What do YOU consider a good starting salary for a graduate?

To be honest, what is 'decent' depends on loads of things: what you studied; your grades; where you studied; what you're doing and where you're working.

Someone with a PhD Economics (impeccable academic record) working 70+ hours a week in london with lots of business travel might expect at least 60k, whereas if you have a performing arts degree from an ex-poly, and you're trying to make it as an actor you might struggle to make 15k.

Mr/Miss Average might consider £22k to be a good start, rising with seniority.

Reply 241

digitalfever

13

Original post by laurakate1988

BA(hons) Drama, MA Music and a music teaching diploma.

Those are a lot of letters behind your name.

I don’t think that you being unemployed is your fault. I think you’re a very educated woman and probably like most of us just haven’t figured out where to focus your energy. Many of my friends have attained Masters and one just got his PhD and he still doesn’t know where he’s going because the job he thought he wanted… really turn out to be something he disliked. I think you’re going through the cycle just like the majority of us.

Reply 242

beautifulbigmacs

19

Original post by digitalfever

Those are a lot of letters behind your name.

I don’t think that you being unemployed is your fault. I think you’re a very educated woman and probably like most of us just haven’t figured out where to focus your energy. Many of my friends have attained Masters and one just got his PhD and he still doesn’t know where he’s going because the job he thought he wanted… really turn out to be something he disliked. I think you’re going through the cycle just like the majority of us.

thanks for this, this makes me feel masses better.

I have phases where I feel really guilty for spending time and money on uni when I could have been putting that money into other things but on the other hand I'm also glad I did uni because I think "well what other things".

There are times where I wonder if 18 is just too young for a lot of people to make a decision. I decided at 18 I wanted to be an actress and if that didn't work out I believed that I would happily teach (which I believe has a starting salary of 21k?) but it took some life experience for me to realise that actually, I want to work somewhere that is less institutionalised and that I don't want to work with young people.

I guess it is the same for someone who chooses to do anything at a young age, it's like, what life experience are they actually basing their decisions on?

thanks again :smile:

Reply 243

+ polarity -

21

Original post by Timon

Robert Peston was just talking about it on that news special he did called, 'The Party's Over: How the West went Bust'.

I'm watching it now. At 30:00 he looks/sounds like he's about to cry.

Reply 244

somethingbeautiful

18

Original post by nickbob00

To be honest, what is 'decent' depends on loads of things: what you studied; your grades; where you studied; what you're doing and where you're working.

Someone with a PhD Economics (impeccable academic record) working 70+ hours a week in london with lots of business travel might expect at least 60k, whereas if you have a performing arts degree from an ex-poly, and you're trying to make it as an actor you might struggle to make 15k.

Mr/Miss Average might consider £22k to be a good start, rising with seniority.

Exactly - it's relative.

I'd be happy if they just paid me chocolate buttons at the moment. £20k would be lovely this time next year - I doubt it will happen though!

Reply 245

Regent

Original post by JustWonderingWhy

Best if luck - with 6 shots you should stand a really good chance.

Thanks.

Reply 246

Bill_Gates

21

I expect to make 35k per year once i graduate from other incomes. But when i look for a job i'd be happy with 16k-27k.

Reply 247

MagicNMedicine

20

Original post by nickbob00

To be honest, what is 'decent' depends on loads of things: what you studied; your grades; where you studied; what you're doing and where you're working.

Someone with a PhD Economics (impeccable academic record) working 70+ hours a week in london with lots of business travel might expect at least 60k, whereas if you have a performing arts degree from an ex-poly, and you're trying to make it as an actor you might struggle to make 15k.

Mr/Miss Average might consider £22k to be a good start, rising with seniority.

I think you'd be surprised by what PhD economists get. A lot of them will more realistically be looking for postdoctoral appointments in universities that will pay £24k or £26k. I would have thought to get £60k as a PhD economist you would have had to work previously as a consultant for 4-5 years, then take a career break to do a PhD, produce a thesis in an area related to the type of thing you are expected to do in your consultancy, and then use existing contacts/knowledge to get a job. It would not be a 'graduate' position though it would be relying on you being able to go in at a senior position.

In fact there was an economics paper out earlier this year that I remember being reviewed in the economist, that was looking at the addition to earnings power that comes with doing a PhD and it found no significant increase for having a PhD. In fact compared to those with just MSc, the PhD graduates were earning slightly less in their future careers, having taken so much time out of the job market is like a woman having a child and staying at home for a few years, the catch up effect reduces income.

Reply 248

HighestKungFu

13

Universities bag n' tag you by making you think that whilst you're studying there you will all walk into top jobs straight away. Beware however that whilst what I would describe as a minority do (at best a third), most will have to settle for something between £18-21k to start off. I would consider anything over £23k an excellent start. I myself managed to get a £21k job after uni (or during my final year), and I was very happy with that. A teacher in London can expect £27k and if you go into banking/law you obviously can expect the bigger salaries (and bigger hours).

Apart from Banking/Law/Medicine/Dentistry, anyone from any other field should be happy with £20k+. That's my two cents from someone who has experienced the two and is aged 25 now with experience in banking/insurance/government/education.

Hope that helps.

£21k

£21k, with serious prospects of earning a promotion within a year or two. Though I'd take less for a job I could cycle to :-)

To everyone who didn't answer "minimum wage", what is your plan B if it doesn't work out? Make one and stick to it. Mine is to flee the country and be a TEFL teacher, possibly coming back after a few years to take a PGCE and teach in a school here. Or possibly not. If I'm going to be fairly poor no matter what, I'd rather do it somewhere sunny.

Davey x

Reply 251

AestheticOverload

5

Original post by laurakate1988

I am cautious to say in that I think people will say "well it's your own fault that you're struggling to find a job" but I have the following:

BA(hons) Drama, MA Music and a music teaching diploma.

I did these qualifications thinking that I wanted to teach in a secondary school but I no longer want to do that and thus no longer know how best to match myself to a graduate job. As a result, I have yet to do a job that requires a degree.

I would love to make the sort of money that can be potentially made as a graduate but I've no idea how to go about it regarding what jobs/careers to apply for (currently I'm looking at 2 lines of work around the min wage mark: office admin or beauty therapy, something that I retrained in to try and open more doors that were at least interesting to me).

I'd just like to add that the baby boomer generation (in relation to other comments on this thread) probably did have it easier in some ways in that owning a house, having children and living off the salary of one person by the time you're in your 20s wasn't unheard of at the time...my bfs parents are of baby boomer generation and I don't think they can understand/relate to the difficulties that I am having regarding looking for work and making everything else work out as part of that).

How could you choose a degree, without having done your research first? There are next to non-existent jobs for people who do a degree in Drama and Music. I mean seriously, we bash people all the time on this forum for doing those completely useless degrees, and it's fair to say we haven't heard your side of this. How exactly did you picture your exit from university with this degree? HOW? :confused:

Reply 252

Quady

20

Original post by AestheticOverload

How could you choose a degree, without having done your research first? There are next to non-existent jobs for people who do a degree in Drama and Music. I mean seriously, we bash people all the time on this forum for doing those completely useless degrees, and it's fair to say we haven't heard your side of this. How exactly did you picture your exit from university with this degree? HOW? :confused:

Normally I'd be with you in saying that, but its quite unfair on the poster. They stated they did them as they wanted to be a secondary school teacher and then changed their mind. They knew what their exit would be when they started the degree so you question isn't valid. You could have had a go at them for choosing something that didn't have backup options but not for not knowing what they wanted to do with it.

Reply 253

beautifulbigmacs

19

Original post by AestheticOverload

How could you choose a degree, without having done your research first? There are next to non-existent jobs for people who do a degree in Drama and Music. I mean seriously, we bash people all the time on this forum for doing those completely useless degrees, and it's fair to say we haven't heard your side of this. How exactly did you picture your exit from university with this degree? HOW? :confused:

I did these degrees with the view to teaching. I found out that teaching wasn't for me after a series of counselling sessions I had whilst at uni. That is to say that I love my subjects and would enjoy talking about them on a day to day basis but I don't feel that I can be a teacher because the school environment (in my humble opinion) can actually be quite potentially damaging for young people (I was being counselled for social anxiety and low self exteem amongst a few other things).

The above paragraph may be a little too much information but I have included this to serve as an example that at 18, I don't think a person has enough informed and balanced life experience behind them to be able to make such a vital decision. I don't regret going to uni because simply I don't. I do feel however that had I have known more about myself and life in general then I might have made a different decision to go straight into work to be honest. But yeah, what I'm saying is that there are probably a lot of young people (not all but a lot) who aren't really able to make a choice about where they REALLY want to be in 5 years time and make an approapriate uni choice (if any) as part of that at the age of 18.

On the flip side, I actually feel that some proportions of society (such as the job centre and potential employers) make you feel that you should apologise for and regret being educated but I definately wouldn't go as far as conforming with this.

So to answer your question, I did an extensive ammount of research based on who I was and what I believed at the time but like many people, I am a different person with different circumstances, beliefs an ambitions at 23 compared to when I was 17/18 and making my uni related decisions.

(edited 12 years ago)

18,725

Original post by tazarooni89

Don't know about Mercer but I think for Towers it's a bit more than that - something like £34k.

It's a pretty stressful job though.

Reply 256

SnoochToTheBooch

17

I graduated in june and am on a 14K per year phd studentship now, but since I don't pay any tax or anything it's like getting about 20K in the real world. It's more than enough to live comfortably, infact I've just been spending money for the sake of it on unnecessary ****. So yeah, a 20k per year real world job is plenty in my opinion.

(edited 12 years ago)

21 k

For what I want to do, given my degree, university etc I think 35-40K is reasonable (plus a bonus perhaps of 15-25K)

EDIT: Lol at the neg rep. Clearly haven't heard of investment banking.