Hi Mike,

Not many responses when it comes to salary (very British)

However on a general note.....

I'm in a similar position to yourself I have 10 years construction H&S experience (fit-out really) and was made redundant in Jan this year. I was on what I consider to be a good wage + a car as a regional H&S Manager for a national company.

I was very lucky and only stayed unemployed for 7 days as I took a temporary roll through an agency. I figured any job was better than no job. However I took a considerable pay cut (in excess of £10k). I now have a new job roughly earning what I was before redundancy but I spoke to the agency before I left about their salary and the possibility of increasing it if I was to stay on but, as the company was ex public sector they were bound by a salary pay scale that they couldn't deviate from.

The temporary job was a really good job with a really good organisation who took H&S seriously and were prepared to allocate time and resources to get things right. The work was interesting and varied. If they could have come close to my current salary I would have stayed.

The guy who I replaced for a few months had loads more experience than me and was CMIOSH, which I'm not, but was obviously happy with his lot. I assume they now have someone new earning the relatively moderate salary they can offer.

A

Hi Guys

thanks for the replies, I am currently working in a role I took 6 months ago because at the time there were not many options out there for me, this role is underpaid but needs must when you have a mortgage to pay, I am now looking at other roles and have been offered interviews for 2 jobs, 1 at 40k and 1 at 25k which are both significantly more than my current salary.
For me the money is not the most important factor if I feel my career is moving in the right direction but just wanted to gauge what fellow safety professionals thought a person in my shoes should be earning.
My next career move will be an important one and ideally I want to find somewhere I can develop and gain the Nebosh diploma.

thanks for the replies

Regards

Mike

I've been considering a career change and have recently been looking at H&S roles in Scotland and from what I can see there doesn't seem to be any consistency with the salaries that are on offer. Its also hard to gauge as a lot of the positions are advertised through recruitment firms and I've come across two recruiters advertising the same role but with different salaries, how that came about I don't know!!

Depends if the client has instructed one, two or none of the recruitment companies - these guys make money based upon the salary the successful applicant achieves supposedly saving the recruiter advertising and screening / preliminary interview costs. They are now feeling the bite of the economic downturn and commonly find themselves in "non-exclusive" arrangements so a recruiter will instruct two firms and may potentially bias their choice towards equivalent applicants that come from the recruiter of lowest mark up hence the difference in salaries - the agency is setting the salary level in an attempt to get the recruiters business.

Have had several approaches in recent months where a recruiter is claiming exclusivity then a day later another firm rings up and says they have exclusivity with the same potential employer - quite interestingly they all ask what you are currently on closely followed by what is the minimum you would accept - accept it you are a commodity for the lowest bidder, then play them at their own game try your best to get beyond the "of course its all very confidential at the moment.." to work out who it is and apply direct.