Salary Story: Training Helped Me To Really Boost My Pay
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: IT business analyst, charity sector Current salary: £51,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 10 Starting salary: £17,500 Biggest salary jump: From £24,500 to £38,000 in 2021. Biggest salary drop: From £17,500 to £9,500 in 2015.
Biggest negotiation regret: I wish I had started my negotiation at a higher number. I started at my goal salary, and got negotiated down from that, so I would start higher, so I could work down to my goal salary.
Best salary advice: Don’t be afraid to take a cut for a role you love, or that opens a number of doors for you.
My first role after graduation. I was looking to relocate nationally, so looked to find a good entry-level role in a mix of places.
It took me around four months to find a job, and I only ended up getting one offer, so that was the role I took. The location wasn’t ideal, as I was relocating to be with my partner, and the job left me with an hour’s commute each way, but I took the role anyway, as it was my first role after graduating.
I was offered a promotion within the team having completed the relevant internal training. I had to ask for the promotion, and even ended up having to apply for it and compete against external candidates. The training was something that I asked for because I knew that I wanted advancement, and training seemed like a good first step.This was originally a secondment that I completed for my own personal development, and that turned into a permanent position. I enjoyed the role and wanted to stay, and got a pay rise.
I was able to negotiate the extension of my secondment into a permanent contract. There were a few meetings where we discussed my skills, the additional responsibilities that I had to take on, and then I was able to negotiate the pay rise, based on my relevant experience to the role, and the fact that they didn’t want to have to recruit again. I was able to show that I was the obvious, and easy solution.
During lockdown, I had spent a lot of time completing certifications that matched roles that I wanted to move in to, including two Six Sigma qualifications. When I was offered this job, I knew that my qualifications were something that they were looking for. They had a pay scale for the role, and wanted to start me at the bottom of it. I had a call with my hiring manager about it, and how I wasn’t willing to move for that amount, especially as I would have to relocate to London, and we agreed on a starting salary four points higher on the scale, which was about £4,000 up from the base offer.I needed a new challenge, and decided to look outside of my sector. I was unable to negotiate as the charity that I work for, as part of their goals for lay equity, have a set salary pre-judged for each role, and they do not negotiate that salary at all, for any candidates. But, I did get them to agree to a training budget for external certifications. A year later my salary increased to from £46,000 to £51,000, and this is where it’s still at today.
I was able to negotiate a small increase, based on two factors. The first was that my level of responsibility had greatly increased compared to where it had been when I was recruited, and the second was my completion on an industry-level qualification for my role. It was very difficult to get them to agree, but after a lot of conversations with my head of team and HR, it was agreed that I would be given an allowance, due to the step up in responsibility. I wasn’t able to negotiate how much of a pay rise I got, but I was glad that I pushed for it in the first place.
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