My salary after 5 years working in the same company...

Hi everyone,

I'm after some opinions and advice, and possibly some reassurance here with a dilemma I am currently facing.

My brief backstory: I have been working for the same company, a family-run independent luxury jewellers, for 5 years now and I started working for the company straight after I finished my A-Levels in 2009 when I was 18. When I began I was employed as a sales consultant and I worked on the shop floor selling all varieties of jewellery and watches.

I was approached a couple of years ago to take on the task of managing our E-Commerce website, which at the time was brand new but very basic. I was working on our website (adding products, dealing with enquiries, completing web sales and posting deliveries) on the side of still working on the shop floor and serving customers. Fortunately because of the levels of engagement and sales going through it was a one man job for me at the time.

Last September (2013) I moved upstairs to the office to take on this roll full time and be in charge of our completely new website that has now been completed. I was the sole manager of this operation and although I did not "create" the site, I had a huge influence of how the site looked and performed. This is my current position and I am now titled as the IT & Communications Manager. I am a one man team and I do not have any assistants at all. Our company as a whole has approximately 50 employees across a few different store locations.

My role includes: adding products to the site, stock control of the products, processing sales and posting them out to clients, updating the images/advertisement banners on the homepage and category pages, using Photoshop CS6 to create these unique banners and images to look professional, photographing products in our light tent using a Canon DSLR and editing them using Photoshop (self taught), dealing directly with our other branches if they have a fault with their computer systems/tills, posting on all of our social media sites....I could go on. I am also called occasionally downstairs to serve customers if they are busy.

Now onto my questions. When I started working for the company as a sales consultant I was on a salary of £14,000 and I was happy at 18/19 receiving this amount. I am now 23 with five loyal years under my belt at the company working a much more important role and I am now receiving just £17,500 a year.

Please tell me if I am wasting my time here, it has hit me really hard recently and I feel that I am earning very little for my age and my position, I am actually quite embarrassed about it! In comparison my friends of a similar age are earning 20k+a year. I respect that your age does not reflect your salary however.

I know that all jobs are different, all employers are different and that you need to work hard for your money these days (which I feel I really do!) but is this time to move on to bigger and better things? Or do I stick it out and hope for the best...bearing in mind that I do actually enjoy my job, regardless of my salary.

Comments and personal experience welcome :smile:

Thank you!

Reply 1

Reue

Original post by tomtomwilliams

Comments and personal experience welcome :smile:

Thank you!

If you feel you're being underpaid: look for other jobs. Unless you can prove to your employer that you are worth more, they are unlikely to give you any meaningful raises.

A couple of years ago I got offered another job, went to hand in my notice and my current employer gave me an on the spot 25% pay rise.

My salary after 5 years working in the same company...

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