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Google suggests KPMG pay only £32k to graduates. And HSBC only pay £32-£42k.
Far be it from me to suggest that a middle class boy from Cambridge lacks perspective, but I'd suggest that starting out on what a lot of people finish at is okay, as graduate salaries go.
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The issue there is you are benchmarking against the rest of our stagnant country and going "oh not bad!" instead of saying "hold on why haven't these really changed in a decade?"
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono1 -
To be fair to Rick it wasn't him or initially claimed the graduate salaries were shoddy.
My bigger surprise was that they are apparently struggling to recruit UK graduates as they probably get the pick of the crop. It's like in my field having the likes of Arup, Atkins or Jacobs claiming they can't get graduates - if that's the case how are SMEs supposed to manage?
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I would say that £30k+ for a starter graduate job is a decent salary, even for London. I would assume that at somewhere like KPMG, if you are good at our job, that you will quickly move up the pay scale.
I do think we seem to have lost sight (as a society) of earning your worth in a job. Surely some sort of track record of proven performance and achievement is required to attain more seniority and more money.
I started off on a paid internship, earning around £200 a week (as a graduate with a BA and an MA). I could see it for what it was, a foot in the door, it was down to me to work hard and prove my value.
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Once upon a time consulting was relatively competitive with banking - fewer hours, more travel, but it would even out.
Banking has moved on a lot. Easily double that now. But then, they hire from all over the world into London - at least, the used to.
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We've been saying this for a while, there is a real labour shortage across the board. Government is making this worse, not better.
SMEs have some advantage is that the big 4 have been so tight on grad pay that SMEs can be competitive on comp and the work will be more interesting.
My firm now is competitive with big 4 grad roles and they get to sleep in their own bed 5 nights a week.
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Take a look at the recent stats and tell us how you are defining 'stagnant' in relation to wages.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
I wonder if part of this is a shift in attitudes amongst younger generations? There seems to be a far greater tendency towards social consciousness and less appetite for capitalism in general. I wonder if this is being reflected in attitudes to jobs, less interest in grad schemes and working for large companies, and more focus on work life balance, jobs in charity sector and so on.
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Oh come off it. I entered the work force as a PhD grad, albeit I was 30, in 2004-5 and started at £29k in r&d. And I turned down a uni job at £25k. When I switched career in 2007 to IP law I started at £25k. That figure, in the intervening 18 years is still only about the same as the banking one quoted above. That's not a lot of movement in 17 years.
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On that page it looks like real income increases have been hovering about 0%, sometimes a bit above, sometimes a bit below.
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I just googled UK wage growth and selected the most recent reliable data source. Most recent probably being most relevant. And more reliable than anecdotal evidence.
I'm still interested in Pango's definition of stagnant given recent annual wage growth of 6%.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Interesting take, given the summary at the top which says 'The annual growth for regular earnings (excluding bonuses) was 6.0% in January to March 2024. Annual growth in employees’ average total earnings (including bonuses) was 5.7% in January to March 2024.'
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
2 things.
1) *Real* wages have had their worst growth period (15 years) since the napoleonic era, so don't come at me with that.*
2) Q1 2024 had the best wage growth since before the crash - but that is only in the context of above.
*I await everyone telling me it's OK because since 2009 we've had mobile phones become smartphones and flights are marginally cheaper.
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It would have been towards the top end of normal non oil and gas engineering jobs...when I graduated...over a decade ago.
I remember thinking I'd really made it when I got put over 30k (particularly as the salary negotiation had involved beneficial confusion as to whether I was asking for a rise up to 30k or a rise of 30%). But that was quite a long time ago now.
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And as inflation is now 4%, that's all good, but a year ago when wage growth was 7% and inflation was 9%, not so much. We're currently in a "bit above" phase, wages catching up with last year's inflation.
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That's a separate issue, and one I agree with. But the "poor graduate bankers" angle doesn't wash in comparison to absolutely anyone else in the country.
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Yes, the UK would indeed be the poorest state in America.
All that demonstrates is how poor the rest of the UK is. London is supposed to be a world city and London pays for a lot of the upkeep of the rest of the UK (certainly big chunks of public services where you live, FA!) so I would suggest that the lack of competitiveness in London is not something to shrug your shoulders at because Nick in Blackpool can't earn a decent wage despite working his nuts off.
The whole "I'm not fussed that highly paid parts of the economy are uncompetitive because I live somewhere poor" is not the argument you think it is. Crab bucket attitude.
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I think there's some mileage in there being a change of attitude. And not just from the youngsters. There's a lot of boutique financial services outfits that have been set up by folks since the GFC who got fed up of selling their soul to the Devil, however well they got paid, at one of the well known Investment Banks. I work for one such outfit. We get paid less than those at Goldman's etc. but our lives are our own, and we have no great difficulty recruiting youngsters who want "work life balance" for real. Obviously, there are still plenty who want to work 70/80 hour weeks in search of megabucks, and good luck to them!
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What is odd is that those ranges would allow visas to be given to under 26s...
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I think the real reason behind this is for most of their sentient life there has been no wage growth in the economy, so the incentive to make it just isn't there. You can't afford to buy a house unless you inherit anyway, you'll really struggle if you want to earn you way out of it and no-one makes that much even if you do try.
So f*ck it. Why work your nuts off to be able to live in a sh!thole while Tarquin swans it somewhere nice because his dad did alright and bought a property in Chelsea in 1982.
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If you put the may 2008 figure for total earnings (£434) into an inflation calculator, you get £681.37 for mar 2024. The latest figure on that graph is £682 for march 2024.
That is not stellar growth in earnings.
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People have covered it, grad wages haven't changed much in years
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
The other thing that's happened in the past 10 years is that the grads have had 3x the student debt of previous cohorts!
But they should earn less in a month then they'd have to pay in rent. And be glad of it.
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Don't think the "no wage growth" applies in our part of the economy. Maybe we're just supremely talented! Can't be ruled out...
And in any case, the "no wage growth since 2008" argument overlooks the fact that there has been very significant wage growth in the economy as a whole since 2010. There was a big fall in 2008-2010 though.
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If you start at the post-GFC low point of £409 in Feb 2009 then the inflation adjusted equivalent by March 2024 is £629, which gives £53 of real earnings growth. Not stellar by a long chalk, but emphasises that the start and end points of time-series analysis are crucial!
Full disclosure: The Feb 2009 figure is something of an anomaly. Circa £430 rather than £409 was the norm around that date.
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This does feel like the story is, no wage growth unless you pick a starting point which is just after a monumental crash!
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The US is something of an outlier RC. Do you compare parts of the UK economy to Dubai, or Singapore?
It really only makes sense to compare us to France, Germany, etc. I don't imagine the comparison is all that rosy either, particularly the longer term trajectory, but it is at least not a total waste of your breath.
You have also, it seems, still completely failed to take on board the cost or living and hidden expenses arguments about he US that make it far more comparable than you seem to think. This doesn't come from unqualified dullards such as me, I'm just parroting it. The US is still the richest large economy in the world, but my impression is that you personally would move there expecting piles of cash to be left over, then start complaining about all of the things you have to spend it on that you no longer have from the UK. Inter alia, health, state pension, your children's education.
Because complaining is what you do.
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