Profiling the Profession 2008

[Unitof1]

This report, it’s a bit of an odd structure, sections for charity, self-employed but not universities and then the charities are combined with the private sector for various estimates whilst the universities are give their own status.

Why have the registered charities and universities not been lumped together in comparison to fully private/public companies, self-employed. One or two of the big players appear to cross the divide. This report claims that Registered charities employed 44% of the total work force in one section but then in another, sec 4 Archaeologists, where we are introduced to extrapolation without any comment on how this is arrived at (Table 18, national government staff seem to be extrapolated from 111 to 85!) University are given as 4.5% of estimated work force and private sector as 42.7%. I had been hoping that I could have added 44% charities to a % for universities so that I could show that over 50% of the archaeological work force in this country are competing against the rest with tax huge advantages.

[Unitof1]

quote: Self-employed earnings

Earnings by self-employed archaeologists varied widely, as can be seen from the figures in Table 70. The maximum salary quoted by respondents for full-time self-employed archaeologists was £60,000 per annum, and the minimum was £5,000. It is difficult to explain the very low figures given for full-time self-employed workers, and these affect the mean and median figures for this group. If salaries below £10,000 were omitted from the calculations, the mean would be £22,657, and the median £16,334. On the basis of the figures provided by respondents, self-employed archaeologists are less well paid than full-time archaeologists in employment (although it must be noted that this is working from a very small sample size).

It is difficult to explain……..!

Have the people who wrote this not heard of turnover. The ifa does not understand individuals who earn money from archaeology do they?

[Austin Ainsworth]

Unitof1,

Hosty allowed you back on the site on his return from Jordan but that doesn't mean you have a right to post on the forum in the form that you used before he went away. Several months ago I was instrumental in your return to the site after you were banned for a quite considerable amount of time; obtuse uninformative irrelevant off-topic posts will result in a further PERMANENT ban.

I mainly deal with the moderation of the irreverent social side of the BAJR forum but that does not mean that I don't read every post, (I don't post much but I do read everything that is posted). I was instrumental to your return to the forum, (check the archives), and I will, if necessary, be equally instrumental in your removal; BEHAVE, keep it relevant and on-topic, failure to do so will be to your loss.

Please take that as a warning shot across the bows, there will not be another one.

The BAJR site is a fantastic resource for all heritage professionals and the moderation team will not allow it to be hijacked for any individual's private agenda.

[Unitof1]

I can only apologise and thank you for your efforts on my behalf.

I would like to say in my defence that I struggled with the numbers and found the report hard reading. I apologise about my obtuse uninformative irrelevant off-topic post

quote:
Have the people who wrote this not heard of turnover. The ifa does not understand individuals who earn money from archaeology do they?

Often for me whats leftover after legitimate expenses is often under £10000. These expense include travel, subsistence, accommodation, equipment, insurances, and interest. From the report which had information from 80 self-employed individuals

quote:Earnings by self-employed archaeologists varied widely, as can be seen from the figures in Table 70. The maximum salary quoted by respondents for full-time self-employed archaeologists was £60,000 per annum, and the minimum was £5,000. It is difficult to explain the very low figures given for full-time self-employed workers, and these affect the mean and median figures for this group. If salaries below £10,000 were omitted from the calculations, the mean would be £22,657, and the median £16,334. On the basis of the figures provided by respondents, self-employed archaeologists are less well paid than full-time archaeologists in employment (although it must be noted that this is working from a very small sample size).

The table shows that the medium was 14000 and the bottom 25% was less than 7000. I am in between. For some unknown reason they decided to discount so called salaries below £10000 to get averages for the sector and make comparisons with employed archaeologists.

It is the

quote: It is difficult to explain the very low figures given for full-time self-employed workers, and these affect the mean and median figures for this group.

statement that prompted my obtuse uninformative irrelevant post.

I don’t think that salary is the right term to use for self-employed archaeologists as income is highly variable. Cash flow is King. This is always one step away

http://www.myiva-adviser.com/blog/ivas-c...an-iva.php

I am glad that there were 80 respondents, obviously some were consultants but I think that the Institute for archaeologists might like to next time differentiate between net and gross figures, pre and post tax and might also like to consider that some are paying VAT.

Another band that seems to have been missed out is people who work as self-employed in their spare time unless there has been some misunderstanding in the survey.

And I am not sure how this means its all my fault

quote: Trends
A lower proportion of organisations were using quality standards in 2007-08 than five years ago. It is not clear whether this reflects a real trend or whether more self-employed respondents, to whom formal quality systems may seem irrelevant, may have been included in the present survey.

Sorry being possibly obtuse and uninformative again probably reflects my irreverence to formal quality systems. I presume a formal quality system might be a curator?

[Unitof1]

Nobody reads this stuff do they

[BAJR Host]

perhaps not


"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[Unitof1]

perhaps

[oldgirl]

Sorry, I read it, I just try not to add anything if I don't have anything useful to say. Don't always succeed though!

I think the point about salary/cash flow (and I'd add profit) for self-employed people is a useful one to have made. There's also the people who are employed by a limited company that they own (much easier to get mortgages etc that way) who will therefore not show up as self-employed.

In the end, with all of this, you have to draw a line somewhere and the authors have attempted to ensure that the ine is at least drawnin the same place each time, so at least the trends are useful.

[troll]

I`m a bit shocked to hear that the European "meet the archaeologists" thingy lists Cypriot archaeologists as earning an average of 40,000 pounds! Is that Cyprus pounds? Should it not be Euros? Here in Cyprus, there is no competitive tendering system or planning control to speak of. Also, archaeology is carried out by a couple of vanloads of Government archaeologists. As such, I would guess that the average quoted is a bit skewed or there is a typo somewhere.... Just thought I would say so before plane-loads of UK archaeologists land here in search of gold-lined wagepackets[:0]

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

[trowelfodder]

This documents baffling!!!! Just dont get it - have week off next week so will try and settle down and make bit more sense of this in my own head!