Salary Story: I Left My Headteacher Role To Retrain

Illustrated by Michelle Mildenberg

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: Southwest England
Current industry and job title: Soon-to-be ex-assistant headteacher
Current salary: £55,000
Number of years employed since school or university: 15

Starting salary: £23,000 in 2007
Biggest salary jump: £42,000 to £49,000 in 2017
Biggest salary drop: £55,000 to £26,850 this year when I leave teaching for good to do a public sector grad trainee scheme

Biggest negotiation regret: I didn't negotiate when I got the assistant head job at my current school in 2017. The year after, a male teacher joined at the same level of assistant head. My pay immediately was bumped up by £5,000. It was never explained, my pay just went up that month. When I questioned it (the finance department had been known to make mistakes), I was just told that I'd done a really good job and they thought they should pay me more. It made me think I'd undervalued myself and they were expecting me to negotiate them up when I started.

Best salary advice: Divide your salary into how much you get paid for a day of work. Judge all purchases and all promotions against this. Is the item/task worth a day's labour to you?