How much do you earn and in what post?

[ssimstar]

oooh ... where to start ....

 

Do you want the nice helpful stuff or the downright nasty stuff?

 

Oooh, be nasty to me!

[GrumbleDook]

oooh ... where to start ....

 

Do you want the nice helpful stuff or the downright nasty s

 

 

tuff?

 

 

Oh go on, tell me your woes.

 

No woes ... quite the oposite for me ... but that's because I have been damn lucky.

 

I was just going to suggest a few nice ways of making life better for yourself ... and a few nasty ways of making his life a misery ...

 

All purely hypothetical of course ... SysAdmins/Techies are not the sort of people to do nasty things ...

 

Tony

[MkII]

I think point of thread is that we techies do just as much work as teachers and so should be paid on simlair scale...

 

I didn't think we were comparing ourselves to teachers. On pure hard work I think the cleaners and caretakers would be on the most money. We know we're paid on responsibility mainly, and percieved specialist ability. The issue is more with our counterparts in industry - and the discrepancy there which is becoming less plausible all the time.

 

Respect boss dude

[ninjabeaver]

Well, I've just worked out I'm on a shade under £20k per annum with a 52 week contract. I still think it's poor for running a Network on the scale it is, but it's not too bad for this area, and I got a pay increase starting in September. I'm actually quite happy about it.

 

I think in some respects the business industry IT bods have a better life becaue 1. They generally get paid a good 50% above what we do, and 2. they've might only have to make sure that Office, E-Mail and the Internet is working. I know they have alot more to do in the background etc. with servers and communications.

 

In school there is piles of software that quite honestly only gets used once in a blue moon but has to be installed on all machines, you know, just in case. Or the lastminute.com software install that needs at least a day to do but they want it done for next lesson. We get the advantage in that it's difficult for us to get sacked for a dropped network and losing a company $millions. We are in a fairly safe haven which is a big bonus to me and hopefully alot of you guys as well.

 

I'm quite settled in now and would only leave for a big change in money and even less stress.

[StewartKnight]

what I don't miss is the annual appraisals, where they collect all the mistakes you made over the year (but they didn't tell you about, because they were so petty), then collect them together, knowing you don't stand a cat in hells chance or remembering them, then use it as an excuse to give you an insulting pay rise. What most people don't realise is, managers in big business, get bonuses based on how small they can make their staffs payrises, the less the company has to pay to employees, the more the managers get rewarded!!!

[Alex]

The only reason you wont get paid as much as teaching staff is the lack of a shit stirring union behind you.

 

Let them bring in the ks3 testing, interactive whiteboards in every room, electronic registration etc etc.

 

Call in sick then remote access into the server and stop the netlogon service. Allow them to witness carnage.

[ninjabeaver]

The only reason you wont get paid as much as teaching staff is the lack of a s**t stirring union behind you.

 

Let them bring in the ks3 testing, interactive whiteboards in every room, electronic registration etc etc.

 

Call in sick then remote access into the server and stop the netlogon service. Allow them to witness carnage.

 

That sounds bitter. You want to tell us your story? :?

 

What annoying you. Post and we might be able to offer some help or ideas to get you sorted.

[Alex]

hehe thx NB, but I'm good - I just like to jump atop my soapbox once in a while and have a little rant.

 

For the most part of my career I've *not* worked in Education, coming back to it a for a few months has served only to reiterate what a useless bunch of idle whiney slackers most teachers are.

 

I will not stand for people who are too lazy to help themselves and with all this bollocks 'teachers should be just there to teach' that the government are insisting on bringing in, things will only get worse -they'll pull out the 'I'm not meant to do this' card at every opportunity.

 

12 months in industry would be a valueable lesson for them to learn, preferably in burger king or mcdonalds. Lets face it the majority of them are not particularly good TEACHERS, they just fell into the role because they couldnt be useful elsewhere. It

[alexknight]

I have just recently joined this group, and am delighted to see a support techie specific forum.

 

I am the IT manager at our school and to date have been very happy despite the usual gripes such as very little planning by some of the teachng staff which then reflects on your work as there is a percieved delay in getting any IT work done.

 

I am the ony IT support bod in the school so this does make my role anxious at times. Luckily to date I have not had one day off sick since joining three years ago. If I was of sick what would happen, who knows, you decide?

 

The money is OK now as I have had several pay rises and have gone from say 10K to now 15K+. Quite a bit is made up from ovetime as we cannot afford a second techie, so it is cheaper for me to have overtime.

 

One important point for me is the school environment. I like it. The children can be a delight as well as a horror.

 

Overall I am very happy, and this is mainly down to my colegues, both teaching staff and support staff. We have a really good team here and we all support each other.

 

However it is now time that we all became a collective and started to network more and in this respect this forum is an excellent idea.

 

We have just launched an area technicians forum with all the IT techies being invited to join and participate in.

 

I am interested to hear any information on GrumbelDooks posting

 

.....was just going to suggest a few nice ways of making life better for yourself ... and a few nasty ways of making his life a misery ........

 

It could be useful one day!

 

Alex

[tarquel]

@Alexknight:

 

Welcome to the forum here and hope you enjoy it

 

@all:

I must running a tidy ship as I was off work for 5 weeks following a hernia op, and the new pc suite I made from scratch (which I'll post some piccy of) maybe a bit on the cheap side, but it stood the test of time and they were all working without any IT user intervention while i was away

 

It pays to lock the pc's outta the way of the kids and lock down the AD by GP I guess lol

 

Regards

Nath

[ConTheITGuy]

You'd better watch that... people might start to think you're not needed!!

 

Andy.

[MuppetQueen]

25K working in NW. 25 days holiday working in a secondary school on my own (i.e. no other technicians). Job title Network Manager.

 

I am definately worth that and more - lol.

[MkII]

Blimey! what size school MQ? - pupils/no. of PC's /no. of servers...

[Ric_]

25K working in NW. 25 days holiday working in a secondary school on my own (i.e. no other technicians). Job title Network Manager.

 

I am definately worth that and more - lol.

 

Where abouts are you exactly? You don't fancy resigning so that I can have a change of job (2 £5k jumps in a year would be nice )

[Dos_Box]

25K working in NW. 25 days holiday working in a secondary school on my own (i.e. no other technicians). Job title Network Manager.

 

I am definately worth that and more - lol.

 

If you honestly think you are hard done by I can show you half a dozen Lancs secondary schools where the network manager gets paid less than 14K and has to work alone.

[Guest]

The thing with schools is if you dont ask you wont get. I manage 4 Primay school networks. (Reception to Y7) and will be in the 25K+ bracket next month after a recent contract review. I also plan to be even higher come this time next year.

 

If you feel that you are worth more money, goto SMT with reasons why and present your case.

[indie]

I work in Middlesbrough and after a recent council "Pay Review" they decided to put all network admins up or down to around 14k (Full time), technicians went even further down.

 

I was looking at a £4500 loss until my case was reviewed and I ended up getting a nice pay rise instead, but I was one of the lucky ones.

 

It seems the council have no idea what we actually do in our jobs. They took no notice of my 5+ years experience, Microsoft certification or Cisco training.

 

indie

[Dos_Box]

I work in Middlesbrough and after a recent council "Pay Review" they decided to put all network admins up or down to around 14k (Full time), technicians went even further down.

 

I was looking at a £4500 loss until my case was reviewed and I ended up getting a nice pay rise instead, but I was one of the lucky ones.

 

It seems the council have no idea what we actually do in our jobs. They took no notice of my 5+ years experience, Microsoft certification or Cisco training.

 

indie

 

8O Good grief!! In Lancashire a Network manager should (IMHO) earn in a good school around about 20k. Some earn more than this with extra responsability, but 14k per annum? Our technicians are often on more than that!

[RobC]

The thing with schools is if you dont ask you wont get. I manage 4 Primay school networks. (Reception to Y7) and will be in the 25K+ bracket next month after a recent contract review. I also plan to be even higher come this time next year.

 

If you feel that you are worth more money, goto SMT with reasons why and present your case.

 

That's fine for England, but up here in Scotland, we're tied to what the council want to pay us. The school itself has no say in our pay scales.

[Guest]

Shame, I for one wouldn't stay in education if it was the same here in bucks. It should be a matter that the more responsibility you take on, the more you will earn. If not, then what reason is there to progress? Shameful.

[kingswood]

It is shameful.

 

And I also agree that if it happened here where I am there would be a swift reaction from myself (and I dare say others too) away from education. This would hurt schools and colleges greatly as even more technical staff migrate from them to industry and leave those oh-so-professional teachers to fend for the network themselves...

 

Local councils and LEAs need to think hard about this before dictating pay-scales based upon perception. You know, I get the idea that they sit at home and think:

 

"Well, I just installed this anti-virus software myself--so how come we're paying those IT staff in [insert school name] so much for doing the same thing?"

 

*sigh*

 

Paul

[Guest]

That is exactly what they think. Untill of course you leave, and your old school is ringing your mobile off the hook becasue your replacement can't install a SIMS client, even though you showed them twice.

 

All schools should have the choice to pay what they want the level off support they want. LEAs need to worry about their own IT depts rather than imposing limits on schools. Maybe then they can learn to disable DHCP on their admin servers when they use staic IPs on the admin stations, thus saving me time sorting out DNS problems

[free4440273]

£18K. bloody appalling. been on the same wage for six bloody yrs. apparently then, inflation does not affect me. £800 per month mortgage to pay. you do the sums. meanwhile teachers get a £1000 pound increase each year. nice to know life just gets better - for some. sims?? screw sims.

[MkII]

I wish we here were in line with local authority rates of pay in IT. Council IT Desktop support staff requiring no formal qualifications start at £18k. There's progression to network support starting at around £25k - again - no qualifications held be most postholders.

 

School techs in this authority run whole systems, manage the networks effectively, for £14k on average, £200 a year training budet, £6k annual IT budget and not ever a title above technician.

 

Schools here decide thier own rates and we have no fair rate across the authority. I think we need to come in to line with wider IT trends than be seperated from them - we'll benefit then surely.

[GrumbleDook]

I have always wondered about the variety of pay scales across England.

 

Let's face it, there is no one out there saying to schools "for a technician that does x, y & z they deserve £X grand a year."

 

And even if you take the Becta Technical Competencies levels ... people may be only doing part of the job on a regular basis ... but have to do far more on an ad hoc basis.

 

If anyone has any suggestions how this could work a little more smoothly ... let's hear them.

 

We should also remember that DfES has asked all LAs to do job assessments of all associate staff working for them, whether in County Offices or in schools. This shold be done for a report that will appear in 2008.

 

Perhaps this will include a standardisation of support roles and make sure you get the wages you all deserve.