I can't comment on what you should actually be earning, because I don't know. There has to be something very wrong for you to be earning the same as completely unskilled labour though. I bet our postman / binman is on more than 12 odd quid an hour. The whole system has gone wrong.
- Thread starter W.olly
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I once went for job and the chap showing me round had just been promoted so I was going for his old job, he asked me what I was earning in my current job, when I told him he said "that's more than I'm earning in my new position so I don't think this job is for you" 
henry Kadzielski
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My two cents worth. I 'somewhat' do what you do. I work for my self (have now for 26years). When I started didn't quite know what I should charge, so I charged low, even then was asked to drop my rate as too expensive. I didn't know any better so for one customer I did drop my rate to see if he was serious or just taking the Pi%%. Not officially I had been doing what I do now for about 6years at that time so had some Idea, but self doubt was always there, am I any good, and do I know what I am doing. The biggest thing is to have a good understanding of what others that do what you do actually get paid. The company owners won't come around and say you are worth 3X what you are getting and we will give it to you (just doesn't happen). If you want it you have to ask for it and have a good reason to get what you are asking for. When you work for yourself you do this by raising you rate, if the customers feel it is too expensive, you don't get work. It is a viscous cycle. It takes a long time to get appreciated and to do so you must stand out and unfortunately be seen to stand out. If you are not happy do something about it, remember 'nothing comes to those who wait'. Be very realistic of your request, it must not be a one sided request only to benefit you. You may very well have two legs to stand on if this has been going on for a long time and explain the injustice of of the situation. If you are as good as you depict, them your employer will know and may even be supprised that it has taken you so long to come forward. Different industries and or locations vary the remuneration packages a lot, so it could also be the industry and or location
I am now in a much better place, however it has taken many years of blood, sweat, tears and I mean all of them many times over. The only complaints I get now is the cost. If that is all that is being complained about then I must be going something right. Good luck.
I am now in a much better place, however it has taken many years of blood, sweat, tears and I mean all of them many times over. The only complaints I get now is the cost. If that is all that is being complained about then I must be going something right. Good luck.
There is a local guy, a very skilled welder and fabricator. He had his own business making the steelwork for agri buildings.
He is now gathering up trolleys in Tesco. He says it's because he is getting a decent enough salary, easy work and he gets paid on time every week.
He still has a lot of money owed to him from his business and may get it paid sometime.
He is now gathering up trolleys in Tesco. He says it's because he is getting a decent enough salary, easy work and he gets paid on time every week.
He still has a lot of money owed to him from his business and may get it paid sometime.
Brad93
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Without moving companies you're not gonna get any meaningful raise.
£12.60, you can stack shelves for that, and that isn't skilled work.
Brad93
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Exactly.
Even an unskilled labourer is £120 a day
W.olly
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Maybe 12 months ago the man in charge said some along the lines of there being certain pay grades/increases and that he will have to see what the next is but he think i am in the highest for my area. It starts at £11.75 for general assistent, which is what i am classed as. production welders are on around £1650ph.
I agree really, but i do like it here. good set of lads., but that does not pay the bills.
I design, search for parts, order and build.
All but weld now, i just tack all these jobs as about 6 months ago i was asked to do to many jobs at once. To me a lot anyway must of half a dozen of and i got sick of it and bodged up a job which he didnt like the welding, so after that he said from now on leave the welding to the welders. Fine by me. Welders are on around £16,50ph here. easy basic production welding, Tig ns Mig. short run here and there. It came in light conversion a short time after. I said `I dont get welders wage so i have forgot how to weld`. So just tack now.
I have an idea, I have a thought, as i now have my own desk aswell in the office and now my own work email i mite write up an email to each, my foreman, boss and HR at head office. Expaling things and also include the things i do and make in a list to actually show what i do with pictures. I am sure not all folk now this behind the shop floor.
I know i have saved the company many thousands of pounds with my gadgets and i can list that aswell.
Best be off to `the pit` now, thanks all for the vote of confidence.
ill keep you all updated
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I am of the opinion that employers like yours no matter what field or job roll you’re in. Keep the wages down through the realisation that most people won’t actually leave. People settle in jobs and it becomes hard to leave.
If employees made the jump more from place like that the employers have to do something. I don’t like sitting moaning about money and not doing anything. You can end up being part of the problem because you tolerate it.
Ultimately, find a better job. If they try and offer a rise to keep you. They’re only going to do the same thing again. You’re worth more than the nonsense you’re dealing with.
If employees made the jump more from place like that the employers have to do something. I don’t like sitting moaning about money and not doing anything. You can end up being part of the problem because you tolerate it.
Ultimately, find a better job. If they try and offer a rise to keep you. They’re only going to do the same thing again. You’re worth more than the nonsense you’re dealing with.
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Dev
8th generation, Weyland type
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Definitely agree with Kim - some (maybe most) employers will pay as a little as they can get away with. The same employers wouldn’t think twice about letting you go to save ‘the business’ i.e. themselves so never think you owe them for having a job.
Poor wages might be acceptable IF there’s a path to having a career where you make enough to live on. If £16.50 is the pinnacle of pay at that place I would be looking to
Learn all you can
Get plenty of photos videos and plans/drawings of your work
Research trade fairs, recruitment agents and opportunities near you
Leave on good terms to progress your career
One more thing: life is short mate, don’t waste it being unhappy if you have choices and with your skills I think you really do. Don’t let the fear hold you back.
Poor wages might be acceptable IF there’s a path to having a career where you make enough to live on. If £16.50 is the pinnacle of pay at that place I would be looking to
Learn all you can
Get plenty of photos videos and plans/drawings of your work
Research trade fairs, recruitment agents and opportunities near you
Leave on good terms to progress your career
One more thing: life is short mate, don’t waste it being unhappy if you have choices and with your skills I think you really do. Don’t let the fear hold you back.
JOEPRO
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I would recommend a chat with whoever your manager is first and at least let them know you are seeking a salary review and will be sending an email to communicate your thoughts for consideration.
This is a huge factor now. All the increases in taxes that the employer has to pay are no laughing matter.Spot on - record numbers of businesses going through. I would LOVE to give my staff more wages but it is a struggle to keep up with all the taxes we have to pay these days. Along with the most expensive industrial electricity in the World something has to give
People moan about the likes of Amazon not paying UK taxes - I wonder what their commercial rates bills are like? Along with their NI and everything else we get screwed for? Corporation tax is just ONE tax. I would love to be in a position to pay it but profit is a dirty word these days - nobody wants you to make one!
Example. Where Mrs DomDom works (Extrusion making factory) their Employer's NI bill has gone up £380k for the tax year 2025/26. That has to come from somewhere.
Add in the large increase in minimum wage which is about 8%, that adds another £200k to the wage bill.
Increases in electricity costs, and they use a lot with the ovens to heat the billet before extruding it, that means the bill has gone up by £70k.
So, costs and overheads are going up a lot but they cannot put up prices to the end customer. But suppose they did, these are extrusions for Window frames, greenhouse frames and so on. The end product goes up in price which means consumers pay more. It's the same for everything that we, the consumer, have to buy. Just look at the quoted companies like Aldi and Tesco, they also have these increased taxes to cope with.
The alternative is that companies make redundancies but expect the reduced workforce to produce the same output. And the overall tax take would be less with more workers signing on. I'll not turn this into a political discussion save to say that the chancellor is about as bright as a black hole if she cannot work this out.
Having said all that, for the OP, that is a derisory pay rate for anything which requires skill, thought and so on. It is the financial realm of shelf stacking at a leisurely pace. Personally I would be giving less commitment to the job and building myself a side gig. With those skills you could easily cope with most things, but take driveway gates as one example; have you seen what they cost now? There's profit there for sure, and you can refuse jobs which people want done for nowt. Still got the wage coming in regardless.
Some things I have learned over the years.
1. the harder you work, the nicer the Boss's holiday gets
2. If you work for yourself, you only work half days. Pick any 12 hours. 7 days a week.
3. Having all your eggs in one basket is madness, when you consider who is actually holding the basket handle, be they customers or a boss. Mix it up and create multiple income streams.
4. When you have skills that create more demand than supply (like more than 40 hours of work a week) the price goes up. If you're too busy making money on a side gig, your boss has to pay more to get your time.
sako243
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Some people are just morons though with respect to managers etc., and in my opinion unfortunately it's the norm.
Case in point my wife took a letter of resignation in with her last week (works in a nursery, has done what now accumulates to years of training) for it. Only works 2 days a a week but they're 10h shifts minimum. She's a softie and decided to have a chat with her boss (and owner of the nursery) saying she'd got another job offer and could she go onto fixed days (basically not Mondays and Fridays). Boss said she didn't want to lose my wife but couldn't offer fixed days, best she could do is offer a "flex-contract" which would take 3 months to kick in without explaining wtf a flexi-contract was. Said she'd have to choose which job she wanted to prioritise, well the unskilled cleaning job pays 25% more, less hours and works around school commitments etc., much better. Also more work available on an adhoc basis pretty much whenever she wants.
None of us understand her boss - she's struggling for staff, the fixed days my missus could work tie in perfectly with all the other existing staff. She's on minimum wage looking after other people's children and peed off constantly because of the attitude of her boss. The benefit is it's solidified in her mind that the boss is a piece of work so will be resigning tomorrow.
Compare that to when I resigned from my last job (albeit a big company). Handed in my notice to my career mentor at 0745, he spent 45 minutes chatting to me about why I was leaving, what they could do to keep me on etc. Had a team meeting at 0900 and my boss and project manager asked me to stay behind spent another half hour talking about what they could do to keep me on. They'd already got from my career mentor that it was basically a no go because I was leaving to move back to Wales so realised they weren't going to succeed but they wanted to try. Later on that day the head of the group came down to my desk and had the same chat. A few days later the most senior technical engineer in the group spent half a day chatting to me in the kitchen about why I was leaving and then progressed onto the crap state of the company because I wasn't the first or last to leave in a short period of time. Big contrast.
Case in point my wife took a letter of resignation in with her last week (works in a nursery, has done what now accumulates to years of training) for it. Only works 2 days a a week but they're 10h shifts minimum. She's a softie and decided to have a chat with her boss (and owner of the nursery) saying she'd got another job offer and could she go onto fixed days (basically not Mondays and Fridays). Boss said she didn't want to lose my wife but couldn't offer fixed days, best she could do is offer a "flex-contract" which would take 3 months to kick in without explaining wtf a flexi-contract was. Said she'd have to choose which job she wanted to prioritise, well the unskilled cleaning job pays 25% more, less hours and works around school commitments etc., much better. Also more work available on an adhoc basis pretty much whenever she wants.
None of us understand her boss - she's struggling for staff, the fixed days my missus could work tie in perfectly with all the other existing staff. She's on minimum wage looking after other people's children and peed off constantly because of the attitude of her boss. The benefit is it's solidified in her mind that the boss is a piece of work so will be resigning tomorrow.
Compare that to when I resigned from my last job (albeit a big company). Handed in my notice to my career mentor at 0745, he spent 45 minutes chatting to me about why I was leaving, what they could do to keep me on etc. Had a team meeting at 0900 and my boss and project manager asked me to stay behind spent another half hour talking about what they could do to keep me on. They'd already got from my career mentor that it was basically a no go because I was leaving to move back to Wales so realised they weren't going to succeed but they wanted to try. Later on that day the head of the group came down to my desk and had the same chat. A few days later the most senior technical engineer in the group spent half a day chatting to me in the kitchen about why I was leaving and then progressed onto the crap state of the company because I wasn't the first or last to leave in a short period of time. Big contrast.
Onthespotwelding
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That’s me basically, Company van + fuel card, hourly pay, paid travel, I Work nationwide.
Welding on weekends, I pick and choose what jobs I want to do.
addjunkie
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Sound like your. Mrs boss is more into playing boss, than actually managing her resources.
In my opinion once the resignation letter is in, your decision is made youve in your head left the company. Trying to persuade you to stay is wasted effort. Had they really wanted you to stay they should know enough to know to look after you before you go looking eldewhere.
When I quit my last job, three of us quit with in two days, my self and my back to back, plus the guy who covered if one of us was off or away elsewhere. Human Remains girl at the exit interview couldn't careless ( big company). Though all three of us did get a phone call from our bosses boss asking why.
Sort out your qualifications, training courses attended etc and start to look for other employment.
Know what the prospects are in your area and expected pay rates.
List the things you do and take responsibility for - be honest with yourself.
Step away from it for a day or two then re read it all.
Then think about where you want to go with your career, what benefits increased training and qualifications could bring the company and you.
If the company can't see any benefits to themselves and your position is easily filled then you are unlikely to get a pay rise and should look elsewhere.
Know what the prospects are in your area and expected pay rates.
List the things you do and take responsibility for - be honest with yourself.
Step away from it for a day or two then re read it all.
Then think about where you want to go with your career, what benefits increased training and qualifications could bring the company and you.
If the company can't see any benefits to themselves and your position is easily filled then you are unlikely to get a pay rise and should look elsewhere.
steveo3002
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your being taken advantage of , go and stand up tescos with the a/c on and stack boxes for the same
daleyd
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I’m not defending your mrs boss but I’m not sure comparing a “career mentor” in a blue chip company (with access to procedures and policies from, I’m guessing, a sizeable HR team, and managing a team of professionals with some proper management training thrown in )with someone who runs a nursery (who is probably one crayon stuffed up a nose away from a mental breakdown and manages a team of low paid and overworked staff, quite a few of which will be of school leaving age, and who will likely have had little or no management training) is entirely fair.
As a comparison my current boss, who has done more than his share of professional management training, is a waster of skin and oxygen when it comes to any matters dealing with his team.
Pete.
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This was my last boss. Boy did he get a shock when I put my notice in out of the blue 28yrs ago after he tried to pull a stunt by punting all of the employees onto a labour agency he'd just started.
Best thing I ever did was leave it changed my life miles for the better.
