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.
Been in the workforce for at least five years and interested in contributing your salary story? Submit your information here. Published stories receive £100.
Age: 36
Location: London
Current industry and job title: Solicitor, Law
Current salary: £70,000
Number of years employed since school or university: 14
Starting salary: £16,500
Biggest salary jump: From £48,000 to £70,000 in 2024.
Biggest salary drop: From £52,000 to £44,000 in 2021.
Biggest negotiation regret: Just taking what was offered at the firm I trained at when I qualified as a solicitor, rather than looking around. I could have maybe found a better salary. I also should have negotiated.
Best salary advice: Always try to remember your value to the company. Not just in your day-to-day work but also the cost of replacing you. They would need to advertise, interview, train, etc and all of that takes time and costs money. You can use this to your advantage.
Whilst the salary wasn’t great it was a bad time to have been entering the job market. A lot of my friends either had their training contracts cancelled or didn’t manage to secure them at all, so I was just pleased to be getting closer to qualifying. In fact, my partner didn’t manage to get a job after he graduated (not a lawyer!) and I also worked weekends in retail to have enough to pay our rent for a year until he got a job.
I was happy enough with the salary. It was enough to enable us to pay off my professional skills loan and start saving for a property. I generally worked 9-5, and I never wanted to work long hours for more money in the city. Occasionally, I had to work up to 10 p.m. sometimes when covering holiday, which made me even more sure I didn’t want to do long hours all the time.
I met with the firm who contacted me in January 2016. I decided it wasn’t for me but contacted a couple of recruiters the same month. By mid-February, I had a few interviews at different places and had accepted my new job and handed my notice in. It all happened very quickly. I was lucky that I got to pick where I liked as had a lot of positive feedback from my interviews and I turned down some second interviews. I went with my gut feeling for the firm to move to. They initially offered £40,000 and I asked for £45,000 (even though that felt like a crazy amount of money at that time), and they countered with £42,500 and I happily accepted.
I used to spend around 20 hours prior to the start of the academic year preparing work, then would reach for two hours a week, plus spend another two hours on average marking/dealing with questions.
But, as my pay increases, so does my target so I have to bill more to get the same bonus. 2018 was a bit of an anomaly because it normally wouldn’t be that high.
I find working part-time very difficult but work has been flexible. It’s hard to keep client satisfaction high and work part-time as people expect responses instantly.
I had also received a bonus of around £4,500 whilst I was on maternity leave which was very helpful. The first year I was back was a partial year for our accounts and my bonus was around £6,000.
Although I loved having the extra day with my son in the week whilst he was small, it is hard to juggle part-time work and maintaining client relationships. I felt incredibly grateful to have had that period though. I am on course to get a bonus of around £10,000 this year.
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