I am a terrible pedant.

So why do you keep using the term “average” instead of mean? (clearly my point wasn’t explicit enough for you)

I’d have whoever created the report publicly flogged.

Along with anybody with a post-grad degree in stats who continually uses the term “average” instead of mean?

glitchy bump

Why is a degree required? I can’t believe people will put themselves through uni for 3/4/5 years and then take that salary – it’s derisory.

The most shocking part is that it’s part funded by the EU! I dread to think what it’d be without their contribution.

PS. The median is as valid an average as the mean (or the mode for that matter). It is also the average the ONS use when quoting salaries as it’s less skewed by banks. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/12/pay-salaries-survey-ashe-ons

I dread to think what it’d be without their contribution.

Non-existent presumably.

Why is a degree required? I can’t believe people will put themselves through uni for 3/4/5 years and then take that salary – it’s derisory.

Sweet Jesus of Nazareth… 🙄

I went to uniservity to get an education, not simply to get a job paying £Xthousands of pounds a year.

I got what I went for, and would do it again in a heartbeat, even if I had to pay loads for doing so.

The experience gained from being in an environment with so many talented and intelligent people around you all the time, sharing ideas, learning new stuffs, cannot be commodified or quantified.

As for ‘they take anyone these days’; well, apart from me, the uni I went to din’t, they had very high standards indeed. Which is why so many foreign students were happy to pay thousands and thousands of pounds to go there. I’m well chuffed to have gone to such a wonderful place.

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.

And those of us who worked in engineering and got city and guilds and apprenticesghip indenturesthen and qualiifed as a craftsmen think differently.

Sadly nowadays just saying youre going to some technical college that is now rebranded as a uni, and geting some weird degree in a made up subject that you could study at night school or part time with a gulllable employer paying for the course is seen as great and good for the masses.

Then when you go to an employer with your bit of paper saying youve been book learning for 3 years reading about and writing about some weird subject, and he politely points out you dont have the relevant experience, or personality, or even relevat paper qualifications to do the job.

Welcome to the real world.

…actually, it’s even more concerning that somebody with a post-grad degree in stats trys to shoot down people’s shock that the “average” starting salary is £29k by pointing out that £29k is the median, when that actually means the average is even higher (and median is the correct average to use for salaries as it avoids the distortion created by a few earning silly amounts).

Why offer more than you need to get the right candidate? Only once the person is working for you do you find out if they’re right for the job and if you see them as adding significant value then you can reward that by increasing their salary or paying bonuses. Start too high and where are the affordable carrots?!

And those of us who worked in engineering and got city and guilds and apprenticesghip indenturesthen and qualiifed as a craftsmen think differently.

Think differently to what, that education is actually a Good Idea?

Don’t get what you’re on about. Please explain.

Jeez, really?

Yep. There are a lot of lawyers who aren’t earning megabucks.

And, of those that are earning piles of cash, there are (relatively) very few of them.

Elfin, peple who work in engineering think all this book learning, and interpretations and essay writing is just a load of words.

In engineering you buld something, and it must work, it cant be your interpretation of it may work, same with science you need to examine why it works or doesnt.

Yep. There are a lot of lawyers who aren’t earning megabucks.

I concur, I was doing some work in Garrigues, Madrid a few years ago and the young upcoming lawyers had ridiculous timetables including working Saturdays and Sundays and sod all pay.
Some of them would leave and have a very good name on their CV and become very wealthy, the others would stay on at Garrigues and become extremely wealthy.

I went to uniservity to get an education, not simply to get a job paying £Xthousands of pounds a year.

I presume you would think differently if you were paying £9000 a year? The 5 year MEng degree I took would have resulted in an astounding £45k debt! Just another way that those over 40 have made their children pay for their lifestyle.

Leaving that aside, I agree that I went to uni (paying ‘only’ £1200 a year) to get more than just an engineering education (ooo err) but if I were doing it again I would be thinking very very carefully about my job prospects at the end of it.

Elfin, peple who work in engineering think all this book learning, and interpretations and essay writing is just a load of words.

Ah, like my neighbour who calls himself an ‘engineer’, but who has little more than a rudimentary grasp of engineering principles, mathematics, physics and geometry.

He’s good at welding bits of metal together, making the odd raised bed out of old scaffold boards, but needed someone else to work out the angles for the corner brackets they had to have made.

Oh, and who said ‘no problem, I can just weld that up for you’, when my Dynatech frame came apart. I tried to explain that it was a titanium tube into a cromoly lug, but he simply said ‘So? It’s still steel, innit?’ 🙄

And then there’s people like my uncle who’s worked for NASA, the ESA amongst other major organisations, who’s had to read a shed load of books in order to do his job….

Engineer should be a protected term. I.e. you’re not an engineer unless you have at least a degree in the subject and an affiliation to a professional organisation.

Ah, like my neighbour who calls himself an ‘engineer’, but who has little more than a rudimentary grasp of engineering principles, mathematics, physics and geometry

A handy neighbour to have then.:-)

Engineer should be a protected term. I.e. you’re not an engineer unless you have at least a degree in the subject and an affiliation to a professional organisation.

Perhaps we could have a debate about this to clear it up once and for all.

don simon- ex sales engineer.

Not really; he’s got me to make him a cabinet, cos he ‘cant get his head round all the numbers and stuff’.

Not an engineer then. He’s a technician – nothing wrong with that either.

an affiliation to a professional organisation

Professional organisations are generally absolute rackets.

The job is part funded under an EC graduate placement scheme. It’s part funded for 14 weeks and then they are all ours 🙂

Just a thought are so many peoples lives so unfulfilled that they are complaining about a job they wouldn’t even apply for?

Fred – for £45k, I’d rather she went travelling the world for a couple of years. Far more educational and rewarding than spending 5 years getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties.

I’d rather she went travelling the world for a couple of years. Far more educational and rewarding than spending 5 years getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties.

Cos that would only be 2 years spent getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties?

Why is a degree required? I can’t believe people will put themselves through uni for 3/4/5 years and then take that salary – it’s derisory.

Because just by getting a degree you do not become entitled to anything.

You make yourself more appealing to some employers, and you learn some stuff, but it does not entitle you to anything.

To say that salary is derisory is more insulting to all the intelligent hard working people without degrees. Do you think they deserve less because they don’t have the paper work?

*Yes I have a degree, I still think I should be evaluated and employed on my demonstrable experience and skills and do not think I should be paid more for having a degree, it’s just a bit of evidence that I can learn and apply myself.

**Masters in Physics if you must know, and no, I don’t work in and industry where I can make use of it.

I’d rather she went travelling the world for a couple of years. Far more educational and rewarding than spending 5 years getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties.

Cos that would only be 2 years spent getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties?

😆

STR; without your household income (that you are so often keen to tell us about), I would’ve thought that you could now be putting money aside for when your daughter is old enough to make her own decision. That way, she won’t be saddled with such debt.

Your view of what a university education is actually really like is ignorant and narrow minded. But then, you’ve never bin, so how would you know what it’s actually about? Far better, to form your own misconceptions based on misinformation and prejudice, eh?

Education can of course be found in many forms, and in many places. Maybe travelling for two years would be better for her personally, than 3-5 years in uni. But how do you know this?

Better to at least allow her the opportunity and luxury of choice, eh, than making up her mind for her already based on your own narrow view.

Professional organisations are generally absolute rackets.

I agree but in the absence of a better solution, if you were looking to differentiate between people that fix things and people that do engineering it would be a good place to start.

Oh ffs, give over Fred. Did you not bother reading my first post “unless of course she really wants to go”. Your endless search for an argument is getting a bit bloody boring now, grow up.

I think most art&design grads would be happy with that salary – I graduate in May and I feel rather underprepared for the ‘real world’, so I think the opportunity and experience offered by such a job would be worth it and then some. If I wasn’t still finishing Uni I’d be applying straight away

Rather depressed by this thread now! (but at least I haven’t paid 9,000 a year for the privilege of earning peanuts)

Personally it’s quite refreshing to see complaints about a wage being too low.

Far more educational and rewarding than spending 5 years getting shitfaced, smoking weed and attending dubious parties.

That’s exactly what I spent all my time doing on my engineering degree – anybody would have thought you were there.

Can we have the student loans debate again please? The one where we point out that if you are on a low wage, “paying” £9k a year is kind of irrelevant.

Did you not bother reading my first post “unless of course she really wants to go”

Yeah I did, but I also read this:

I will be actively discouraging my daughter to go to Uni

So, quite contradictory then, and it seems you’re more intent on foisting your prejudices onto your daughter, than you are in allowing her to grow up to be the person she wants to be herself. As though you’d prefer to mould her in your own image.

Your endless search for an argument is getting a bit bloody boring now, grow up.

I’m merely challenging what I consider to be a very ignorant and negative attitude towards university education. It’s a public forum. I’m quite mature enough I think to be able to engage in intelligent discussion with others. 🙂

You have no experience of a university education, yet you’d ‘actively discourage’ your own child from exploring an avenue you yourself have not even bin down?

Why?

Ewan, your other differentiator was that engineers should have a degree though. Plenty of fantastic engineers don’t.

A few yrs ago that sort of money would have allowed you to buy a small house in Tod and not live too badly. Unfortunately house prices and rents have gone through the roof.

however, i’m once again struck by how out of touch the STW ‘intelligentsia’ actually are, £15’000 is a livable wage for many people at the moment.

I could reply Fred, but I really can’t be arsed with you today.

Actively discouraging ….. Great role model

So is your daughter going to be an electrician too ?

I’d actually be very interested in your views, as they echo those of the parents of various friends of mine who struggled to get themselves to university despite parental adversity. Then suffered a great deal of familial hostility, in some cases to the point of having to lose contact with those they loved.

I find it depressing that people can be so ideologically opposed to something they themselves have no experience of.

Ewan, your other differentiator was that engineers should have a degree though. Plenty of fantastic engineers don’t.

Really? I’ve come across a few who didn’t go to uni, but generally they’ve all got degrees – where else do you get that level of knowledge? I certainly couldn’t do certain aspects of my job without making use of stuff I learnt doing my degree.

FWIW I’ve also interviewed graduates who appear to have already forgotten everything they learnt on their degree.

Muddydwarf i dont doubt 15,600 to be a livable wage

2 years ago i worked in alpine bikes for 11k a year and my mrs was doing a pgde at the uni Renting a flat in aberdeen

I didnt think times were too tough tbh … You could never buy a house on it but buying a house isnt a god given right

Cut your cloth to suit your means not your wants !

What is an engineer though – the guy who sits behind the desk all day designing the equipment – but ime doesnt know how to put it together . The guy who can take a drawing and turn it into reality ? The guy who can put a system of ready designed parts together to solve a problem ?

Or simply the guy who given a problem can supply a safe , long term solution to fit the criteria and regulations ?