Empower your business with project pipeline management in United Kingdom

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i'm stuart taylor and i make videos about project management if that's your thing make sure to subscribe today i'm going to share with you how much i've earned in various project management roles including how much i got paid as a project manager in pmo in portfolio assurance as a permanent staff member and as a contractor i'll refer to gross values for consistency but just keep in mind that the tax paid by contractors and perms tend to be a bit different the roles are all uk based but i'll share u.s dollar values too and as we're looking at in some cases values from over a decade ago i'll show the values adjusted for inflation up until the end of 2021. we start off early in my career and as you'd expect the amounts i get paid tend to be on an upward direction though there have been a few bumps on the way in 2008 i joined warsaw council where i worked as a project officer and had my first formal project manager role with some close supervision the location was walter in the west midlands which is quite far away from london where the highest rates are paid in all sectors the starting salary was 27 000 pounds it was funny but as living costs in walsall for a single man were quite low this was a good income i still managed to spend it all but you're only young once by the time i left in 2010 my salary had risen to just over 30 000 pounds in 2010 i joined the national health service working for various trusts as a project manager starting with nhs warwickshire this was the first time i was an independent project manager the project however didn't go well as a change in government that year led to policy changes that invalidated the business case and closed my project the salary here was an increase but it wasn't a great move it was 31 000 pounds per year the roll was based in warwick which is a much more expensive city than walsall so i continue to live and commute from walsall the increased travel and parking costs meant that additional thousand pounds just disappeared overall it was a poor career choice to go there at the time that i did but i did meet my future wife there so i can't complain too much the next longer term role came a few months later in 2011 with nhs direct where i worked as a project manager on a fixed term contract what that means is you have similar benefits and salary as a permanent employee but with an end date like a contractor basically it's the risk of a contractor with the salary of a perm the worst of both worlds but it's not unusual to see these types of contracts in project management owing to the temporary nature of the projects my contract was for six months and i got extended twice the starting salary was around the same as the previous role at nhs warwickshire i started the role living in waltel and working in nearby dudley which was a less expensive commute than warwick but after a few months i made a big move and relocated south to milton keynes a town based close to london nhs direct had an office in milton keynes so transferring location was fine but i was now living in a location that was much more expensive than walsall noticeably i'd moved from a rented two-bedroom house to a rented two-bedroom apartment that cost three times as much the idea of this move was to enhance my future wife's career prospects in fashion retail which it did and soon enough the living costs were shared and we could cope with the increase after a year with nhs direct i transferred to a different project within the trust with a different sponsor whose first action was to give me a pay rise what can i say he's a great boss and he recognizes talent when he sees it and knows how to reward it odd name check him but he doesn't watch my videos just kidding thanks gee thanks to keith's generosity my salary increased in 2012 to 35 000 pounds before i continue i just want to explain briefly why i'm doing this simply put i want to encourage people into a career in project management but i want to do it honestly so that means being transparent about the ups and the downs and it also means being open about things like salary the truth is the annual report on salary only offer averages and they never showed the full ranges there have been times in my career where i've been below the average and there's been times when i've been above it and usually i'm fine with that anyway if this is proving useful or just interesting then make sure to give the video a like i changed sectors in 2013 to start a permanent role with the royal bank of scotland i joined the role as an assurance analyst but they restructured the team about two weeks later and i was converted into being for the first time a pmo lead the bank had a central pmo department that defined standards so i was just operating as a satellite pmo doing my best to ensure adherence to those standards the important thing here is it was in the banking sector which pays more than the public sector and it was in central london based in an office just outside of angel station in vibrant islington i loved it there i didn't relocate to london though but i did move closer to the very upmarket historical city of saint albans my 2013 salary with rbs for being a pmo lead was 45 000 pounds i loved the job and i enjoyed working with the people there but i didn't feel i was appreciated so i looked into a move into contracting a move that i detailed in the very clickbaity title video how i doubled my salary by becoming a contractor which i shall link in the description the next role wow in 2014 i left my permanent job for a five-week contract with barclays bank to work in a very similar pmo lead role the role was based in london this time amongst the towers of canary wharf this role paid 550 pounds per day after the initial contract i was extended on a longer term contract which paid a little less at 500 pounds per day the gross annual payers a contractor and pmo lead at barclays in 2014 was 110 000 pounds don't forget contractors calculate tax differently that's outside the scope of this video but i will address it in a future video what i found though was that i'd hit a sweet spot i noticed there were project managers under a hell of a lot more stress than me on a similar or slightly higher day rate for me this was fine in fact it was better than fine i was enjoying the benefits of life-changing increases to my income without the typical increasing stresses and responsibilities that normally accompany such an increase but what goes up must come down in late 2015 i picked up enough clues to suggest that barclays were about to either reduce the contractor cohort or to cut the pay to contractors so i gave them a notice and look for the next opportunity knowing i've built enough savings to not work for a whole year if necessary the job market was hot at the time so i didn't have to wait long i returned to the royal bank of scotland again in pmo lead capacity but this time as a contractor they were working at the time on the separation of the williams and glen bank from rbs and it was proving difficult for them so difficult in fact that they eventually abandoned the plan the role was located near to bank in central london an easy commute from where i lived and was in the midst of some beautiful historical buildings the big banks are competitive but the average contractor day rate can vary greatly for doing similar work i got invited back in 2015 as contractor pmo lead on 450 pounds per day which worked out as 99 000 pounds per year i didn't mind the pay cut to be honest i was working on a project that really excited me with some really good people it was a damn shame that it didn't work out and the project was cancelled by then i bought my first house in a town called chesham which is just outside of london at the end of the met line i figured as hundreds of contractors were now flooding the market it would be a good time to chill out a little fix up the new house until the market calmed down i had savings in place to cover six months out of work which should be fine right not really it took seven months before i landed the next job this brings us to 2017 where i took a permanent role as a portfolio assurance partner for the payments company vocalink vocalink were in the process of a merger with mastercard so it was a really exciting time the company were based in rickmansworth which was the shortest commute for me since my role at warsaw council it seemed like a dream move at the start but it just didn't work out there's going to be a whole video dedicated to that experience someday and you're going to want to get a box of tissues on standby for it it's tragic the role of permanent portfolio assurance partner paid 80 000 pounds in 2017. it's a drop from contracting but the benefits package that i'm not including in this total was significant especially pension contributions and health insurance at the end of 2017 just weeks after the birth of my first child i took a project manager contractor role with electro components uk distributor rs components this role was based in corby which is further north in northamptonshire i wasn't prepared to relocate for a short-term contract and it was a two-hour drive each way so i spent some time each week living in a hotel in kobe i really missed my young family a lot during this period and the only compensation was i was working for a good friend and enjoyed his company in that time away from home this period is so recent there's no point in doing inflation adjustments the rate was 550 pounds per day which worked out as 120 000 pounds per year it gave me the chance to rebuild my savings after the period of unemployment before vocaling in a way the permanent work never can once again i was cash rich so naturally i went and spent it on a bigger house in cheshire in october 2018 i took a permanent role as the pmo leader amtrust a multinational insurance company based opposite the gherkin in the city of london a very easy commute on the increasingly less reliable met line in this case pml lead meant everything it meant everywhere else and now it included having some other pmos to hire train and manage it also meant creating a pmo department from scratch which was an exciting challenge salary took a dip again here to 70 000 per year but it came with a decent benefits package comparably on the market at the time it was on the low end of the scale for the role and responsibilities i did receive approaches from recruiters to consider roles that were paying between 10 and 20 percent more but i felt that moving on so quickly wasn't the right thing to do and that i wanted to do what i could for amtras first as 2020 started though i was ready to move on and i wasn't sure quite what i wanted to move on to as i was completely burned out not just with amtras but with project management itself i gave my notice and just didn't know what i wanted to do next take a good long break and rest or ensure burnout get a contractor role and just enjoy the pay neither of those things happened we all know what happened in 2020 this brings us up to date i'm not going to share details about my current role and salary because doing that in a current role can cause problems in teams so you're just going to have to wait and hopefully you'll have to wait for a really long time because i do like where i'm working at the moment and the team that i'm with however when the time comes to move on i'll make sure to watch this video over here because well who wouldn't want to double their salary oh it's so clickbaity