how much money do you make?

by Alison Green on April 5, 2022

It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.

So let’s take some of the mystery out of salaries. It’s only been a year since our last salary survey, but with so much job churn and changes in the economy, I thought fresher data would be useful.

Fill out the form below to anonymously share your salary and other relevant info. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.)

When you’re done, you can view all the responses in a sortable spreadsheet.

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{ 252 comments }

{ 252 comments… read them below }

  1. form_filler*

    I was expecting to see a question about whether the person is working remotely and possibly, was their job always remote? Could be interesting to see how it’s broken out.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      This is pretty specifically about income. I’d lump remote work under a benefit and benefits aren’t what Alison is gathering data about.

      1. Another person again*

        Speaking of benefits, a survey on that would be interesting. Salary isn’t everything to all people, especially in the US where health insurance costs can be quite high.

        1. WantonSeedStitch*

          Agreed, a survey on benefits (PTO, retirement, healthcare, etc.) would be fantastic.

          1. Texan In Exile*

            The health insurance is why I took a job paying 30% less than my previous job. Our cobra was about to run out and we didn’t want to go on ACA.

          2. Virginia Plain*

            I fear it would lead to USAians feeling a bit beaten down when they saw all the data from Canada and Europe about free healthcare, much more generous leave and paid sick days. I’m aware they are fed up of people banging on about it in the comments and I can’t say I blame them.

        2. Liz*

          I absolutely agree with this. My company offers fabulous benefits, all around. Healthcare, retirement and 401K matching, vacation, flexibility, etc. so while my job may not be all that exciting, or interesting at times, there is nowhere I could go and get anywhere near the benefits I have here.

        3. Ace in the Hole*

          Agreed. Not to mention paid time off. I get over 6 weeks of paid vacation/holiday, a pension, and free health insurance including dependents… most jobs I’ve looked at would have to pay almost 50% more just to make up for the difference in benefits.

      2. Shieldmaiden*

        I agree with form_filler that a remote role is a useful piece of data in discussing income, because one friction point around remote roles is that compensation doesn’t always match the cost of living for the area the employee lives in.

    4. L.H. Puttgrass*

      I really wish there were an “Other” (or “it’s complicated”) option on the remote work question, though. I tried to skip it, since none of the options seemed not to quite fit my situation, but skipping it isn’t an option either.

  2. A Library Person*

    Thank you for running this survey again! It’s always fascinating.

    Just so you know, it looks like the spreadsheet link currently goes to a locked Google Sheet that prompts the viewer to request access.

    1. Melanie Cavill*

      I was just about to comment about the locked spreadsheet, you beat me to it! I’m excited to see what the responses are.

      1. Form filler*

        As another bit of tech feedback, this was awkward to fill out on mobile. For some reason, the page zoomed in super far, each time I set the cursor into the next response field.

  3. Audrey Puffins*

    If the London-based playwright of 3 years ago who was on an annual wage of £80k with only a couple of years professional experience is filling the survey in this year, could you please drop a few more clues to your identity? I know it’s not good form to ask, but it’s such an impressive outlier of a wage that I’d like to be able to at least eliminate a couple of my suspects, even if I’ll never be able to crack the case definitively.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      Ha, as someone with a drama degree, that number is totally hilarious to me. But anyone earning that much as a playwright is probably writing for TV or film on the side. Either that, or Tom Stoppard is making up details to throw us off the scent…

    3. BritChickaaa*

      Oh that’s me! Yes, I write for TV and audio as well (probably 80% of my time is theatre, but 80% of my earnings comes from TV). I don’t earn a salary of course but earnings from commissions, residuals, and awards and things.

      Most playwrights do subsidise with screenwriting, but it is possible (if very very rare) to earn good money from playwriting. I’m friends with Simon Stephens who doesn’t write for screen and he made a fortune off Curious Incident, and both he and some of my other playwriting friends used to derive the bulk of their income from writing large cast plays suitable for young people, because those plays get licensed all the time by drama schools and youth theatres. I once worked with the playwright James Graham and although he’s written some TV, a lot of his money came from writing the books for big musicals like one for Harvey Weinstein and one for Elton John. He did a podcast recently talking about earnings as a playwright and mentioned that he wound up being paid much more for “This House” than the director or any of the cast, because playwrights get a cut of the profits which add up if it’s a long-running show.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        That’s really interesting – I knew that playwrights got residuals, but didn’t know that it could add up that much.

    4. L.H. Puttgrass*

      Related to this question—I’d love to see a question added to the survey along the lines of, “Would you be willing to talk about your job in an AAM entry?” There are some really interesting jobs in that spreadsheet, and a series of posts in which Alison interviews people about their odd jobs (as it were) would be really interesting, IMO.

      (I mean, not to tell Alison what to do with her blog, which is doing quite well without my help, thank you, but it’s something I’d like to see, anyway.)

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yes, though unfortunately there’s no way to add that question without making the survey non-anonymous, because the people willing to be interviewed would have to leave their contact info.
        I do like the Q&As with folks with interesting jobs, though! There should be an open call with a different Google form for that.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Would it be worth including it on one of the open threads? A “tell us about your interesting job if you have one” thread? I mean, it would depend on people self-identifying as having “interesting jobs,” but still, we might hear some interesting stuff.

  4. ThatGirl*

    My answer is the same as last year because I don’t know what my raise will be for this year yet! (I find out this month.)

    But either way it’s always interesting to see how my salary stacks up.

    1. Yorick*

      I didn’t think to factor in my 2.5% raise which should be happening later this year. Oh well.

    2. Construction Safety*

      On the other end of the scale, no raise in the last 4 years. Only bonused 2/4. OTOH, I sleep in my own bed most nights.

      1. ThatGirl*

        My husband works in higher ed and has only gotten 2 raises in 10 years. And one pay cut. :P

        1. N.J.*

          I worked in Higher Ed in a previous position with COLA raises, but this current position there have been for all three years. Sigh, the PTO accrual is decent at least.

    3. Fran Fine*

      Yeah, my salary isn’t exactly the same as last year since I was promoted a couple months after this survey, but I’ve only been in my new role for about 9 months now and we’re also doing salary reviews this month. My manager indicated that if everything’s approved, I should be very happy, so I imagine that means I’ll get a nice sized raise by the end of the month. I wish this survey could have been done in May so my stats would be more accurate in that case! Lol

  5. Monday Monday*

    This is tricky….I recently took a new job working 100% from home. The new job pays the big-city salary where their office is located. But I am in a city 5 hours away in a much lower cost of living. So my salary is going to look wildly high for my location.

    1. form_filler*

      That’s exactly why I suggested a remote work question. I’m in the same situation.

      1. Shieldmaiden*

        And I agree with you upthread (but not directly to your comment). I’m in a higher COL area and paid about industry average, which means it’s lower for my city.

      2. As per Elaine*

        Perhaps it would be useful data in future years to record both where you work, and the city that the COL is adjusted for, if different.

    2. Xenia*

      In this scenario I’d probably give the location of your company rather than your personal location

    3. Yorick*

      In this case, it might be helpful to answer with the office location (just a suggestion in case someone reads before filling out the survey).

    4. Anonymous Pygmy Possum*

      Yup, same here. For me the head office is in the highest COL area in the country but I live in a lower (but still relatively high) COL area, so I’m definitely way overpaid for where I am. If I move to the area near the head office, I may end up receiving a raise but it probably wouldn’t match my current salary when using the COL calculator.

      1. Anonymous Pygmy Possum*

        I see Alison added that stuff but I had already filled out the form! Oh well.

    5. West Coaster employed by Midwest*

      I now live in a West Coast city, but am employed by a Midwest company and “tagged” to a Midwest city, so I put my salary for that Midwest city/state, because I think it is comparable to the area my job would be located in if I did not work remotely.
      Better for others in the Midwest city to be able to compare to than for anyone in West Coast to compare.

    6. 15 Pieces of Flair*

      Same. I can’t even list a city because the nearest major city is over an hour away in another state. I’m likely the only person in my zip code with my job title and industry.

    7. SixTigers*

      I’ve got that situation as well. I get a “location adjustment” of my pay that’s appropriate for a certain large urban area, but I live on the outskirts of that urban area so I don’t really have the outrageous costs experienced by the people living there. If they didn’t have the location adjustment, they wouldn’t be able to afford their jobs, and I just happened to luck into it. Doesn’t happen often. And as an older divorced woman with a wildly extravagant ex (which is one reason why he’s an ex), I’m enormously grateful for it. Means I’ll be able to retire after all!

    8. Fran Fine*

      My salary (base pay and bonus) is way higher than what someone with my title and experience level would get in my city, and I’m also fully remote with a company headquartered in another slightly more expensive state.

  6. Joe*

    I love that you do this and I always participate in the hopes of making pay transparency a common standard!!

  7. DMLOKC*

    Would company size be relevant? My company of 6 FTE may pay very differently than a company of 2,500 FTE.

    1. ecnaseener*

      I can see how it would be interesting, but do people usually factor it into market rate? Like if a tiny company is paying below market rate because they’re tiny, they’re paying below market rate – they don’t get to carve out their own small-company submarket.

      1. Cedrus Libani*

        To be fair, these tiny (and/or cheap) companies play a valuable role in the ecosystem – they hire less experienced people, turn them loose on tasks well above their pay grade, and then replace them regularly once they’ve gotten to the point where they’re competitive for a market-rate job. Big companies tend to want proven performers, and are willing to pay market rates to get them, while the little ones have to take more chances.

        1. OyHiOh*

          This is exactly a description of me: Life/shit happened, I needed to essentially start over, and a tiny little non profit gave me a chance. Sixteen hours of admin support/week has morphed into 3/4 FTE role where I wear many hats, and, if all goes according to plan, will move to full time/salaried/benefits this summer.

          When I’m ready to leave here, I’ll have solid experience and achievements under about four or five different job areas, which will give me a lot of flexibility in what I do next. I’m somewhat under paid for some of the types of work I do right now, but I’m ok with that, for a limited amount of time, to develop the experience that will bump me significantly in another year to two years.

        2. Koala dreams*

          That’s my experience too. Small companies often pay lower for less experience, while larger companies prefer to pay more but have higher requirements (experience/degree/certificate). Small companies often can’t offer promotions so the more ambitious and experienced employees tend to look for work at bigger companies anyway.

          Depending on industry, location and so on of course.

        3. ecnaseener*

          Sure! I’m not saying small employers are evil or anything for not being able to offer market rate. Just that if you’re accepting a below-market-rate salary, you should know that’s what you’re doing – which is what this survey is all about.

        4. Reluctant Mezzo*

          But if these tiny companies are in a semi-rural area, they can get good quality people on the cheap, because many of these people can’t move, or need the health care benefit too much to risk changing jobs. Big companies in a small town area run the town, and some of them rather like it. That’s why data on location is pretty important.

  8. Someone in BioPharma*

    No options for Pharma or Bio Pharma? I consider my industry much different from Healthcare.

    3. D*

      Oof, same. And the pay is very different, I think. I put Healthcare, and sometimes you can guess based on the job title, but yeah.

    5. Fourth and Inches*

      I put manufacturing since I work at a Pharma plant, but that might be pretty unique to me.

    8. Annony-mouse*

      Same. I debated healthcare apr science and ultimately put science, but biotech/healthcare manufacturing would be most accurate.

  9. Spearmint*

    Perhaps it’s too late, but I’d like it if this survey included PTO as well. I know for me that’s almost as important as pay, and it’s similarly hard to know how much others get.

      1. Anonym*

        Consider this my vote for either a benefits focused survey in the future, or combined salary/benefits survey next time around!

        I knowingly accept a lower salary at my employer than some of its competitors offer because I have 5 weeks PTO not including sick leave and there’s 4 months minimum maternity leave (most people add their PTO to get to 5ish). It’s a fairly explicit part of their comp strategy – they compete for talent on benefits/lifestyle where most competitors are on the high salary / high misery model. (It’s finance industry, shockingly.)

        As long as I have a choice, I will never willingly give my labor to a company that offers less PTO. It’s the literal top of my list when assessing opportunities, because time is the one resource you can never get back, can’t stockpile, and you aren’t guaranteed a given amount of it. That and, once survival is covered, wellbeing becomes the priority.

        1. DecorativeCacti*

          It would be interesting to see the comparison. I’m job searching now and just interviewed at a place that offers mid-range salary but has just two weeks combined PTO (GARBAGE). I applied for another place with low salary but five weeks PTO. I’d rather have the time off.

  10. Grey*

    What industry and function would you chose for Real Estate/Property Management? Should I just use “Other”?

    2. Elder Millennial*

      The questionnaire is based on the assumption that you work full-time, it asks you to calculate your salary to a year’s worth of 40 hour weeks. If you work many more (or less) hours than the standard in your industry or field you could always add that in the answer field for the question that asks if you have any additional context you’d like to add.

      I would be careful to add to many questions. Before you know it filling it out takes a lot of time and that will prevent people from doing so. For you the question about the work hours is the most important, but for someone else it is the amount of PTO offered, for a third person it’s 401(k) contributions or childcare benefits, for another person it’s healthcare benefits and for yet another person it’s maternity/paternity leave.

      Alison has made a choice to only focus on salary and I think that has downsides (it clearly limits the information we get from the survey), but it also has benefits (it’s only a few questions and that’s probably why more people fill it out.)

      1. fine tipped pen afficionado*

        These are good considerations. I wonder if it would be feasible to do a benefits/culture survey separate from a wage survey? That would be a tough survey to make given how open to interpretation those ideas are but I would love to see how many hours a week people actually work and if there are trends in certain industries or regions or professions.

        This is way off in fantasy land but wouldn’t it also be lovely to be able to look at this salary data next to benefits/culture data next to job satisfaction data and see what trends we find?

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          A benefits survey would definitely be a good idea, but in general it’s difficult for people to assess the financial value of their health insurance benefits because there’s so little transparency in pricing and actual costs. (I’m specifically referring to the US system here.) That would make it difficult to make comparisons, so a survey may be more useful for assessing non-health insurance benefits, such as paid time off.
          And insurance systems vary so much between countries, as well. In the UK, we have a private health system in addition to the NHS and some employers do offer discounted private insurance, but it’s still very different than the insurance/benefits system that you have in the US.

          1. CTT*

            Agreed, and it’s difficult to judge other benefits as well. I technically don’t have PTO, because I’m an attorney and everything’s billable hours, so management doesn’t care if I take two weeks off as long as I hit my goals. But how would I succinctly explain that in a survey?

          2. fine tipped pen afficionado*

            US insurance is a nightmare! And there is a great deal of insurance as an employment benefit variety from country to country.

            But I would be super interested to know more about holidays (does your employer offer flexible holidays so you aren’t obligated to follow a religious calendar that doesn’t apply to you?) and time off. I’m also interested in things like free/discounted services (childcare? car washes?) and memberships, swag, summer Fridays, mandated dark hours or other work/life balance protections, etc.

            Even more nebulous but I’d be especially interested to know what other people are getting as “perks” that aren’t considered income or benefits. Like my housemate’s employer sends her tens of thousands of dollars worth of gifts throughout the year, sometimes for no reason. She gets wine of the month clubs, Omaha steaks, pizzas, random self-care subscription boxes, fully paid spa days for her +1, gift cards, etc. On their in-office days they hire a mobile car wash company to clean everyone’s car.

            That would be so hard to collect data on but it seems like something we should have more conversation about. My housemate’s employer spends more on the gifts they send her than most of my friends make in their entire annual salary.

          3. kitryan*

            Yeah, health insurance as a benefit is tough to quantify (in my opinion) since it also has to do with usability – right now I’m dreading a call to the insurance company to work out why they’re not covering several things they are very much supposed to cover. If a plan/company either requires jumping thru hoops to get them to do what they’re supposed to do or if they won’t provide the benefits I’m supposed to be receiving, the value of that insurance is less than its book value, as it were.
            Then there’s also the apples/oranges comparisons for PTO- some people have all in one bucket systems, others have separate baskets, some continue to roll over, some expire, some pay out, some don’t. And then there’s the ‘unlimited’ companies. I’d have trouble turning that into a quantifiable survey.
            The info would be interesting though.

      2. BubbleTea*

        If I worked full time, I’d work 35 hours a week. That’s what full time means here (or 37.5 hours, but in my organisation it’s 35 and that’s not uncommon in our sector). So I didn’t know how to answer.

    3. Not Your Secretary*

      Doh. I meant to put in the notes for extra info that I work 45, not 40 hour per week, because my front desk position doesn’t get any breaks. Ah well, it’s only a few hours’ difference.

      As an aside, when I was offered this job, I thought $14/hr was ridiculously high for this position because I was under the mistaken belief that minimum wage was still $7-something in this state. Turns out I missed the news that it was raised to $11 a few years ago and will gradually go up to $15 in a few more (if our current terrible governor doesn’t undo everything his opposing-party predecessors did out of spite). So my “impressive” offer was really just the company preparing for future wage increases. The hiring manager DID say she was offering a bit more because of past experience, so at least I have that for my ego, haha.

      1. Not Your Secretary*

        This was supposed to be a new comment, site. I even clicked the “add a new reply” at the top!

    4. fhqwhgads*

      Are you asking in the context of say, this is what you make annualized to 40/hrs a week, but how much does that job actually end up being? I don’t know if that’s a useful metric given how frequently people are either workaholics so they work a zillion hours even though they didn’t need to and people who are just not fast and take longer, etc etc.

  12. Former Gifted Kid*

    I wasn’t sure what to put for my job functional area and I’m curious about others’ thoughts. I do training. More specifically, I provide professional development to people outside my organization. That is also what I did at my last two jobs. I wasn’t sure if I should have put education because I am educating people, but it’s not higher ed. I also thought about putting nonprofits since I do this for a nonprofit, but I have also done this job function for a government org, so that didn’t seem right either. I ended up putting “Other: Training”

    1. Wants Green Things*

      Other: Training or the Business/Consulting option could have worked too – you are being consulted to provide your services in professional development, after all.

  13. Verde*

    I would suggest the first question about work be is it a nonprofit or for profit company, then go into the sub-genres. For example, I work for an Arts/Theater organization, I do finance/payroll, and the organization is a nonprofit. Those are three separate things that add to the nuance of the work and the pay.

    1. Madeleine Matilda*

      You also have people answering who work in government from public school teachers to Federal agency employees to law enforcement.

      1. [insert witty username here]*

        I think non-profit and government would be good differentiators to add in the future. I am a gov’t contractor, which is much different than a gov’t employee, but overall, my industry should probably still be gov’t.

      2. Jessen*

        I was wondering this as well – I have no idea if I should put government or healthcare for mine.

    2. Rocket*

      I was thinking that same thing! I feel like the industry is very different if your nonprofit is a major arts organization vs a house of worship vs a homeless shelter. All three are non profits, but salaries and positions are going to vary wildly between them.

  14. Nobby Nobbs*

    Would y’all classify landscaping (maintenance) as agriculture or property/construction?

  15. catwhisperer*

    Is there a way to edit your response? Just realised I forgot to include some important info about stock options in the compensation question.

  16. Ace in the Hole*

    Can you make the “Which city do you work in” question optional? For those of us in smaller cities and uncommon job titles, disclosing the exact location makes it impossible to submit anonymously.

    1. Persephone Mulberry*

      I used “[City] metro area”. For the purposes of this survey, that seemed close enough.

    4. Anonymous Hippo*

      You can type whatever you want in the field. I put something vague like northern Idaho, or rural Texas or something.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          Yeah, I work in a city, so am not worried, but…there are only 5 or 6 actual cities in my country (I say 5 or 6 as Kilkenny is TECHNICALLY a city, but is smaller than some towns and I wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable putting that up either), so I was thinking if I worked in a town, I’d say Co. Galway or Co. Kildare or whatever.

    5. Keeley Jones, The Independent Woman*

      I didn’t use my internal job title, because outside the company it doesn’t exist. I put what the widely used title is . Like some companies get cute with titles “Director of First Impressions” was my title 20 years ago as a college student. It was a receptionist job.

      1. Ace in the Hole*

        My title is pretty standard for the industry, it’s just the kind of job that a small city will only have one of.

    6. Anon scientist*

      Amen. I already said that I’m in a low-population state and frankly I’m already getting un-anonymous with my job title and salary.

    7. I Can Never Think of a Name*

      Yeah, there is literally one other person in my whole state with a job like mine (and our titles aren’t even exactly the same) so i just can’t bring myself to be comfortable sharing. (Which I know is ridiculous, but here we are.)

  17. Thistle whistle*

    I put in my highest degree, but being european, my relevant qualifications are “professional qualifications” not professionsl degrees. Ie. I have chartered status which took years of study to achieve (with the official recognition that its the same level as a masters), but that wasn’t recognised in the options.

  18. Anonsy*

    I know I shouldn’t feel worried about sharing my salary because legally I’m allowed to share it, but man that doesn’t stop the anxiety around sharing this information and thinking my work might figure out I shared my salary. (And, what, I’m not even sure I could name what I think the consequences could be from them, so I don’t get why I’m anxious)

    1. Free Meerkats*

      Because you’ve been brainwashed into believing that salary should be confidential. The only ones that benefit from the secrecy are the employers who want to underpay. Either underpay everyone, or to underpay certain demographics (cough-women, POC-cough).

      1. Too many hats for this salary*

        If I but had a picture of the look on the GM’s face who tried to indirectly threaten me and a coworker for discussing wage rates (surprise, I was paid almost $2/hr lower).

        “Hey, you guys can’t talk about that, it’s a violation of your contract. I could fire you right now, but I’m going to let it be a teaching moment cause you didn’t know.”

        We were two early twenty girls and he was a very stereotypical ex military man, so yes this was said as condescendingly as it is written.

        And then there was me, just kind of blinking at him. “Um. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a federal offense but we’re also in NJ so…”

        And that job wondered why I quit to go get my degree in HR.

    2. Chapeau*

      I have the same fear, although my salary is a matter of public record. It’s still pathetic for the work we do, although the benefits are equally absurd (just in the opposite direction). Not sure if it balances out, but it’s sort of working for my needs at the moment…

    3. ecnaseener*

      Same!! It’s so silly, I’m not even concerned about getting in trouble there’s just a siren going off in my head yelling FAUX PAS ALERT, DONT TALK ABOUT MONEY

    4. Nunya_Bniz*

      At a major govt contractor where I worked around 2000 an employee was fired because she found a list of everyone’s salaries on the printer and shared it (initially anonymously). People came in and had envelopes on their desks with a copy inside and notes like “so and so is making more than you for the same job” etc… It was a WHOLE thing… corporate security got involved. She got walked out as soon as they figured out who did it. I’m glad salary talk is more open now, but I am still a little leery of it!

      1. Koalafied*

        There’s a big difference between disclosing other people’s salaries – which she was not authorized to access and only obtained through a security breach and did not have consent to share – and freely disclosing your own salary. Legally, you only have the protected right to share your own information, and information that the company has authorized you to share in your official capacity as an employee. Finding confidential information on a printer and blasting it out to the whole company is the faux pas, not the fact that it was “salary talk.”

      2. Nerfmobile*

        Oh gosh, at my very first job somebody did something very similar. Although he sent it in an email so it wasn’t anonymous!

  19. Nunya_Bniz*

    Well, I filled out the survey, but now I’m wondering: I am signed into my Google account. Since this is a Google form, did I just give Google a bunch of information about my salary, etc… Is it going to auto be connected to me/my Google account since I’m logged in? Is it 100% anonymized? How do we know??

    1. Love That Google*

      We don’t!

      You gave your information to an Internet stranger, who (at the time of this comment) hasn’t put a notice of confidentiality or informed consent on the survey, nor has she notified participants about she’ll store the data she’s collecting or how she will or won’t tie it to Google IDs or IP addresses. You gave that information over a platform that shares your data internally and with governments and with advertisers without a truly transparent disclosure of what they share and how they share and monetize it.

      1. Software Dev (she/her)*

        This is both completely unnecessary fear-mongering and not—how anything works? What is “google ids or ip addresses” meant to mean?

      2. Google suckth*

        Google know my location, which why I don’t answer such questionnaires. It assumes language skills based on location. The questionnaire creator can tick the “English’ box but not all of it is in English.

    2. Raboot*

      Could google be analyzing all these freeform answers and mining them for user data? Sure, anything is possible I guess. Is it likely? No.

      > Is it 100% anonymized?

      If you mean does Alison get your email – no she doesn’t. How do we know? The form is clear that your email won’t be shared and I suppose we just have to trust them.

      1. Nunya_Bniz*

        No, I’m not terribly worried about Alison getting my email, as I’ve in the past emailed her ;) But I do worry about google now knowing that *myname@gmail.com* makes X dollars, lives in X city, doing X job, etc… It’s probably no big deal; I just suddenly had a “oh no did I just….” moment.

        1. ecnaseener*

          Google certainly already knows where you live, which office building you spend your days in, everything else on the internet with your name on it (so probably your job title). The salary is the only piece that might be new.

          1. Squidhead*

            Obviously not true for everyone but I have a unique surname and am a state employee. You can just Google me to find out how much I make (or search the state public info database)! Google also knows what shift I work, where I work, and which grocery store I shop at, and it probably know that I need to buy birdseed and floor cleaner. (Not saying I don’t understand the OP’s concern but for me this ship has already sailed.)

        2. urguncle*

          Hi I work in adtech. More complicated information like that has to be set up in a very specific way for companies like Google to put it in the right place, most likely not something that Alison set up in a Google poll. The information that most likely was kept by Google was that you participated in the poll, the URL of the site, a timestamp and other boring information like the browser you’re using, where you are, etc.

    3. UKPolite*

      Could we have mixed race option next time please. I can never find the right category without it.

  20. Hogsmeade AirBNB*

    Unless I’m off base, there’s no good option for administrators/PAs/EAs. Could you please add?

    1. OyHiOh*

      Yeah, I made a stand alone comment about this. Just a blanket “administration” category would cover a lot of missing ground!

  21. BlueBelle*

    I listed the state and city my offices are in, and then in the city location, I listed the name of the city and that I work remote from another state.

  22. Murfle*

    I’m pretty sure I took part in this last year, but I’m glad it’s happening again, because I’m a textbook example of the Great Resignation – working in tech, switched to a new role, got a big raise.

    Alison, can you officially make this an annual thing??

  23. Anon for This*

    I’m still not comfortable with the city question. My employer is the only employer in my county who hires people in my position, it’ll be really obvious I’m outing them as a place with terrible wages if I answer that question.

    2. Raboot*

      You don’t have to answer it. Even if it’s required for the form you can just say “redacted for privacy” or something. (But also, outing them as having terrible wages is okay.)

    3. NeedRain47*

      I put the region (part of state) instead, b/c I am almost certainly the only one in the city with this job title.

  24. OyHiOh*

    I wish that “administration” had been included as a functional area. I wear many hats at my organization but most of them roughly fit under the heading of administration. As is, I needed to use the Other box to cleanly catch my functional area(s).

    As a more general comment, surveys like this are always interesting to me both for what they ask and what they don’t ask. Design reveals a considerable amount of information about perspectives on work, what professional work and roles are, and what the designer believes are the most important decision factors in people’s choices about work.

    1. Sammy Keyes*

      Yeah, I was surprised that wasn’t included, since it covers a LOT of jobs that don’t easily go under the umbrella of any of the areas listed!

  25. NeedRain47*

    IDK what industry I’m in. I’m a librarian in a public library but it’s not part of the local government in any direct way. And I’m a cataloging & metadata librarian, which absolutely never fits in any job category.

    1. AnotherLibrarian*

      Public libraries are funded by local government, so that’s where I would put it. The job title will specify that you’re a librarian.

      1. NeedRain47*

        It’s not under any local government, it doesn’t work like that here, so I’m really not comfortable with that.

      2. Loulou*

        Eh, a lot of orgs receive funding from the government while not being parts of the government themselves. Government work is very much its own beast, so I would only select that option if I were actually employed by the government.

        The survey is totally unusable on my phone, so I can’t fill it in, but I’d probably select “nonprofit” if I could, and it sounds like I’m in a similar situation to OP.

    2. SuperAnonyToday*

      I wrote in Library/Archives and then selected “Government” under functional since I work for government.

      I always find it weird when there aren’t GLAM options for occupation. Pretty sure there a decent chunk of us who participate on this board, but also my undergrad does the same thing. We chug out like 3-4 every class of less than a thousand and it’s still not listed under Occupation in our Alumnae database.

      2. CCC*

        FWIW, the department of labor has an established taxonomy for occupations called the Standard Occupational Classification system. Librarians, archivists, and curators all have their own occupational lines in there (nested in the “educational instructors and library occupations” category).

    5. Retired Library Lady*

      I was hoping someone would bring this up! As a former/retired librarian, I worked in 2 different public libraries and 3 different academic ones. Each of the academic libraries was (obviously) part of an institution of higher education; however, the public libraries were both under the umbrella of local governments but completely divorced from all other government functions.

      For the latter, I feel like selecting “government” as the industry would be inaccurate and misleading, and there’s nothing in the “functional area” list that would pertain to any of my jobs in any type of library.

      Since I’m no longer working in the field, I was hoping someone currently working as a librarian would raise this issue, and I want to add my agreement that this is a problem.

      1. yala*

        I could see “government” being relevant if only because a job being a government job is going to affect how you’re paid, ie: no individual raises or bonuses. afaik, you can’t really *ask* for a raise at a government job.

  26. Bagpuss*

    Alsion, are you interested in people who are self-employed or only those who are employees?

  27. Chidi has a stomach ache*

    So, I understand why the survey asks for annualized equivalent (for the purposes of comparison), but this is something that always annoyed me w/r/t education and higher ed (specifically faculty) salary data where 10 month contracts are the norm. It can make it seem like education salaries are higher than they are, even though in my experience 12mo contracts are usually only for higher level leadership and administration. (Plus, teachers/fac on 10mo contracts are inevitably working over the summer, though that’s perhaps leading into a host of issues not strictly related to salary).

    2. mreasy*

      If you don’t have the option of working 12 months, wouldn’t it make more sense to include the annual salary for 10 months? Then provide context? It’s your actual yearly salary.

    3. Yellow*

      I’d report your annual salary. I think the part time idea is if you are employed 50% but the standard is 100% what would you earn if you worked the 100% load.

      Technically we don’t work 40 hour weeks. But there’s no option to take a 40 hour position. It doesn’t make sense to talk 40 hour equivalents because you cannot earn that.

      I think your case is similar. If standard is 40 wks/year and you can’t routinely opt for 52 wks/yr then your annual full time wage has the context of 12 weeks leave in which you are or are not free to take other employment. Stating the 52 wk equivalent isn’t helpful if that’s not actually on offer.

  28. J!*

    Hi, shipbuilding engineer person. I want to know everything about what you do because that sounds super freaking cool.

  29. Meow*

    I can’t figure out how to sort or filter, not sure if I’m doing something wrong. I don’t seem to have the usual filtering options.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      The first few days that survey is up are always tricky in that regard — so many people are in the sheet that it limits some of the normal sorting functionality. Try again at the end of the week and you’ll be able to sort (and there will be way more data then too).

        1. Chilli Heeler*

          You can also copy and paste into Excel or another spreadsheet and sort/filter/etc. You’ll still have to copy/paste each time you want to get updates, but hopefully it won’t be too long before the traffic on the shared doc settles down.

  30. Cynthia*

    A good question – or section of questions – to add might be “How long have you been at your current job,” and “What was your starting wage” in order to see how well people’s compensation is being updated over time. 22 years at my job and I make over 3X what my starting wage was.

  31. Aunty Fox*

    I’ve set qualification as Masters as that’s what google says my UK awarded BSc is in the US, but if that’s not quite right apologies, hopefully won’t mess up the stats too much.

    1. Molly the cat*

      That’s odd. It’s literally got “bachelor’s” in the name, why wouldn’t it be the equivalent of a bachelor’s?

      1. Lost academic*

        Yeah I might not know enough but that doesn’t quite seem right. How much education and what type did you have to get the degree?

      2. Glomarization, Esq.*

        There’s a decent explainer at: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/British_degree_abbreviations

  32. No Tribble At All*

    Yessssssssss!!!

    Realized after I submitted that my job is probably more “computing/tech” than “engineering/manufacturing” but what can ya do.

    Would love to see a reader-generated list of “most interesting job titles” bc I’m nosy lol.

  33. fine tipped pen afficionado*

    There are so many very valid criticisms of government as an employer (to say nothing of the criticisms of it as an entity) but making pay information public record rocks and I love it. That’s one thing we do right.

  34. Liz*

    This is well timed. We have just been awarded a pay rise across the board. Everyone is now on a minimum of £10 an hour. Originally they were talking about a 2% increase which would have meant us dropping below the living wage. I was getting ready to make a huge deal over that, because our employer has always stressed how they pay the living wage, and with the huge cost of living crisis going on at the moment, that 2% really wouldn’t have made a dent. I’m so glad they’ve gone to bat for us and not only kept up with living wage but actually bumped it a little over as well.

  35. Pants*

    This is a lot nicer to fill out when I actually have a job! (Last year, that was not the case.)

  36. Need More Sunshine*

    Yay! Thank you, Alison, for running this survey so frequently. And thank you to everyone responding!

  37. CCC*

    How do you come up with the industry and occupation categories? I have to find company NAICS (industry classifications) and people’s SOC (occupational classifications) often in my job, so I’m curious!

  38. LadyA*

    I would be interested in being able to add more than one masters/ professional degree. In my field it’s common to have two masters, but it’s definitely not reflected in the pay.

  39. Aly Oops*

    Can we add a better category than just “science”? I work in pharmaceuticals, so very different than academic science. Would be good to have a science industry and science academia options.

    2. liz*

      I did industry — higher ed and job — scientist as an academic scientist. To me these seem pretty easy to distinguish with the current setup.

  40. Insert Clever Name Here*

    What are other supply chain management/procurement/sourcing folks using for functional area?

    2. Persephone Mulberry*

      I used Transport/Logistics but when looking at the spreadsheet I see a few people opted for Other and filled in Supply Chain.

  42. Justin*

    I guess I’m not surprised but I always note the demographics of the audience (or those who respond to these). I appreciate these opportunities to learn about the others here (and I filled it out with my new job info so that was cool).

  43. DisneyChannelThis*

    I always love combing through data like this for most interesting job titles. “Zoo curator” is the best I’ve seen so far in the new sheet.

  44. DisneyChannelThis*

    Demographics looking interesting as well – at time of this comment had 3646 women, 418 men, 143 nonbinary, and 39 other.

    1. ThatGirl*

      I remember it skewing heavily toward white women last year, so it’s interesting but not necessarily surprising.

      1. TransMan101*

        I agree and beyond that if there is a difference between nonbinary, transmasculine and transfeminine identified people.

        I answered but selected male (because nonbinary felt dishonest and not answering felt like like it would look like I was avoiding the question) which felt like I wasn’t able to acknowledge being trans which I am. It felt ok but also like I was left out of the count somehow.

  45. Nonprofit writer*

    Would love to see a freelancer/independent contractor survey like this at some point—many of us set our own rates & it would be useful to see what others charge in my field. Based on my clients’ feedback, I *think* what I charge is right, but would be great to have comparisons. Also would be interesting to know what other people’s fee structures are—daily or hourly rate, flat project fee, etc.

  46. Coco*

    I work in non-profit higher education. I wasn’t sure which category to select, so I just went with higher education. I’m very interested to see all the different responses!

  48. Katrine Fonsmark*

    I am fully remote, and listed the city and state where I live and work, which is neither the city nor the state where my company is based (FWIW salaried in my company are not based on location). What did other people do?

    1. Filosofickle*

      I went with my company’s location instead of mine since my pay matches that area better than my own. It was a tossup.

  49. Paris Geller*

    I remember filling out this survey last year at the time when I was job hunting. I work in the same field I did then, different city in the same state, and make 20k more than I did last year. It’s interesting to look back on!

  50. Beth*

    Suggestion for next year: there are a lot of people who started graduate work and did not actually get the degree. I know, I can simply say I have an undergraduate degree, since that level is the one I completed — but the years I spent in graduate school, even though I don’t have the extra degree, made a HUGE difference. It’s similar to the difference between having a high school degree and “some college”. I would say that it’s a bigger difference than the one between having a predoctoral master’s degree and a doctoral degree.

    1. OyHiOh*

      I thought the education question lacked nuance as well.

      As phrased, a person with an associates degree either has to lie (bachelors) or diminish their degree (some college). An AA or AAS is not “some college,” it’s a fully fledged degree that opens a great many doors that a high school dipoma only does not.

      1. Yellow*

        In fairness to AAM if you have too many classifications you end up losing the ability to compare. There are many factors outside these that affect wage. You might choose a lower wage because of better non-financial perks (WFH, generous leave, less stress, location, scheduled hours etc), or you might be paid well above the expected because of things that are hard to replicate for others.

        I’ve had jobs where my low level qualifications were more important than my high level. I needed certain certificate level quals to do the job. My higher Ed quals were not required. But hard to capture in summary info.

      2. The Other Dawn*

        It’s pretty common to see an associates phrased as “some college,” though. I have an associates and I don’t feel like answering “some college” diminishes that.

  51. Stephanie*

    Very excited to participate as I did last year but I got a big pay raise by changing companies!

  52. Eternal Student*

    I think there’s a missed opportunity here. As somebody with 2 masters degrees and a degree that essentially indicates my ABD, just clicking “masters” doesn’t cut it, but I won’t lie and say I got the Ed.D. Lots of people have multiple masters.

    1. Courageous cat*

      I feel like this is kinda nitpicky/what she may be trying to avoid? This isn’t meant to be tailored to everyone’s specific situation. I’d just say masters and keep on trucking.

  54. AlltheQuestions*

    Would it be possible to (maybe in future questionnaires) add an optional question for company’s annual budget and perhaps the # of employees? I find that it’s hard to adequately compare my salary to another’s if I do not know whether our organizations are comparable or not. I find this is especially true in the nonprofit world. Thanks!

  55. Sam*

    I just want to say – thank you for being explicit about the “employer’s industry” and “functional area of job” — my job is a big industry completely separate from the industry that my employer is in, and similar surveys often leave me unsure which to highlight.

  56. RPOhno*

    If you are a member of a professional society for your field, check to see if they have their own salary survey. Some of them do pretty comprehensive data analytics on salary.

  58. BinaryTransGuy*

    This is great though I wish there was either free answer or an option for those of us who are trans but not nonbinary to accurately describe gender. Even having Transmasculine, Transfeminine and Nonbinary as options would be great.

    1. Jacey*

      It would be interesting to see a breakdown of how cis and trans binary people are paid.

      1. TransMan101*

        I agree and beyond that if there is a difference between nonbinary, transmasculine and transfeminine identified people.

        I answered but selected male (because nonbinary felt dishonest and not answering felt like like it would look like I was avoiding the question) which felt like I wasn’t able to acknowledge being trans which I am. It felt ok but also like I was left out of the count somehow.

  59. Canadian Librarian #72*

    I know that you’re looking at annualized salaries, but as a contract worker limited to only a certain number of hours a week, my annualized hourly wage isn’t at all reflective of how much money I make.

  60. Clarita*

    I wasn’t exactly sure how to do my salary- I work 16h a week and make 925€/month for 8 months of the year (education, school-year contract). When I annualized my income by how I understood the instructions, it came out to 22.200€, but in reality I make 7.400€/year. A big difference!! I wish to 22.200€/year… But low cost of living and public health make it doable, even comfortable.

  61. Essentially Cheesy*

    How does one allow for data entry idiosyncrasies? Income listed at (literally) 40 or 52 etc?

  62. Sylvan*

    Someone in my field in my city is making my salary plus $20K. One is making my salary plus 80K. :o

    Just about everyone in my field is making more than me… Hmm. :/

  64. generic_username*

    So, the non-binary Native American turnip farmer with a PhD making £750,000 in Great Britain is a joke right?

      1. generic_username*

        Agreed. This is really cool info to see, and this fake data sort of calls all of it into question (although that one is blatantly implausible so I’m just trusting that most of it is real since most of it seems plausible)

        1. Jay*

          Hmmmm……..
          Any chance someone found 750 people rich enough and dumb enough to pay $1000.00 for a “Genuine Magical Indian Turnip” in England? If it were California, they would be billionaires by now, but maybe England is more sane. Heck, they would have made that $750,000 off of Gwyneth Paltrow alone.

          1. RagingADHD*

            GP would only jump on that bandwagon if you painted it pink and recommended shoving it somewhere one should not put a turnip.

  65. BubbleTea*

    I wish there was a way to communicate to the person doing the same job as me in a different UK city for a sizable chunk less money that my organisation is recruiting, is an excellent employer, and has pivoted to taking people on fully remotely since Covid, without outing myself online. Perhaps they’re happy in their job! But they’re earning the same as they’d get in retail, for a specialist role.

  66. TechWorker*

    A question I’ll repeat in the Friday thread if this isn’t a good place to ask! Looking for constructive ways to raise salary concerns; is it weird to lay it out in writing?

    I have had 3 promotions in the last 3 years. The first two came with a bit of a salary bump, the most recent with barely any pay rise. What this means is I am paid £20-£25k less than other people at my grade. Yes, many of them have 10 years more experience, so perhaps we should not be paid THE SAME but I am also doing fundamentally the same job (!). I don’t want to leave but I also know budgets are ‘tight’ but a) my company is still making bank and b) that’s fundamentally not my problem ;)

    I feel like (as a woman in tech/as a woman) I have a habit of sounding happier than I am about my salary/being more understanding than is good for me! Is it weird to put something in writing? Should I come up with a specific script before I talk to my manager?

    2. DisneyChannelThis*

      I’d sit out. Your salary from 3 years ago hopefully would have increased in those 3 years – so not a good data point for comparison to this years data.

  68. Jane of A Few Trades*

    If I have a primary job and several side gigs in the same industry, is it better if I do multiple entries or just one? The side gigs make up about a third of my income and pay less per hour than my primary job.

  69. Rocket*

    This is very timely for me. My boss is literally in the middle of putting together a promotion offer for me, to be included in our budget proposal to the board next week. It’s good to see what other people in my industry and line of work are making!

  70. MAC*

    This really brought home how different my life is from a year ago. I changed jobs in January and went from the nonprofit industry to working for a federal contractor (which resulted in a a 67% salary increase), and went from 5 days a week with a “butt in the seat in the office” expectation (and typically more than 40 hours) to a firm 4×10 schedule that currently only expects ~1/2 day per week in the office and the rest teleworking. It has been a very positive change all-around!

  71. Blue Collar*

    This is super interesting! Career websites list some very unrealistic salaries so it’s great to see more up-to-date info.

    After looking at the spreadsheet, I think I chose the wrong industry lol. I just picked utilities because that’s what I install lol. Probably should’ve gone with construction.

  72. Xaraja*

    I was moved into a position that was newly created at my employer about 6 months ago, and technically i don’t have any experience in this precise field, so i put less then 1 year… But it’s still under the umbrella of IT and i did learn a lot of the general ideas in my college degree and such so it feels weird to say I’m brand new. Ah well.

  73. Chris Paterson*

    If it’s not too late, you should change “Great Britain” to “United Kingdom”. Great Britain is not a country, it’s the island that England, Scotland and Wales are on. The country of the United Kingdom includes those states and also Northern Ireland, the latter of which is not part of Great Britain. Currently, people from Northern Ireland will be very confused about what how they should respond to that question.

    1. Cruciatus*

      I didn’t have to log in. I was able to just fill it out on the screen and then click the link to get to the spreadsheet.

  75. KSharpie*

    LinkedIn has a salary estimation tool as well to help you get a good idea of range for negotiation, I got a 33% raise to industry standard when I moved to a new company.

  76. Alexis Rose*

    Yayyy, was very excited to see this poll when I did my daily AAM break after a few days off. Love participating every year!!

    Future polls I wonder if there would be any appetite to look at factors in addition to sex/gender and ethnicity. For instance: sexual orientation. Its another factor that really has an effect on salary ceilings/earning potential for a lot of folks.

    I’ve been wrestling with defining my own sexual orientation lately, and information like that I find fascinating as I try to navigate my own identity with my work identity and how the two intersect (or don’t!).

    1. DisneyChannelThis*

      You might be interested in looking into some other sources of data for comparisons of salary by sex/gender/orientation. Just looking at the demographics here you’ve got 80% women and 88% white respondents as of this morning. That’s really going to skew meaningful comparisons.

      Overall there is a wage gap by orientation. It’s improving over time but as of 2019 was still readily apparent. It’s not evenly by race either, minorities have a much larger gap within that category.

      https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-wage-gap-among-lgbtq-workers-in-the-united-states link has some good links to additional information.
      “Our analysis of salary data from almost 7,000 LGBTQ+ full-time workers found that LGBTQ+ workers earn approximately 89 cents for every dollar earned in a week by the typical worker in the United States. Disparities were even more pronounced for LGBTQ+ women, transgender men and women, and LGBTQ+ people of color. Though we did not assess the underlying reasons for this disparity, it is likely that discrimination is playing a role.”
      “96 cents White LGBTQ+ women earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.
      85 cents Black LGBTQ+ women earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.
      75 cents Native American LGBTQ+ women earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.
      72 cents Latinx LGBTQ+ women earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.”

  77. Salary reporter*

    Too late for this year, but for future years I would love a breakdown of unionized vs non-unionized, and also PTO/Sick leave benefits as some others have mentioned.

  78. Journalist*

    Super disappointed that journalism wasn’t a category. It’s a massive industry? Not sure why that wasn’t included.

  79. Turtles All The Way Down*

    My salary has increased 30% since this time last year! Not to mention bonuses. And yes, I quit the job I was in at this time last year for a better one. Great Resignation indeed!

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