Salary Story: I’m A 28-Year-Old Fashion Designer & I Make 55k
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: 28 Location: London Current industry and job title: Designer, fashion Current salary: £55,000 Number of years employed since school or university: Six
Starting salary: £18,000 in 2016 Biggest salary jump: £22,000 to £50,000 in 2020 Biggest salary drop: £28,000 to £22,000 in 2020
Biggest negotiation regret: Allowing someone to take advantage of my inexperience and age, and laugh at what was retrospectively a very reasonable salary expectation for a job, which I still took despite the low salary.
Best salary advice: I’ve not really ever received any advice of note that I can think of. But I’ve learned along the way that the majority of companies will take advantage of you as much as they can if you don’t know or ask for what you deserve, so you’ve got to make sure you do your research and make sure that you do ask.
I struck lucky with a fashion internship at a big-name brand on £18,000. I interned there for a year and was offered a proper job and a £6,000 raise only when I handed in my notice and accepted a job elsewhere.I decided to change companies because I didn’t feel like I was getting the recognition that I deserved at the previous job, having been interning for 11 months. I asked for a salary that matched the salary I had been offered to stay at the previous company (£24,000) but was laughed at and told that I was too big for my boots. Not having much knowledge of how much people got paid in the industry and very much wanting a change, I decided to take the job anyway at £18,000. I was upset when I later found out that someone I worked with who joined around the same time as me at the same level, with the same amount of experience but on a different team, was earning £25,000.Due to somebody leaving who was a level above me, the company not replacing them and me absorbing their responsibilities, I managed to negotiate a small pay rise to £22,000, although no title promotion due to having been in the job for only a short amount of time.I was put on furlough in 2020 and given a pay cut to 80% salary (£22,400). At the time this did significantly affect my finances and ability to afford my living costs.
I decided to leave after nine months but was unfortunately sent the contract negotiation for the person my company was hiring to replace me when I left. I found out that they were being offered a salary of £35,000, which was really tough after having had this pay cut.
At the end of 2020 I changed jobs to move out of the luxury fashion industry. I was not expecting the salary jump and went in with a salary expectation of £35,000. I feel very fortunate that this company did not take advantage of my naivety.
I was given a £5,000 pay rise at my one-year review. My company sets a standard annual pay rise and this year it was set at 7.5%. I got slightly over that, at 10%.
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