Figure it makes sense to give this an update Job: Software Developer Salary: £32k Is it worth it?: I like the people I work with, the stress isn't too high normally, doesn't bleed over into other areas of my life etc. However..... Was recently told I should maybe have a gander at what's available as the market has been going up over the past 12 months after a colleague got poached by a recruiter for a 20%+ pay bump basically, and whilst I normally ignore those emails I thought I'd actually look at some and it seems he wasn't wrong. Potentially similar roles but with a salary starting with a 4. I know salary isn't everything, and I do like my current role, but a jump that big would make a decent difference to my life I feel, so I thought I'd ask what people's experiences have been regarding moving on from a job you enjoy, how much would make you consider it etc (% wise). Potentially 30%+ is no joke (to me!)
IMO, kick off the process and see how you get on. A job you like, with people you like, and a manager you like holds a lot of value - but you're under no obligation to accept any offers or even interviews you don't like the look of. And looking for jobs when you're largely content, secure and comfortable in your current job affords a certain amount of pickiness and objectivity when looking at opportunities. Also, depending on your employer, there may not be any harm in raising the issue - like "hey I like it here, you like me, I do what I'm supposed to do, but also there are these recruiters offering me +40%, so is this something we can talk about?". Clearly depends entirely on your employer as to how this goes, but read the room and maybe you get on okay with it.
I've come to the conclusion that new jobs are really a complete roll of the dice. Interviews are done by managers you probably won't deal a whole lot with day to day and the people you work with directly tend to have the largest influence on your experience working there. Most of whom you won't meet during the hiring process. So I say go for it. If it turns out to be a stinker you can move on to another and will have a higher base salary as a negotiating point for the next one. There's plenty of dev work out there at the moment so make hay while the sun is shining
I have a big agile team and am recruiting at the moment. Developers, functional and business analysts salaries are increasing a lot. Our Indian folks are seeing 50%+ increases in offers from other companies and I had a recruiter contact me yesterday about a role that’s one level lower than what I’m on but pays better than my current already great wage. Lots of projects kicking off, certainly in the ERP space. You’d be a fool not to be looking.
Thanks, yeah I updated my CV just to include my current position and get some extra emails coming in and have responded to a couple for more info. It seems for what seems at first glance as a similar role (mid c#/.net dev) there are plenty that would look to be a 10k increase which just blows my mind hah! I know when I interviewed here almost a year ago the range for mid was up to 36k, but I wonder if that may have changed with the market at all. Plan was definitely to try and get a feel for what is actually available/what I might actually be able to get elsewhere etc then no harm in speaking to where I am at the moment and seeing what's what. Yeah definitely feel like an interview can be misleading, think I'm definitely going to see what's what, try a couple of interviews potentially and at least be a better position for 'knowing what I'm worth' or whatever. Yeah it seems like a world away from when I was looking a year ago, I went from 28k to 32k which I was happy with at the time, think I would have fainted if I'd been told within a year could go into the 40s!
IME - you'll figure it out yourself whether it's worth it or not as you go through the motions - I was in a similar boat and wasn't sure myself whether it was worth moving for a pay rise until I had an offer and found myself wanting to stall the process whilst I tried to negotiate a counter-offer with my current employer.
My opinion is you can thank COVID and Brexit for some of the change. Covid: People, work and everything has made a massive lurch to digital - Covid made a 20 year digital migration (including mass WFH) occur in 18 months. Off-shore roles (typically India historically, but other regions are now getting in on the game) is seeing massive increases in demand and insufficient qualified supply, this increases wages and make off-shoring (with its challenges) less appealing Global organizations (or at least the one I work for) are now looking globally for "on-shore" roles to support this global move My limited exposure to C-suite, who make the decisions on IT investments, indicates they and their peers have understood how hamstrung (during a period of massive change) they have been with historic creaking IT systems and are splashing the cash. There is a move to spend less on buildings and travel and more on digital skills and data analysis Brexit: Having the £ tank vs the dollar and euro (source: https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-has-brexit-affected-the-value-of-sterling) We look cheap in £'s in comparison to US on-shore roles paid in Dollars, this is the same for European roles paid in Euros.
I'm in a new relatively low paid (comparatively speaking, £25k) job that I enjoy and it works around the kids school drop off/ pick up times. I used to be a salesman for a well known pest control company 15 years ago and now am working for a sole trader doing the technical side. It's fulfilling work helping people with what is essentially a taboo subject - I just wish I had another 3-5k on top of that salary so I don't have to be as frugal at the shops!
Just to echo what everyone else has said basically, it's definitely in your interest to at least talk to your current employer. Another company nearby was recently advertising a senior role, the job description made it sound like something that one of our juniors could do but they were offering roughly £20k more than seniors get here. And we already get 5-digit salaries that start with a 4! Our annual reviews are due very soon, I know this is something that our senior management people are well aware of and there have been murmurings of a market review. Depending on what happens at the annual review this is definitely something I'll be bringing up.
I think all employers need to start looking at rates of pay. Inflation is going through the roof and we're all about to start paying more national insurance contributions too. I work in the oil and gas sector and I'm in the same job i was in 10 years ago getting paid pretty much the same rate which in real terms equates to a massive pay cut.
I like to think that I make pretty decent money. I work as a project engineer for a pretty big electrical engineering company and I make about £44k (~£66k with my wife's wages in there too), so not too bad. However, I have noticed a HUGE change in how far that money goes over the past years. It almost feels like I have less money now than I did back when I was on £10k less, there certainly less disposable income or money for saving. Ok, so there have been a couple of personal changes over the years with my wife being out of work for a year a while ago and that meaning that we have a loan to be paying off now, but still. The problem is that wages will never increase at inflation rates, at least not now and probably not for a long time. Whilst some companies are doing amazing things and growing at crazy rates, most are still fighting and pushing for whatever market share they can get with margins getting cut seriously tight. Now I don't have much of anything to do with the sales side of the business (and long may that continue...), but my manger does and every month or so he gives us all a bit of a "this is rumour control, here are the facts" meeting where we do find out how things are going. We are heavily reliant on the market prices for metal, particularly copper and aluminium, and the costs of those have gone crazy of late, copper hitting 10k per ton a couple of weeks back... Sure, I would love to be earning more (wouldn't we all), I just don't see pay rises going anywhere much above 2% for the foreseeable future.
Yeah received an offer this morning, and whilst base salary is 25% higher, taking other aspects into account might mean it's not quite the no brainer I was hoping for. (e.g. having to travel into the office once a week, 42.5hr vs 40hr week) Yeah trying to work out how to approach my current company about this, since feels like I can/may as well be pushy on both parties to improve as in the end I'm happy enough where I am, so even if everything fell through wouldn't be the end of the world.
Only you can be the best judge of this for your current situation and what you know of your management at your current employer - but IMO important to stress you weren't job hunting necessarily because you want to leave and this situation just sorta happened - not to protect their feelings but because if your management thinks in your head you've already checked out they are unlikely to try to keep you. I think being candid about your feelings RE the offer would do this well enough - i.e. "I'm really in a bind now because on one hand it's great here and on the other I just can't ignore a 25% bump and what that means for me and mine"
This has been me over the last few week, randomly saw a role which I'm really suited for (I have a really broad skillset, which I like to use a lot so finding roles that don't pigeon hole you is rare!), and the base salary range was 2k more than my current salary. Went through the process and accepted an offer for 42% more than my curreny role (around 4k more than the regional rate here), and although I love my current job, there's been a lot of stuff going on I've really not been liking and being under paid by at least 10k for the last year (and far more before that) I had to move on and get a clean break. 40+ hour weeks are a big ooooof, one of the big selling points was this one maintains my 35 hour week! Remember, life is an adventure, and if you say in a role you will be vastly underpaid. Edit: oh, and don't forget to negotiate the new salary, I was happy with the first offer but managed to bump it up another 2k!
Yeah I mean that's an easy angle to come from since it is genuinely how I feel, I only checked the options since other people said would be silly not to and yeah, only considering because it is a significant bump. Yeah I hadn't been actively applying I just updated my CV on a job board and picked up the phone some of the time when called. Going from 32 to 40 is a big difference to me (especially since a year ago I was on 28), however there are a couple of negatives hence why being not sure yet. Also figured may as well ask if the offer can be improved, nothing really to lose.
Job: Openreach FTTP SD Engineer Wage: 22k now, soon 28k, then 34k Is it worth it?: Yes My first post on here was back in 2010, huh... Well now i've been on this trainee position for over a year now and waiting for my final exams to come through (large backlog) then i'll be a skilled engineer on full wage of £28k instead of the trainee wage which is £22k. Thankfully because the back log isn't my fault the wage difference will get back dated when i finally get put through them, there running about a month late atm. So when i first started this job, the training was poor, felt rushed and they are VERY keen to get you to start working on your own asap. first few months was stressful and rough. Targets are everything and been thrown in to the deep end to sink or swim without much support has made me pretty experienced and knowledgeable in a short space of time. My job is getting fibre broadband infrastructure to domestic and commercial properties. I also fix faults, do planning/ small scale expansion reports. Im been taken off installs slowly and put more into problem solving, fixing more complex fibre issues, repairing and altering the infrastructure (on a small scale), which is higher skill (Advanced Engineer) and comes with a pay rise eventually to 34k. So i'm progressing pretty fast which is nice. One thing is iv never felt my dyslexia like this since school, doing the exams is rough for me and is holding me back slightly. But once i've passed them i'll never have to do anything like that again. Never thought i would get such a good job, it's a job for life if i want it to be, its very challenging at times, your out in all weathers, but isn't boring and keeps me relatively fit.
Job: Concept Artist Wage: dismal - no bonus in 2+ years and no scaling (so I was told) Is it worth it? not any more So... It's been a crap week for me, finding out that I'm being taken for a ride by my boss. My colleagues (the ones I've spoken to) can't believe how low my pay is, and I can't believe that after being told by my boss that pay won't scale, he has been scaling the pay of other employees at their request. On top of that, the work I've been doing is really mundane and I just need a better job. So far this week I've applied for seven permanent positions (there are not many of these jobs in the country) and I'm hoping that I'll find a studio that will allow me to work remotely, and actually pay me a reasonable salary. I'm also planning to submit a number of speculative applications to studios with no current open positions, just to keep my options open. Just when you think you know people, eh?
That really sucks. Do you have anything that differentiates you from your peers? Are you being discriminated against?
Nah, nothing like that. I honestly don't know why he's doing it, but I have to assume that he knows exactly what he's doing. I mean, he can hardly turn to me and say, "Ah... sorry, I totally forgot about your salary." It's a small company and he knows exactly what everyone is paid - he authorises it every month. Either he thinks it's ok as long as I don't object to it, or he presumes that we don't know each other's salaries. It's just a total dick move. I've lost a ton of respect for management, and am utterly done with the work and the company. When I am in a position to tender my resignation, it will be one of the happiest days of my life. Purely coincidentally, one of my colleagues told me today he thought I must be earning big bucks because I'm "really good at my job and have a family" (a wife and three kids). It turned out that this guy makes around £2.5K more than me per year, and I've worked at the company for longer than him. I'm the only married person at the company, and also the only one with dependants.
Job: Full Stack Software Dev Wage: 40k Is it worth it? Good so far So after my various posts near the end of last year I ended up taking the offer at the small startup and so far am enjoying it. Change of pace, lots more stuff to learn, obviously early days but hopefully I last a little longer here than the previous place Commuting to near Edinburgh once a week is rough, so far averaging 2h+ each way but I have enjoyed the change of environment/good to try and get to know the team (9 total with 5 of us starting in Jan), but I do think if things keep looking promising, and the company is on track for hitting their plans etc I can definitely see myself moving later this year, although sadly going West to East means more money for the same house.
