how much money do you make?

by Alison Green on April 8, 2025

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 to take some of the mystery out of salaries, it’s the annual Ask a Manager salary survey.

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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{ 178 comments }

{ 178 comments… read them below }

  1. SunnySideUp*

    Yay, the annual salary survey! Genuinely, this is one of my favorite parts of this site.

    1. Pay no attention...*

      Mine too. Unfortunately their usually isn’t really enough of a sample size for both my industry and job title to make any conclusions about whether I’m over-, adequately-, or under-paid. But it is interesting to see differences in industry and region.

      1. AnotherOne*

        Mine either, but my employer did a big salary review company wide last year, I think.

        I didn’t see an immediate impact but when I got a promotion this year, my department got approval for me to get a 15% raise instead of the usual 10% which was just happiness. (My boss seemed pretty proud of that raise.)

        And honestly, I was expecting half the normal promotion raise cuz I’m in higher ed and everyone is currently in constant wait for the next research funding cuts.

        1. pomme de terre*

          Fellow higher ed staffer here, manifesting a 15% raise for myself instead of the crummy, insufficient COLA we usually get.

          1. I Have RBF*

            In my company, there are no COLAs, only “merit” raises of 2% to 4%. To get 4% increase for the entire year you have to walk on water in the height of summer.

        2. Seamyst*

          Also in higher education, in research administration. Huge congrats on your raise! There are rumors of potential staff layoffs coming up in December, so I’m going to be really lucky to get even a modest COLA.

          1. Sea Monster Sees All*

            I’m also in research admin at a university. I’m waiting to hear about layoffs but they have been quiet. Makes me wonder if I should be looking for another job before anything (else) crazy happens.

  2. Anne Lida*

    I admit, I stopped taking this survey because on my own I was quite happy with my salary and felt that my all needs were met, until I looked at the averages last time and realized I’m a pathetic worm :P

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      Honestly, I don’t think the results here are really representative. If you google the average wage, a lot of the results here seem way above it. I suspect it is because the people who frequent this site are often fairly career oriented and it probably has a higher-that-represenative number of people in high ranking positions (because those people have a lot of decisions to make and are more likely to be in need of advice).

      My wage is above the Irish average but I think it’s usually well below the average on this site. Now, of course, countries differ and there is a currency issue too, but…I still think the average here is likely above most national averages.

      1. Anne Lida*

        Yeah, I also think people who feel good about their wage (and are in an industry where they think better data might help them earn even more!) are more likely to share.

      2. Varthema*

        Hi Irish Teacher! I’m from the US and but have lived in Dublin for going on 10 years and have worked in education, though adult ELT, not primary/secondary, so I always read your posts with interest. :) I’m currently working as the lone Ireland-based employee for a US-based EdTech company that has largely outsourced its staff to low COL countries (which makes me feel a little uneasy at times…). They pegged my salary somewhere that I can only imagine was some bizarre average, because when I look at equivalent-ish roles in local institutions they tend to be way below (and tbh tough to live on in Dublin) and when I look at tech companies I’m like, wow, I could be making nearly double. There’s such an odd double economy here!

        1. Varthema*

          (to clarify, it makes me uneasy because I’m decidedly NOT in a low COL country, so sometimes I worry that I’m an easy line item to cut.)

      3. Statler von Waldorf*

        I fully agree.

        I often feel like the only person in the comment section who has ever worked a blue collar job in my life. This place is very dominated by career oriented white collar office workers who need advice on managing others. That’s not bad per se, but it is also not representative of the workplace as a whole.

      4. Marion Ravenwood*

        Yep, I feel like my salary is quite high for the UK, especially given my age/seniority level/the fact I work in the public sector etc. But the data nerd in me still enjoys the salary survey a lot!

    3. Pathetic worm*

      I feel you. I still answer every year to help offset the skew toward higher pay, but might not look at the results this year.

      1. Magnolia Clyde*

        I’m doing the same thing, so y’all are not alone! (I’m earning a (much) lower level of pay than the average respondent, still participating in the survey, and choosing not to spend much time poring over/agonizing over the results.)

    4. k*

      I’m immediately seeing people in my area with the job title below me making more than me. But I was already aware and that’s why I’m job hunting. This is just extra motivation and a helpful tool as I’m searching!

  3. Audrey Puffins*

    Is it too late to fix the “How many years of professional work experience do you have overall?” and “How many years of professional work experience do you have in your field?” options? I’m on 18 months for the latter, so “1 year or less” and “2-4 years” are both equally wrong, and neither is a closer approximation than the other

    1. ThatGirl*

      In your case I would go for 2 years because you’re closer to that than you are “less than a year”.

      1. Grizabella the Glamour Cat*

        I’m not sure what you mean by “definitionally,” but 18 months is literally a year and a half.

    3. Spider Plant Mom*

      I also had trouble deciding how to answer that one! I’m not sure if “my field” would be the analysis work I do (a decade!), or the industry I work in (a measly 18 months). I went with the work I do, but there’s definitely a hefty learning curve moving from telecom to home construction hah

    4. Heather*

      Maybe next year, a question about how long a person has been with the company should also be included. That might add more context.

    5. Corrvin (they/them)*

      I’m at 20 months and put 2 years, if that helps? I’d say anything significantly more than a year (like 13 months, but maybe not “a year and 3 days”) should round up.

    6. amoeba*

      Yeah, “less than 2 years” would make more sense here. But probably not worth changing things around for now, maybe next year?

  4. Just a Pile of Oranges*

    I’m a slight outlier in that when I changed jobs, I got a bump in title, and a drop in salary. This company very much underpays for the work they hired me to do, by around 10-15K. It’s just that beggars can’t be choosers and I needed a job.

    Sigh.

    1. BeaureBar*

      I’m in a similar boat, except I also got a Jr title for the first time. And far less PTO.

    2. Sloanicota*

      Yeah, this year I took a very lateral job move that I usually wouldn’t have wanted – basically the same salary for more work – because I was anxious about the economic outlook in my field, and wanted to stay fully remote. Sigh.

  6. A. Lab Rabbit*

    I am still disappointed that we never got an update from Jane or from Jane’s manager. That post had over 2,000 comments!

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          Oh, duh, I forgot about the “you may also like” links. Thanks for the clarification.

    2. LifebeforeCorona*

      Yes, I was on Jane’s side. At around the same time our paychecks were not direct deposited because of a clerical error. The next morning after the manager was notified, they immediately issued new paychecks for everyone. Then they worked on finding out why the error happened.

      1. Rachel*

        My company messed up my pay once, when I was new and had just set up direct deposit. My manager apologized and asked me if I was okay and they’d make up the difference in the next pay period or if they needed to cut me a check that day. Seventeen years later there’s been no more problems. I would raise such a ruckus if my pay was screwed up more than one pay period in a row – I like to eat, thanks!

  7. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    Mine is a little wonky – I have a very high salary and a very low time of experience, but I just transferred internally from an operations team where I have 20+ years of experience to a technical team where I have no IT experience, where my operations experience is valuable and they can train the technical stuff. And the transfer was treated as lateral.

    1. FricketyFrack*

      I kind of have a similar thing – I have about 18 years of experience doing administrative work in government, but I’ve worked in several pretty different areas (unemployment tax, pesticide regulation, etc). I ended up counting all of my experience because most of the skills transfer even if the specific knowledge doesn’t. So I either have 18 years of experience in my current field or 18 months, depending on how you look at it.

  8. RCB*

    I’m not sure if this is happening to anyone else but my web browser is going berserk any time I go to AAM now because of the way the survey is formatted. Not even trying to answer the survey, just going to AAM’s website. I had to go to my phone to type this because I can’t get it to stay up on my laptop long enough to even comment.

    2. CountingRage*

      Same, I came to the comments to see if anyone else had this problem. It would be nice to have this open as a separate Google survey page or similar. My browser spazzed out.

    3. A. Lab Rabbit*

      There is a link just about the commenting box that says “You can report an ad, tech, or typo issue here.” That is probably the best way to report this.

      There is also a link just above the survey to open the google doc itself. You might try and see if you get better results. Or try a different browser. I have no issues with this in Chrome.

      1. RCB*

        My problem is that I can’t even open the website (I’m in Chrome) at all without it all crashing, so even getting to the link for the separate doc is an issue, as is trying to read any of the other posts.

    4. we stan captain rex here*

      I’m on Chrome (latest version of Mac OS) and it’s struggling too. I think the only reason it isn’t crashing entirely is because my ad blocker always works overtime on this site (when I visit this site on browsers with no ad blockers, it’s basically unusable). I wonder if it’s possible to put the survey under a “read more” link or something like for next time?

      1. amoeba*

        Huh, interesting – I literally have one app on the right side of the screen, basically above/below the “categories” section. So really no issue at all, and I’m happy to have those as they make money for Alison! Do people get a different amount/placement of ads? I’m curious now (also, what does it depend on? Location? OS? Browser? But I’ve used Chrome here before and it was the same as it is now on Edge…)

  9. Ping*

    It might be interesting next year to compare where a remote person is living vs where the company is based. I just put my current state, but my employer is in a different state. My salary here vs there might be a factor in why I have more or less.

    1. CountingRage*

      Agree. I live in the Midwest but my company is based on the East Coast. My salary is not average for my residential area.

    2. IT Kat*

      Same here. I would not be making as much as I do if I were employed by a company based in my state.

    3. Lynn*

      Agreed. I live and work in Colorado, but my employer is Illinois & Connecticut based. Which could definitely have some play in my pay vs others who live and work where I am for companies based locally.

    4. STLBlues*

      This is a good point. I work 80% remotely from the midwest but my work is on the east coast. I put my work location. Maybe for a first step, just clarifying if “where” is asking where you live or where your company is based.

    5. wham*

      Agreed – I submitted with my home location and then wondered whether I did it wrong, because my employer is in a very different part of the country.

  10. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    This came at the perfect time! The state is looking at budgets and there is a push for increasing pay. We all get paid significantly less than our co-parts in other non-higher ed positions.

  11. A. Lab Rabbit*

    There should be an option for “True/False: I have to work a second job to pay all my bills” because that is an unfortunate reality for many of, even if we have a degree and are working in our field.

    1. Fluffy Fish*

      That gets a bit tricky. What amounts to “bills” is going to be variable for everyone. That’s where the state and city/region comes in. It’s not fail proof either but it helps contextualize cost of living so you can look at a salary and determine if it’s below at or above the cost of living for an area.

      1. A. Lab Rabbit*

        Except that’s changing rapidly. My area used to have a fairly decent cost of living, and most people would assume that’s the case if they look at it on a map. But my rent has gone up 50% in the last five years and needless to say, my once seemingly decent salary is not keeping up.

      2. Susie QQ*

        Also not all bills are created equally. There are bills that cover the minimal means to survive (shelter, food, etc) which is what I assume this comment is talking about, but anyone (including those with a lot of wealth) can be living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to cover their bills if they’re attempting to live beyond their means.

      3. Wolf*

        Yeah, that would need some variables. Are those bills only for yourself, or do you provide for a family? Do you rent or own? Urban or rural? What kind of health insurance system does your country have? So many factors. Rent alone can vary so much between different towns, let alone different states and countries.

  12. Ask a Manager* Post author

    By the way, the first couple of days that the survey is up are always tricky for sorting — so many people are in the sheet at once when this first launches that it limits some of the normal sorting functionality. If you have trouble with the sorting function, try again at the end of the week and you’ll be able to sort (and there will be a lot more data then too).

    1. DCer*

      You can also save a copy in your own Drive and it’ll let you sort and filter from that version.

      1. k*

        That worked! For a second I thought I was so used to excel that I forgot how google sheets worked

  13. Meep*

    I know it comes with working at start-ups, but not even having a COLA raise in the past four years and having to fight to go back to salaried after maternity leave, but thanks for reminding me to submit some applications today.

  14. Dark Knight in White Satin*

    Does a state level public transportation agency count as “Government” or “Transport or Logistics”?

    2. Governmint Condition*

      I would list Industry as “Government” and Functional Area as “Transport or Logistics.”

    3. Funko Pops Day*

      I’d say government; the “state level agency” seems more relevant to salary than the specific domain of he agency?

    4. Office Plant Queen*

      Government. Transport and logistics is kind of a subset of supply chain. It’s about moving goods around and it’s overwhelmingly B2B. Public transport is about providing a public service to the community

    5. spcepickle*

      I also work for state level department of transportation.
      I put Government and then the property or construction.

      1. The Dude Abides*

        Seconding – if your employer is a unit of government, then I’d put government as the industry like I did.

      2. RIP Pillowfort*

        Government is what I put as industry since I work at a state agency. Problem is mine overlaps into three catagories after that (construction/engineering/sciences). So I just pick the one that adheres closest to my job title and education background.

      3. Kittybutton*

        I was interpreting the first question on industry to be the industry of your employer and then the second question to be your functional role. So if you work in technology sales, the first question would be technology then second would be sales. If you work as a CFO of a state transportation agency then the first question would be government then second question would be finance. I think it would be helpful for Alison to clarify!

  16. Lenora Rose*

    I’m in an odd place as far as unions go.

    Almost every non-managerial job within the field is heavily unionized (and a few with equivalent to managerial roles), but because I handle confidential staff info at a high level, potentially including negotiations WITH unions, my specific role is no longer unionized (even though there are people working in other departments who are a tier or two above me and still unionized because they don’t handle the same info). What this means, though, is I have all the benefits of a union without actually belonging to one; they can’t deny us any of the union negotiated benefits of our peers.

    (I am very pro union).

    1. Lady Danbury*

      I’m in management at a heavily unionized company where non-union staff also receive many union benefits, even at the management level. There’s no requirement that they extend the same benefits, but from a logistical standpoint it just makes sense since there are so few non-unionized employees.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      There’s “computing or tech” as a category, but of course if you’re looking for IT then it’s easy to miss because it’s not where you think it’d be alphabetically.

    4. Susie QQ*

      I struggled to find my category (software engineering). Engineering is there but that can mean so many things (software, civil, mechanical, nuclear, etc) so I went with the “computing or tech” option instead, although there’s a huge difference between software engineering and tech support. But I get the need to keep the categories list manageable.

      1. Varthema*

        Ooooh I missed that, maybe should have checked it. I work for an EdTech company and I never know what to put on any of these questionnaires because… like, it is a tech company, but education is such a heavy factor (and also my main role), but we’re definitely not primary or secondary or higher education. I used to work in adult English language teaching and that was also impossible to classify because it definitely wasn’t higher education.

      2. Aerin*

        I’m on the tech support side, and it’s always a struggle! If I say I work in a call center taking direct customer contacts, my salary looks insanely high. But if I say I provide level I/II concierge-style support, it’s on the medium-low end. And both of these descriptions are true! So I guess that means I’m right where I belong even if I’m always messing up the bell curve.

      3. RisaJoy*

        I run our customer operations team for a software company, and I can’t quite find anything that fits just right. There’s nothing really applicable to Customer Service or Customer Success. I could put Administration, but that also doesn’t seem quite right. I think I’m just going to select Other

  18. Timothy*

    This is a great idea! I’m retired, so my income wouldn’t be useful.

    And I gotta say, if there had been a union for software developers about 25 years ago, I would have signed up in an instant. At least that way, management would have taken their made-up complaints about me to the union, and we would have been able to have a mature conversation about their made-up stuff, rather than HR telling me, “This is your last day because of these made-up reasons.” “But I successfully completed my PIP!” “Yeah, that doesn’t matter. We’re going to cut you anyway.” Ugh. So glad to be done working.

  19. Justin*

    This always reminds me HOW popular this site is. I appreciate this work Alison has built over the decades.

  22. pomme de terre*

    Perfect timing! I was at lunch this weekend with two friends in a much higher-paying industry and was feeling like garbage and would like to recalibrate. Or confirm that I should be looking.

    But it’s tough to hear that my friend is asking for more in her (probably deserved) raise than I make annually.

  23. Emergency Pants*

    Very excited to see the union data! “Nonprofit” agencies in the USA, who provide most outpatient healthcare services are Terrified of employees unionizing and it feels like we’re moving towards a tipping point

  24. TX lizard*

    Another technical writer in aero/defense? My heart! I have felt so alone (since most of the technical writing groups are software focused). Actually, I’m surprised at how many technical writers are on here in general.

    1. Procedure Publisher*

      I know the feeling. I’m a tech writer that does procedures at a bank. Does feel like a lot of tech writing discussed is in tech, not in other areas.

    2. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      Well, tech writers are writers! Meaning we’re here at our screens much of the day, unlike folks in labs or child care or stuff. (I mean, sometimes I’m editing on actual paper, with actual red ink, but I’m doing it on the bit of desk in front of my computer.)

      I’m working in a tech company but my writing is rarely technical. I don’t document API’s at all. I don’t make code samples. But I do create documents in a mark-down language and have to go thru the same approval process to post my docs as the software folks use to make edits in production code. But I work with software folks and I have to be able to ask them questions, so my personal tech-savviness is a useful job skill.

    1. Hlao-roo*

      Does Real Estate fall under the “property” part of “Property and Construction?” If not, there’s always the “other” field.

    2. lunchtime caller*

      Is it a salaried role? I’ve worked in commission based roles and I think they’re just never going to make sense stacked against salaried roles in a survey like this.

  26. Christine*

    Is anyone having trouble sorting the spreadsheet? I’m trying to sort by salary (column G) and it gives me this error message: “You can’t apply a filter to a range that partially intersects a table.”

    1. Hlao-roo*

      There are so many people entering data into the spreadsheet that some of the functionality won’t be available for a few days. You can download the spreadsheet and sort the local copy and/or you can wait two or three days to be able to sort the shared version of the spreadsheet.

    2. Schmudon*

      The purple header cells have a little upside down triangle icon — use that to sort instead

      1. Moths*

        I’m having the same issue as Christine and there are no upside down triangles on the purple header cells for me. Just the header word itself and if I right click on them, they just give me the option to copy or link to the cell. I’m assuming that, as Hlao-roo mentioned, it’s just struggling given the number of folks using the spreadsheet and that it will be better in a couple of days and will allow for sorting then.

  27. Lalitah*

    One other source of salary information in the United States is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Follow these steps to obtain wage data for your job category in a quartile data set.

    First, identify your job category, if possible, in your HR system (think Workday). Usually they publish a job category code that corresponds to the code in the BLS data. For this example, I’ll use my job code 43-6011 – Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (United States SOC-United States of America). It’s usually a good idea to print your job profile for future reference.

    Go to BLS.gov > Subjects > Wage Data by Occupation > OEWS Data > One Screen Data Search
    At the new screen, choose One occupation for multiple industries to start.
    Find your job category in the list. For this example, we’ll choose under Office and Administrative Support Occupations, Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants.
    Then choose the appropriate industrial sector of your current job. For this example, let’s choose
    Sector Finance and Insurance. Use Ctrl+click to pick more than one industrial sector. Click Next.
    Pick the most appropriate subcategory of industrial sectors.
    For the ultimate data set, I suggest picking the Annual 25th percentile wage through the 90th percentile so you can see the range. Be sure to pick the median wage.
    Pick HTML to see your results to see if they make sense.
    This can be used to vet other data sources from job ads, Salary.com, Payscale.com, etc.

  28. GrumpyPenguin*

    I think it’s really interesting to see, although most people are from English-speaking countries.
    It’s also hard to translate for me to translate my educational degree into English since the German school system is needlessly complicated.

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      It was hard to define my highest qualification because it’s higher than a BA but lower than a Master’s, so I just ticked other and wrote inthe qualifications and an explanation.

    2. Susan Calvin*

      Definitely, although the truly stupid bits mostly affect the teenage demographic – for higher education, it’s been transitioning to the anglo model for about 20 years now, and for anything from before then, mapping Diplom/Magister to MSc/A is more or less the accepted approximation.

      1. Myrin*

        FWIW, I and many others in my former cohort find “the anglo model” much more stupid and definitely inferior to the old university system. Just because we now have the same words as the English-speaking world (despite them still being quite different, content- and qualifications-wise) doesn’t mean it’s magically better somehow (or truly comparable, even).

  30. Forrest Gumption*

    Is this survey only for those who are employed by a company, or is there consideration for those who are freelance/self-employed?

    1. lunchtime caller*

      I’m not sure if that would give useful data when stacked against salaried roles specifically (or rather, when averaged into them) versus standing alone as a separate survey.

  31. anonymouse*

    thank you for the “it’s complicated” option for the last question, which is exactly what I needed

    1. Disappointed with the Staff*

      Ditto. Have PhD, have worked in my field for 30-odd years, but my work history is driven by ASD. Where I can work I generally work really well (productive, happy etc) but it took me a long time to work out what my requirements are. Which meant ~15 years of job hopping. Fortunately programming and short contract jobs is an accepted combo. And the pay is such that needing a few months off work to recover from especially bad matches is affordable.

      Viz, on the one hand successful professional with solid career, on the other holy bat you’ve had *how* many jobs? And how much of that 30 year career did you spend working, exactly?

    1. Hlao-roo*

      There are so many people entering data into the spreadsheet that some of the functionality won’t be available for a few days. You can download the spreadsheet and sort the local copy and/or you can wait two or three days to be able to sort the shared version of the spreadsheet.

    2. Disappointed with the Staff*

      I don’t have any idea what that even is, I just saw a google doc embedded, answered it, hit submit and got a blank page. I have no idea whether my attempt was successful. (I’m using Firefox with javascript mostly disabled and not logged into google. But I didn’t see any errors so ???)

  34. Fencing*

    I wonder how many others are in a similar spot?

    I’m in my late 30s, and I know I’m underpaid on paper for the work I do. I make $140K. But here’s the trade-off: it’s fully remote, and there’s no keystroke monitoring, screen recording, time logging, or any of that. The only thing that matters is results and stakeholder satisfaction.

    I’m well known and respected just one layer removed from the C-suite—and people across the org regularly seek out my input. My schedule has flexibility: I can work with Asia-Pacific and Europe early in the morning, take a midday nap, and handle anything urgent from the West Coast in the evening.

    Another big plus? The freedom lets me do consulting on the side. Last year, I grossed $50K in freelance strategy and market intelligence work.

    Sure, I could probably land a $180K–$200K role somewhere else, but I have no idea if it would come with micromanagement, rigid hours, or invasive surveillance. For now, I’d rather keep the freedom and make up the difference on my terms.

    1. lunchtime caller*

      I’m in a very similar spot! To get to the next pay tier in my role I would almost certainly need to be providing a lot of after hours work, probably take on work travel, and definitely not have time for my passion project side hustles that can be another pretty chunk of change in my bank account.

      1. Aerin*

        Same. I have been very transparent that any kind of upward or lateral move would come with an on-call rotation, and the only reason I will be awake and on the phone at 2am is if someone in my immediate household is actively dying. I have considered if there would be an amount of money that would make it worthwhile and there’s really not.

    2. KTbrd*

      My fiancé feels the same way! he’s a programmer making <100k and he knows he could easily switch jobs and make 6 figures, but his company has really generous PTO and to him its worth the trade-off

  35. architect*

    I never quite know where my job as an architect falls in industry. It’s really not an art and design job, but I’m also not an engineer. Anyone have any thoughts?

  37. KTbrd*

    will the survey stay open or does it close at a certain point? this month is when raises happen at my company so trying to decide whether to do it now or wait for updated info

    1. Hlao-roo*

      The 2022 and 2024 surveys look like they are both still open (I can see the google forms on the respective posts but I’m not going to try to input any data to test it out), so I think you have plenty of time to wait for your raise before you submit your data for 2025.

  39. foureyedlibrarian*

    If you can’t find libraries, it’s under the category that starts with Galleries :)

  40. Educational Anonymous*

    I listed mine accurately but I am afraid it might skew the results a bit. I am an administrative assistant in higher education. My current gross salary is $94,700 annually but that includes longevity pay (15% for 20+ years) and more money because I have a degree above what I need for this job. Plus, I am at the near top of the nine levels (#8 and due to move to #9 in a month or two) of the nine steps of our pay scale. Yes, we are unionized and strong.

    2. Avis*

      Are you able to elaborate a little more on what tasks you do? I am fascinated by this because that is essentially my job but the cultural norms around pay are so opposite. There is no longevity bonus and no incentive to gain additional qualifications.

  41. Notagirlengineer*

    I would love to see a ‘neurodivergence’ line option on the disabilities list, just to be able to see what affect known ND issues affect salary.

      1. Varthema*

        I wouldn’t classify myself as disabled generally but I know that some do so I didn’t know what to put.

      2. March*

        If your flavour of neurodivergence doesn’t negatively impact your employability, then I think you’re correct to not consider it a disability in this context. Mine makes it pretty much impossible for me to work a “regular” job, so I do call it a disability. (Fortunately for me, so does the Dutch government, and it got me the job I have now, which is the best I’ve ever had.)

      3. Nightengale*

        I checked disabled

        both because I have other disabilities and because I do consider my neurodivergences disabilities. (I also see disability as a neutral trait rather than a negative one.)

      4. Irish Teacher.*

        I suspect I have some form of neurodivergence, very likely Sensory Processing Disorder and quite likely autism, so I considered “it’s complicated” for a moment, then figured I don’t consider it a disability even if I am autistic.

  42. Iusemymiddlename*

    Not a fan of the annualized salary question. I don’t work 40 hours per week 52 weeks a year, and never will. So if I annualized my 37.5 hours per week 37 weeks per year pay, it would be wildly overstated. I wonder how many other readers on this site have more than one job in order to make ends meet.

    1. Varthema*

      I suspect that this is mainly for people to know what they should be pushing for while negotiating salary during job hunts. So that’s probably why it focuses on annual *salaries* rather than incomes, although that would be interesting data too! Just a totally different survey with very different questions.

      1. Varthema*

        But when I used to be hourly with weekly workloads that fluctuated wildly (adult education teacher), I tended to put what I made over the course of the previous year.

    2. ThatGirl*

      37.5 hrs is considered full time, and most people get/take at least 2 weeks off per year – that formula is just to calculate if you’re hourly.

    4. Pocket Mouse*

      As I understand it, the goal is to convert it to a full-time, full-year amount of pay. If 37.5 hours and 37 weeks is considered a full year of full-time work for your role, then just go with what you get paid for that.

  43. Three Flowers*

    Thank you as always, Alison, for doing this.

    (Also I am nerd-excited that I got to fill it out twice because I just CHANGED JOBS!)

  44. Sparrow*

    Alison, suggestion for next year: would you consider breaking the gender options up a little more (e.g. cis man, cis woman, trans man, trans woman, nonbinary, other)? Trans people tend on average to make less than our cis counterparts, and I think this would help reflect our situations more accurately. Someone who puts in a low salary for their field and sets his gender as “male” may seem at first glance like his gender must have no bearing on his low salary… but if everyone at his workplace views him as and treats him as a woman (whether because he’s closeted or they’re just transphobic), gender almost certainly plays a key role in him being underpaid. Right now, there isn’t really a good way to convey situations like that.

    (I do know there’s already an “other” option on the form, but as a trans man, being given a form that includes “male” under genders but then being told I shouldn’t select that and should select “other” instead would feel pretty… well, othering!)

  45. Idril*

    You’ve chosen a rather strange selection of ethnicities for an international poll, if I may say so. Why distinguish the Spanish from the rest of Europe (presumably what you mean by White), but not distinguish East Asians from South Asians? What should Native Australians choose?

    1. FloralWraith*

      AAM is primarily an American site, these are the ethnic categories that are standard with American employment sites, based on American demographics. The Spanish here is distinct because most Spanish-speaking people in the US would be from Central and South America, not Europe.

  46. March*

    I had started to fill it in and then I realized most of my answers were so specific that I lost sight of how to even answer the questions…
    Also I’ll never work fulltime, for several reasons, and my job was specifically created for people with disabilities of a particular nature, so I don’t think my data would be all that representative anyway.

  47. Throwaway Account*

    Every year I forget that in this survey, my “industry” is not higher ed but Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums. Is there a way to fix my entry?

  48. Mimmy*

    I need help with the annualized salary question. I was recently promoted but the new job is such that my pay and benefits are 80% of what a full-time employee gets. My offer letter included a salary (it broke down both the FT salary and what my salary is based on my designation), but the FT salary is based on a 35-hour workweek, not 40. Since the directions say that if you’re part-time, figure out the salary at 40 hours a week. How do I do this??

    I’m happy to be promoted, but it was a lot easier when I could calculate my old hourly rate x 40 hours x 52 weeks lol.

  49. califragilistic*

    Every time I search through this for my city. Anyone up for AAM local meetups? ;)

    1. Tokumei*

      I feel the same way! I live in an unusual country for AAM readership and I always want to meet my fellow AAM readers here.

  50. De Minimis*

    I was remote until last month, now I’m 100% onsite for the first time since starting this job nearly 5 years ago! It is like starting a new job all over again….

  51. Purple Tiger*

    How should people who work a school year schedule and are paid hourly calculate their salary? It seems misleading to scale up to 52 weeks a year when there is never actually work available for 8-10 of those weeks.

  52. nonee*

    Interested if other Australians are including superannuation in their salary or not! I didn’t include it, but it’s quite a significant benefit (if not to be realised for quite a while, in most cases). My current employer incorporates it into my salary but most I’ve worked for don’t.

  53. Robert*

    Data Analytics/Market Research isn’t in the function list, just the company list. Is that a mistake?

  54. Mad Scientist*

    So fascinating to see all the different jobs people have! I feel like this would be a great discussion starter for a youth career day or something!

  55. Priscilla Charybdis*

    I’m so glad this survey exists, but I decided not to answer as I’m a gig economy worker (I teach English as a Second Language to adults for a private company, and I’m technically a freelancer) and I thought my answer would give a distorted impression. Nobody I know in my field gets close to 40 hours of work a week. It’s common to get half that or even much less.

    The industry was already heavily casualised when I joined it twenty-odd years ago, but it paid me enough to support a two-person household for several years. Nowadays I earn £23 per teaching hour in a large UK city (prep time and most admin time is unpaid – that’s standard and always was – at least at this current school I don’t have to also attend staff meetings, trainings, and student social mixers (!!) unpaid), and I struggle to get £10k out of the job in a year. When I meet my colleagues (rare, as we work on-site with clients or from home) they report similar things. As far as I can tell, our industry’s been remarkably union-proof. If I remember right, the IWW unionised a language school in Northern Ireland a few years ago, and the school sacked the whole teaching staff on the spot and hired non-union replacements.

    (The above is my personal understanding/experience — I wonder if other language teachers see things similarly or differently.)

    Given how many industries have casualised in recent decades, and how many of the new industries have been super-casualised from the jump, I wonder if there is a way to include zero-hour-contract-type work in this survey next year — and maybe to include a question about how many hours of work in a year a worker wanted versus how many they managed to get, as well.

    First time commenter. Thanks for all you do, Alison. You’re such a force for good!

    1. CMC*

      I am a self-employed ESL teacher in Spain! I have previously worked both as a contract employee at a language academy (€10/hour gross, about €8.00 net) and as a freelancer in association with a language academy (€10/hour gross, €8.50 net, so slightly more favorable than contract work). I’ve been in the industry for 5 years, and chose to answer the survey.

      I had the same experience here re: unpaid prep time and admin tasks, which was ultimately the push for me to leave the academy world and do fully freelance classes. That and the fact they wanted me there and available 3:30pm-10:30pm Monday to Friday, but with no guarantee that the hours would be filled!

      I now teach classes in the students’ home or online, and charge between €18-25/hour. I have been able to maintain a school year schedule of 20-22 class hours per week, plus about 5 hours’ prep time and a few hours of admin (highly variable — lots of billing at end of month!). I am much happier this way, and being able to set my own price has allowed me to pay myself for prep/admin time that I would have been doing anyways.

      I generally make about €13,500 gross annually (€12,000-12,500 net, my deductions vary), which–while horrifying for a US reader–is not bad at all for my low COL, especially since I close all of August and only have about 5 hours/week in July. Nevertheless, I will be leaving the industry at the end of this school year to go back to school and get a job with a normal schedule and paid vacation days. Despite my schedule being much better than when I was in the language academies, I still work until 8:30-9:00 most days, and miss out on a lot of things I’d like to do (chief among them, seeing my husband haha).

      I chose to answer the survey because despite not fitting neatly into a category, I think it’s important to account for and make visible workers in strange situations. We are often isolated from others in similar positions, and unions or other professional associations are few and far between.

  57. Nebula*

    OK who’s the best-selling novelist (income £700,000 a year) who reads this site? That really stood out to me lol.

    1. bamcheeks*

      I can’t sort the spreadsheet to see them all together, but at a casual glance the UK ones are suuuuper high paid. There are a LOT in the top 2-3% (0ver £100k), most are in the top 20%, and only a handful are below the median. I am going to look at the averages when I can sort and I bet they are wild!

    1. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

      My sibling in christ, it is a survey. This is not the own you think it is.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      For the record, I do literally nothing with this. It’s there because readers have asked for it. I’d disclose any other uses; there are none.

  59. Birdy*

    “Additional monetary compensation” We haven’t had a bonus in two years, and merit increases don’t cover CoL increases anymore. I want out of here but according to the crickets in my inbox nobody is actually hiring in my field.

  60. AnonymousaurusRex*

    Not only is this one of my favorite posts of the year, this year it was also timely. My boss surprised me with a 10% raise! I had already filled out the survey though, so now I wonder if I should fill it out a second time. Anyway, feeling good!

  61. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

    I always want to take part in this survey, but there are literally only 3 people in my entire state with my title, and it would be really, really easy to figure out who contributed because my salary is different (lower!) than the 2 men who share my title. It’s a shame, because I work in a SUPER niche industry and it would be nice for other people that do what I do to be able to compare salaries.

    1. Pathetic worm*

      There are always a few responses along the lines of “too specific to say” in that space! If you think the information would still be valuable for your niche industry in general, it might still be worth responding.

  62. Antigone*

    Always nice to see this again, and this year I have a new job and new salary to report! But I am also for the first time working fully-remote in a different state from where I live, and wasn’t 100% sure how to enter that. I muddled through but as this is increasingly how some fields are going, it might be worth trying to tease that out a bit in future years.

    (Similarly I’m never 100% sure how to answer the remote/hybrid question when the answer is like “95% remote, but once or twice a year I travel to (other state) for an in-person get-together.” I think remote is closest to the spirit of the thing, but an “it’s complicated” option might work best here too!)

  63. Philosophia*

    The question about years of professional work experience doesn’t apply to those of us who are not members of a profession.

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      I took that to mean years you have been fully available for work. Like not counting part-time jobs in school or college or stuff like babysitting, but counting any job that was your full-time main occupation.

Comments are closed.