BAJR Wrote:As ever... and to head off the probable WTF moments. it may be useful to explain the average salary of archaeologists carefully. and how this was worked out. ...
ANyways... good show... carry on
Yes- to copy and paste from your ? on FB-
So average is based on yearly income but not hours worked. So to use me as an example my last archaeology job had me at 16k and some change. But I only worked a month and half so really my take home for the year for that archaeology job was much less than that. Unfortunately- we have enough problems getting people to fill out the survey and complaints about it being toooooooo loooooooonnnnnnngggggggg. So we really can't ask people to give the exact amount each person worked for and how much they made individual for 2500 responses. People would be pissed. It is best to look at it as a per hour bases e.g. 16k a year = 8 something an hour. I blame it on your cultural problems of giving salaries in per annum and not per hour If only someone with the power to regulate how people advertise jobs could require it to be in per hour we would be good
. Also- one needs to understand averages. If one is employed and based on yearly salaries (not hours worked) then the lowest you will have will be about 16k (there were a few 12k and lower than 16k but not many). It also means that a few people in the 80k range (which there are) can really drag up the average because the lowest is 16k not 0. A better measurement is median (which are all lower) AND to think about it as per hour pay.
Now, I know there are going to be lots of people who are going to scough at those numbers and say HA I don't know anyone who makes that much and it could be true. There are a lot of archaeologists and some of them make very nice salaries. I am firmly in the other group who since being in the UK I don't think I have broken 12k a year (there is hope for this year, fingers crossed). Though having a look at the numbers I know that there are many archaeologists who do just fine.
David and I were just talking the other day about an archaeologists living in a mansion and sending their kids to public schools (you know, the kind that cost as much as the yearly salary of digger). Many of us may be poor but with enough rich archaeologists the average will be dragged up (also- there really are many who live just fine, even if it is not you or I).
Hope that explains the sticker shock of average salaries.
PS- also remember 1/3 of the jobs were wiped out. While jobs at councils and national bodies have suffered- they didn't suffer as much as lets say diggers. So there is a bit of survival bias in the data (commercial archaeology suffered the most and they tend to have the lowest salaries). Though with EH getting butchered I am betting in five years salaries will be down.