18K after 7 years

OP

Its the trend I was picking up on, not the specifics. Pay is definitely coming down quite quickly, as you would expect when you are faced with the a huge imbalance of supply and demand of staff.

Living on £15K net in London - no thanks! You've still got council tax, then utilities, travel, food costs, and above all, rent, that are going up about 5% every 6 months these days.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 4

yeahyeahyeahs

How bad is it to live off £15k?

I'm currently living off student loans of £4k for the whole uni year besides rent and bills. You can live in london, just about....

You wont have your own flat, but you can easily share.

Reply 5

Quiller

10

yeahyeahyeahs

How bad is it to live off £15k?

I'm currently living off student loans of £4k for the whole uni year besides rent and bills. You can live in london, just about....

You wont have your own flat, but you can easily share.

Well it just sets an appalling precedent doesn't it. 15K net is nothing, sharing may be fine in the short term, but at what point do you become sick of earning so little and sharing a flat when you may have a partner and want to save a bit for a deposit on a house (god help you) 3-4 years down the line? Two or Three? Most people will be 27-28 by then and sharing becomes a bit of a drag.

How many years is it going to take of working before you're earning 25K and level with what you should have earned straight after part II, are you going to have enough to start paying into a pension, a bit set aside incase you're made redundant or need to fix a broken boiler. The bigger picture is it devalues the profession and devalues our time - this is a one way road, salaries aren't magically going to go up again now. This is it.

I've got friends now who graduated a year or two ago who have jobs as headhunters/ recruitment consultants earning 50-80K. Another is a Lloyds broker and doing very well indeed. It's true money doesn't make you happy, but 15K net for 5 years full time study takes the piss. I'm just hoping I haven't ruled myself out of one of these graduate training schemes by studying architecture, because soulless though these jobs may be, I'd quite like to be paid a decent wage that'll mean I can look after my family and give my kids the same opportunities I had.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 6

OP

Quiller's points are spot on. £15K net after 6-7 years study / some work is a very slippery slope. As he rightly points out, your starting salary will be key to determining what you are earning in 10 years time. Salary rises are thin on the ground anyway, so you face the prospect of earning £22K gross or less when you're Part III qualified with 5 years experience at this rate. That's 10-12 years in earning £22K gross.

You may be able to cope on £4K besides rent and bills when you're sharing with 5 people, splitting the costs that way. But when you've got a partner and you want to think about setting up on your own and are looking at:

£1.5K in council tax
£6K+ a year to rent a small one bedroom flat (£500pcm min, if you want something half decent, you're looking at £750pcm)
£700 a year electricity / gas
£300 a year water
£200 a year telephone / internet
£140 a year TV license
£200 a year insurance
Oyster card
Food (£???)

And it is nice to go out from time to time and to maybe once in a while have some money for something like, as Quiller says, repairing a boiler that conks out on you.

You can quickly see that the numbers don't add up unless you plan on staying living in a bedsit / squat until you're about 45. Not something that's conducisve to the hours worked as an architect, nor the level of presentation expected.

A huge disconnect. What's most worrying to me is how some people are quite prepared to accept it almost unthinkingly.

Reply 7

theonelink

15

I know 7 years for that money is terrible, can't think of any course that I would enjoy more though

Reply 8

waecskt

maybe someone should start a union :biggrin:

, as far as im aware RIBA are shocking

Reply 9

waecskt

that is defiantly the stupidest thing ive even written

"Public anger and concern as architects union calls a strike and the designing of future buildings grinds to a halt"

Reply 10

Ex Death

9

It is a firm belief of mine that if you're wanting to start a family at some point in the future then it is highly recommended to steer well clear of an architecture career. It's a massive dilemma - do you go for the boring, fruitless, unsatisfying graduate recruitment schemes which provide reasonable pay or do you go for the more interesting, stimulating architecture path where you're stuck in a council estate trying to support a family through a mere pittance whilst barely having time to see them.

Reply 11

yeahyeahyeahs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11950843

anyone read the story about the Oxford PhD student who gives away all his earnings over £18k?

Reply 12

thebadboy2k1

Original post by Quiller

Well it just sets an appalling precedent doesn't it. 15K net is nothing, sharing may be fine in the short term, but at what point do you become sick of earning so little and sharing a flat when you may have a partner and want to save a bit for a deposit on a house (god help you) 3-4 years down the line? Two or Three? Most people will be 27-28 by then and sharing becomes a bit of a drag.

How many years is it going to take of working before you're earning 25K and level with what you should have earned straight after part II, are you going to have enough to start paying into a pension, a bit set aside incase you're made redundant or need to fix a broken boiler. The bigger picture is it devalues the profession and devalues our time - this is a one way road, salaries aren't magically going to go up again now. This is it.

I've got friends now who graduated a year or two ago who have jobs as headhunters/ recruitment consultants earning 50-80K. Another is a Lloyds broker and doing very well indeed. It's true money doesn't make you happy, but 15K net for 5 years full time study takes the piss. I'm just hoping I haven't ruled myself out of one of these graduate training schemes by studying architecture, because soulless though these jobs may be, I'd quite like to be paid a decent wage that'll mean I can look after my family and give my kids the same opportunities I had.

Totally agree; and no, you won't have ruled yourself out of grad schemes.

Reply 13

KeyserNI

8

Original post by yeahyeahyeahs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11950843

anyone read the story about the Oxford PhD student who gives away all his earnings over £18k?

I saw it a while ago. The household income is 43K after they give the money to charity and they have no children. If they choose to have children or need money for an emergency they can choose to give less to charity. The difference between earning 18K and earning 30K but giving 12K to charity is not as simple as saying anyone can live on 18k, the security that earning more than you need is hard to measure.

Reply 14

Hispanic-Impressions

11

Of course you can live off 18K. I've been brought up my entire life on not much more than that (god bless academia).

However, whether or not it's the 'right' sort of money to be earning considering the education and training and the profession as a whole is an entirely different matter. It is ridiculous in that respect.

Reply 15

yoyo462001

Wait a sec. Why are you brining in the US Federal Reserve :facepalm:

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 16

OP

Original post by yoyo462001

Wait a sec. Why are you brining in the US Federal Reserve :facepalm:

Sorry, I thought I had been clear. Because of uncle Ben / papa smurf / the Feds overt goal of inflating away sovereign debt by printing phoney cash a la Zimbabwe. Inflation is extremely inequitable and hits those on the lowest incomes hardest. But ben doesn't have to worry as his friends at goldmines will make sure he's looked after. Crook that he is.

Reply 17

yoyo462001

Original post by jrhartley

Sorry, I thought I had been clear. Because of uncle Ben / papa smurf / the Feds overt goal of inflating away sovereign debt by printing phoney cash a la Zimbabwe. Inflation is extremely inequitable and hits those on the lowest incomes hardest. But ben doesn't have to worry as his friends at goldmines will make sure he's looked after. Crook that he is.

Yes but we are in the UK. It would take extreme QE for inflationary pressures to hit our shores with any real impact on people like you.

Reply 18

OP