript' rather than 'an experienced javascript programmer' which are somewhat different things!
£15k sounds like a fair sum for a junior role in a tiny company in the North. Especially one where the subject is vaguely interesting and there'll be lots of opportunities to expand your experience. Small firms offer steep learning curves.
Fact is, anybody in the creative professions in the UK has to accept that there are thousands of equally skilled, hungry young grads out there who'll do your job for less. If you can't handle that competition, you should probably go and become a tube driver or binman. It's supply and demand. You get better pay by building your contacts and your skills, going beyond the call of duty etc. if this job is like my first job (19k in London), you'll do exactly that. And I'm sure junior doctors have a tougher time.
£25K for cutting hair 3 days a week.I'm in the wrong job
She does extras 😉
lets turn it round a minute, would you spend 1.5k on bike that'll do a bit of everything from a unknown manufacturer, in a marketplace awash with similar or better spec'd kit from companies with a longer trading history for less money?
Any item or person is only worth what the market place will pay at at that time, if it doesn't sell or you can't get a job because of unrealistic wage expectations that your problem not the industries
binners - yeh I know, I just think that any opportunity should be encouraged, you never know what it leads too. I'm not driven by money, I would say most designers aren't, I was just pointing out that salaries have the potential to be pretty high.
Plus they are asking for 'experience of javascript' rather than 'an experienced javascript programmer' which are somewhat different things!
True, however this comes across as a 'jack of all trades, master of none' approach... I see plenty of job ads were they list dozens of required languages, applications and skills required because normally the employer has no idea what that job really entails, so they list them all as a 'catch all'.
In this instance how is someone who's into design (and probably going to have just spent 3 years at uni) going to have experience to a usable level in cocoa/Xcode? And why request it? Are they going to be getting this junior to knock up a couple of iPhone apps, while maintaining their server side code, designing and building a new front end to the site 😀
Rewski - I agree with you. I said in one of my first posts that Junior Designer can be Art Director in a relatively short timescale indeed. It did for me. Though without the huge salery 🙁 There's certainly potential. But like you said, if you were after money, you wouldn't become a designer. Its a bloody great job though. I love it! Still! 😀
Seems entirely fair to me. One of my friends took on a recent design grad for less money and what's likely to be less interesting work. He himself wasn't paid all that much for his first job (working for the original Singletrack designers) but got experience (and biking freebies) out of it so he now runs his own company and seems to be doing ok.
I'll drink to that 😉Its a bloody great job though. I love it! Still!
CBA reading all that, spesct I've probbly read it all in some form or another, but why is it that people seem to automatically expect graduates to earn loads more than everyone else, instantly after leaving uni?
S'all that Class thing, in't it; a degree once marked you out as a member of an elite. Now, there's so many other people out there as equally qualified as yourself, that competition for jobs is far higher, and wages subsequently significantly lower.
Graphic design is one of those industries which are little more than a self-perpetuating bullshit machine. Their 'importance' in society is overshadowed by the greed of many of those who work in it. Oh look, the bubble has burst, suddenly Graphic designers aren't as 'important' any more, and people don't want to spend as much money on stuff. Maybe they've just woken up and seen the Emperor is in fact naked.
There's some incredible talent out there in the world of Design, and there's an awful lot of 'let's follow the trends and just make up some crap we can fool people into thinking is cool'.
The Lympic Branding is a perfect example of this. It's rubbish, and quite frankly cooduv bin thought up by an idiot with absolutely no talent for actual design whatsoever. Actually, it probably was, let's be honest.
Graphic Design is one of those ultimately superfluous industries that will always be at the mercy of the market; recession equals less money to spend on colouring things in. 'We'll just stick with the current branding, if it ain't broke...'
Don't get me wrong, I've loved my time dabbling in the world of Graphic design, and I love being immersed in such a creative, fun world. But I'm bored with it now, and there's no money in it for someone like me right now, so I've moved into product design and manufacture. 😀 It's much easier to sell a tangible thing, than an idea.
But we need people to come up with ideas, or we end up stagnating.
Sounds like a reasonable starting salary to me. If I lived up that way, it's something I'd certainly be inertested in, if I were a fresh young graduate. Considering ST is a relatively small circulation special inertest mayg, I think it's pretty decent tbh. You could live ok up there on that, speshly if yer young and not settled down with mortgage etc. I doubt it would be anywhere near as demanding and hectic as woking for a London-based company, where you'd get paid barely anything more at that level, and have much higher living costs.
It"s a job, with a salary which for many teens and grads is a rare thing. I doubt they'll struggle to fill it.
If it's tabular data, then use a table - we're not saying they're bad to use. Just wrong to use to layout a page design.
Great, thanks (and thanks to all the other posters too) - I have some tabular data I need to present as part of a webpage (14 rows x 12 columns) - it's currently done using a HTML table but I can't help feeling there is a more elegant solution out there 🙂
it's currently done using a HTML table but I can't help feeling there is a more elegant solution out there
Nope - it's semantically correct.
Unless things change considerably in the next 6-7 years I will be actively discouraging my daughter to go to Uni, unless of course she really wants to. Both me and Mrs STR have our own businesses, left school at 16 and seem to be doing ok.
I find this kind of attitude quite depressing. You have no idea of what a university education can actually give a person, so why be so opposed to the idea for someone else?
Why do so many people think that degree = money, or not, as the case may be? Why's it always about money? Is that the one and only thing that matters in your life?
Education is about exercising and expaynding the mind, allowing the brain to develop, and the person to be able to have more choices in life than they otherwise wooduv done.
STR; what happens if you or your wife (or even both, God forbid), suddenly lose the ability to do your jobs, through injury or illness? What are your fall-back options?
A university education should never be seen as a route to wealth, but as the key to unlock many more doors than you may have been able to otherwise.
people are under the impression that the average salary per person is £29k but the report doesn't say that.
Actually, yes it does.
The irony being that it appears you're complaining about people not using the correct precise terms...
Why do so many people think that degree = money, or not, as the case may be? Why's it always about money? Is that the one and only thing that matters in your life?
Education is about exercising and expaynding the mind, allowing the brain to develop, and the person to be able to have more choices in life than they otherwise wooduv done.
I think it's about how much is costs to attend university and the quality you receive from it. Uni isn't the only place for education, if a person wants to learn, they can do it anywhere - from a laptop, the other side of the world.
If I was at the stage again of deciding to go to uni or not - in the current climate, and how much it costs, I don't think I'd bother. I think I'd look at getting involved in volunteer work - or trying to find a mentor, and being self taught.
Having a degree will go back to the old days - originally a degree indicated some level of intelligence, as uni's tended to only accept bright students. Now, they accept almost anyone.
So the difference is going to be, not if you're smart enough to have a degree, but if you're rich enough, or have sufficiently run up enough debt.
Uni isn't the only place for education
True, but it's a bloody good one though, and I find it quite sad that someone who has no personal experience of it would be actively opposed to their own child going.
Having bin myself, if I were faced with the financial impact of going to uni now, I'd still do it. In a flash. Cos you simply can't put a price on that experience.
The irony being that it appears you're complaining about people not using the correct precise terms...
I am a terrible pedant. From my engineering background, I get very annoyed when people talk about how much they weigh, though I stop short of telling them they are talking about mass rather than weight.
The report really is misleading. It refers to the median twice as being £29k, then the average as £29k.
I'd have whoever created the report publicly flogged.