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Salary Story: A Breakup Pushed Me To Change Jobs

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In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young women more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.

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Age: 29
Location: London
Current industry and job title: Equality, diversity and inclusion lead, healthcare
Current salary: £56,698
Number of years employed since school or university: Eight
Starting salary: £21,500
Biggest salary jump: From £38,764 to £47,154 in 2022.
Biggest salary drop: N/A

Biggest negotiation regret: Not negotiating a pay rise for myself when I became a line manager. My previous employer billed it as a professional development opportunity, which in some ways it was, but it was also me doing more work and taking on more responsibility for the same amount of money I was on before. Looking back, I should have pushed more to be paid fairly for the higher level of role. Instead I was just grateful they’d asked me.

Best salary advice: Always pay into your pension and get the full contribution amount from your employer. In the NHS, the pensions are excellent so although it’s a big chunk of my monthly salary, I know it’s worth it long-term.

I was super excited about this job as it was my first role after graduating. I worked with school students, talking to them about university and helping them with the various parts of the application process. I absolutely loved it, and it was also where I met my fiancé (though we weren’t together then)! At the time, there were a few similar roles available but this one paid the most so I was pleased when I was offered the job. It was absolutely the perfect first job for me. 
I split up with my partner at the time and I wanted to move out of my hometown to live in London with my best friend. I was really lucky that everything aligned: I had the interview for this role three weeks after my breakup, and within seven weeks had served my notice period and moved out. 

In my previous job, I had partnered with this charity and happened to see they had a job vacancy on their website. Moving to London meant I needed a job that paid more, as I’d be paying rent and living on my own for the first time. The jump from my previous job felt huge in terms of salary but I was still limited to some not-so-nice areas of London when flat-hunting. I didn’t negotiate this pay and in hindsight wish I had known that I could have done. Regardless, I loved this organisation and my little team was so welcoming and friendly. Most people were in their 20s so it felt like a really fun and social place to work. 

My manager at this time was really lovely and a great advocate for me. He could tell I was getting a bit restless and he pitched for me to have a pay rise to the senior leadership team without me even asking. It was a real boost in morale for me and made a huge difference in how valued I felt at the organisation. Around this time I also started our organisation’s first diversity and inclusion initiatives, but I did this in my own time alongside full-time work. 

As I hadn’t been at this organisation for that long, I hadn’t started to look for jobs elsewhere but I knew I was ready for more of a challenge and more responsibility. Getting this pay rise definitely meant I lived more comfortably in London, and that was reflected in how much more money I could save each month, as well as splurging on some treats now and then. This new salary also taught me the value of putting in your best early on in a job, as it was a lovely surprise to be given a pay rise without having to ask for one. I felt really heartened by it and it definitely made me more loyal to the organisation. 

Sadly funding for my role ceased. My organisation was legally obliged to try to redeploy me or offer me other roles before redundancy, and I was fortunate that this role was being created just at the right time. I had to interview for it but I was pleased when it all came through. It meant a change during the monotony of lockdown, without the stress of actually looking for a new job. They also started paying me for the EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) work I was doing — a whopping £1,000 a year extra! 

My EDI work took up about half a day each week, sometimes more depending on what I was doing, but I absolutely loved it. I started writing a formal strategy and pitched it to the executive team. As much as I’d enjoyed my previous role, this one felt like an exciting change in a much faster-paced team, and I felt more embedded in the organisation. 

Because I’d been at the top end of the officer salary bracket, my salary didn’t actually change when I became a manager. I was however grateful for the change in title as it reflected the fact that I was now line managing two direct reports. My role became 80% as I took on the EDI work 20% of the time. In practice this actually meant I was doing 120%, as nobody ever took anything off my full-time role to make space for the EDI work. My time management skills really came into their own here. 

This new role definitely upped the ante in terms of constraints on my time — I ended up working quite a lot at weekends. This was also during the pandemic so it was really stressful. The salary no longer felt like it reflected my workload, especially because the EDI work was really taking off due to the Black Lives Matter protests and the fact that lots of organisations were making EDI mandatory.

After almost five years at my previous organisation, I decided I wanted to work in EDI full-time. I took the plunge and started applying for jobs, and I was offered the first one I applied for! Not only is the salary much better but I can now walk to work, which really saves on my travel costs. I do put a lot into my pension (about £500 per month) but the NHS and government top this up and it is an incredibly generous scheme. I feel really lucky to be paid a good salary in the NHS, especially when nurses and other health professionals are paid so poorly for what they do.
I got a 5% pay uplift as part of the NHS pay review earlier this year, and London weighting. Luckily I didn’t have to fight for this pay rise, as it came about for everyone on my type of contract. Much of this was down to the nurses and junior doctor strikes, so I feel really grateful to them for putting themselves on the line for all of us to benefit. The NHS can be quite stifling and you’re not often rewarded for your work based on merit — it’s more about longevity, which is frustrating. I would like to find a new job soon as my current organisation is facing a lot of issues. I wouldn’t be opposed to staying in the NHS though so I can continue to reap the great benefits such as the pension and the flexible working.

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