RDW1989 Fri 09-Feb-18 23:00:12

I have a PhD and work as a University lecturer. I started my first ‘proper’ job at 24, which may be why the salary seems a lot. Before that I lived off a PhD scholarship which was enough to live off but just about. So going to £30000 (my starting salary) seemed like hitting the jackpot.



I live in a biggish city but not london, smaller even that Bristol, Liverpool etc. I live on the outskirts and drive in, so it’s not too expensive. I save a lot of my salary and was able to buy a (relatively cheap doer upper) starter home. We don’t splash out on expensive clothes, cars, holidays etc. I think because I am still in the poor student mentality.



However I do work extremely hard. There is a lot of pressure to publish. I enjoy conducting research and writing papers, and unless I’m teaching there is a lot of flexibility as to when and where I work so will be useful when we do start a family. But sometimes I worry that if you worked out how much I actually earn per hour (with all of the unofficial overtime I and my colleagues have to do to meet increasing demands) it’s probably very little!



When people complain about the high salaries in industry it does make me question things. But people rarely talk about salary and I don’t really want to ask my friends...