somebody:

Now, listen carefully so you learn something new. The UK salaries are available on the internet - there is nothing hidden. In Nigeria, most people lie about your salaries and no one can verify. I can tell you for certain that the prime minister earns £142,500 because everything is standarised (to an extent) and transparent. So if I tell you I am a lawyer with 4 - 5 years experience, you should be able to gauge my salary band. Taxation too is transparent - well except you are a contractor so you know how much the person gets after tax and NI.

Now, back to the reality. Engineering graduates will earn on average £26,000 fresh from university with oil & gas jobs being higher. Just a quick look at Exxon Mobil's website suggests thatthey will pay their graduates £35,000 plus £4,000 relocation allowance in addition to their first month's rent= £40,000+ pa. Shell graduate jobs are being advertised as £32,500 to £37,500. Accenture is advertising graduate jobs at £31,500pa + £10,000 sign on bonus = £41,500 pa. I got all these information from their respective websites. There is no hanky panky, no need to hide such info.

Now for an investment bank which is known for its ridiculously high salaries - Graduates are offered a basic salary of £45,000, sign on bonus of £5,000 to £7,000 (depending on bank), year end bonus of up to 75% of your base salary (c.£30,000 -not everybody will get this, some will get £20,000 depending on your performance). In total that is £80,000 if you include sign on bonuses- Just google investment banking analyst salaries and see for yourself. You have some forums just like this dedicated to young people in investment banking - on there they compare their salaries, bonuses. All the info is easily verifiable.

If you stay on and you get promoted to an Associate at an Investment Bank which is after 3 years of joining (again transparent system depending on who you ask), you get a £20,000 bonus that is separate from your salary and bonus. By the time you get to this level, you are easily on £75,000 basic salary and if you add everything up, they have earned more than £100,000 so 25 year olds get this sort of salaries easily.

The question to ask is how many Nigerians get these sort of jobs - NOT MANY but are there some Nigerians earning this sort of salaries - ABSOLUTELY YES.

I hope you have managed to learn a thing or two.

Lady Dee:

Like??
Those that know the truth are bullshitting and deceiving nigerians who dont have a clue about the british 'system'
and those dont have a clue are quoting nonesense so called 'imaginary facts' about salaries and the so called opportunities in the UK...

Mr femi: loooool trust me this guys are not at work...monday morning for crying outloud....abegiiii....methinks they are on vacation mostly.....looooool....nywz i need a job o guys

queensmith: Even with a 1st Class degree in Physics from Oxford University and parents that own a clothing factory in tottenham hale. 76k starting salary is far fetched.

and no just because I haven't seen this job before doesn't mean it's non existent. . . .it just means there is a high probability that this is all gassss and aiiiir

and yes, IB does put a hole in my argument, as does doctors and those working at clifford chance (and alot of Nigerians do!) it's still pretty far fetched. I believe someone in that pay bracket (for an entry level role) will at least hold an MBA or a PHD.

somebody:

You are right - I am on holiday and getting some much needed rest. A look at my profile suggests I have 206 posts since January 2006 so that should tell you I don't spend all my time on nairaland. Infact, I can't access nairaland from my work pc. Anyways, what kind of job are you looking for? Are you in Nigeria?

Mr femi: loooool trust me this guys are not at work...monday morning for crying outloud....abegiiii....methinks they are on vacation mostly.....looooool....nywz i need a job o guys

somebody:

You are right - I am on holiday and getting some much needed rest. A look at my profile suggests [b]I have 206 posts since January 2006 [/b]so that should tell you I don't spend all my time on nairaland. Infact, I can't access nairaland from my work pc. Anyways, what kind of job are you looking for? Are you in Nigeria?

Mr femi:

I'm in the last month of my masters programme...In the Uk at the moment

Erelu_Y: @ somebody: I think you should leave these people alone. You've made your point and quite transparently, too. Let those who will not believe your claim hold on to theirs. The other important point you've made is that SOME (not ALL) Nigerians in professional jobs here in the UK earn [b]FAT salaries.[/b]

justwise:

Please lets try and make this discussion as open as possible, i don't like it when people start dropping their email addresses for private chat.

justwise:

Please lets try and make this discussion as open as possible, i don't like it when people start dropping their email addresses for private chat.

Zechy09: @braveheart, I think info provided by somebody seems exagerated but not very far from the truth. I will say a lot changed after the meltdown and my 30yr old friend was earning almost £150k in investment banking but he lost his job.

@Queensmith, I think you need to change your friends (If you find the stories strange). This i was advised the moment i came here. If your friends are doing menial jobs, you will feel it is normal and not hustle as much as required to get a pro job.

@aspen2x, I think everyone will benefit from what you want to ask.

To everybody in UK hustling, connections work like magic here in UK. Networking helps people land very good jobs.
My friend was working as a security man in TOTAL here, he used to gist with most of the managers when they go for a smoke and one day one of them asked him why he was still doing security work after an MSC in Subsea engineering and he said "no company wants to employ me". The man took his cv and sent it out to a few people and they called the boy for interview in London. The interview was about pay, not about technical knowledge. So guys network and pray.

tanimola22:

You and that somebody chick, if I nab both of you on the streets of Canary Wharf, you will have no choice than to share your fat salaries and bonuses with me.

How dare you earn that handsomely, huh!

T22

Mr femi: On a lighter note, all you guys claiming uk is good,i have a great job plus the opposing side @team naija how come you guys are on nairaland and not at work...(wierd) lmao

Mr femi:
I'm in the last month of my masters programme...In the Uk at the moment

aspen2x:

Okay. its not that of a private chat. I graduated recently from an oil and gas course too (subsea engineering) and am job searching, I live in Glasgow at the moment. I was going to ask you are there like any other trainnings I can go for to boost my chances of getting a job? as It seems I keep getting rejected because of no previous experience. and I will like to ask for useful tips regards applications, like are there particular agencies and co?
regards

obakovich: Cuddleeeeeeeeeeeeeee mii were u dey na?

justwise:

I thought you claimed to have a great job?

somebody: Oh wow - I see the thread has been invaded. Imagine, people accusing me of lying because I say I haven't done a menial job and have a professional job. Poor man mentality - I really can't explain why else that is so hard to believe. On a good day, I would ignore this thread but I thought it was important for me to encourage people who are looking for opportunities in the UK. I have been consistent since I joined nairaland more than 5 years ago - most of my posts then were about education and job opportunities in the UK and no I am not a job consultant. I mean you don't expect me to remain stagnant because I am abroad. Back in 2006, I was just starting my career and so 6 years on, one would hope I know a few things about succeeding in the UK. Interestingly, my first job was through a nairaland hookup (strange how I even forgot about that till this thread).


As an aside, the oil sector is lucrative wherever in the world you are employed so its no surprise that there are several Nigerians employed in that sector in the diaspora who are doing well for themselves. From my limited research done on salaries in Nigeria, I understand the oil jobs are also one of the most lucrative ones. I remember years ago, people were moving back to Nigeria to work for oil companies for 7 million naira (c.£26,000) and to them it seemed like a really good offer. What is so special about a 7 million naira job - absolutely nothing and how many people in Nigeria even get to work in an oil company? I read another thread some time ago on here where people were discussing their fat salaries in oil & gas in Nigeria - saying oil money is like free money bla bla bla - on top how much? Infact, people tell me in Nigeria that fresh grads would happily take #150,000 ($1,000) monthly - this same security guards/toilet cleaners you try to put down will earn well above that in the UK and US. Its all well and good that people in Nigeria are doing well but there always seems to be this battle and they always try to convince themselves that they are better off than people in London based on their own failures or those of their relatives that are still hustling abroad.

I can't use my experiences and those of people around me to generalise but I can use them to form a valid opinion on opportunities in the UK. From my experiences, investment banking is very rewarding financially. Most people (including oyinbo people sef) around me aspired to get an investment banking job - it was like the most sought after career because of the high salaries. I mean doctors and engineers were leaving their jobs to become investment bankers because of the rewards. This meant that during the financial crisis, a lot of people I know lost their plum jobs and some had to wait a year or so before finding something as good but that is no different from the stories from Nigeria where bankers were being laid off. The ones who weren't able to get decent opportunities moved back to Nigeria. I mean, some have it good here others don't - same story in Nigeria.

I know young Nigerians (26-30) in the UK earning on average £150,000 even with the 50% tax, how many people in Nigeria earn that much at that age. I even know a few Nigerians (30-32) who are traders and investment bankers and earn c.£500,000 including their year end bonuses. These are easily researchable - make google your friend,just type average vice president salaries in trading (note that you can be a vp 6 - 8 years from graduate level so imagine a guy who finished uni at 21 which again most people around me including me did) But mind you, their profiles are always A-levels at good school, undergrad at a top uni - most of them don't even do Masters. Now is this everybody I know - NOPE. Do I have friends who are still earning £35,000 - YES.

The general job environment is very tough now and it is certainly harder to get jobs now than when I was starting my career years ago but there are several Nigerians doing exceptionally well as doctors, bankers, geologists etc in the UK. I don't claim that they make up the majority of Nigerians in the UK but if I recall, this thread was to highlight that NOT all Nigerians in the UK do menial jobs. Afterall, we know that most Nigerians live in poverty in Nigeria so to expect that this would be different in another country is just plain STUPID.

Before I am accused of making up numbers, check the links for average investment banking salaries. Some highlights:

1st year analyst (fresh out of uni) - £75,000 incl year end bonus. Base salary excl bonus is £45,000 - should we compare to GTB graduate salaries
An oil trader with 10 years in the business is likely to earn at least $1 million this year, while a neurosurgeon with similar time on the job makes less than $600,000, recruiters estimated. After a decade of deal-making, merger bankers take home about $2 million, more than 10 times what a similarly seasoned cancer researcher gets (see table below).
Careers-in-Finance reported further that vice presidents at investment banking firms, with three to six years of experience, earn salaries ranging from $350,000 to $1 million a year. Typical compensation for a vice president, including bonuses, is about $500,000 a year, according to the website. Directors earn an average of $800,000 a year, but compensation can range from $400,000 to $1.5 million a year. Managing directors typically earn more than $1 million a year, but Careers-in-Finance reported that salaries and bonuses for these positions range from $500,000 to $20 million a year.

Read more: The Average Salary for Investment Banking | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_7305765_average-salary-investment-banking.html#ixzz23NUctXW1
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/traders-smaller-bonuses-still-top-pay-for-brain-surgeons-4-star-generals.html
http://news.reuters.efinancialcareers.co.uk/newsandviews_item/wpNewsItemId-100316

seedord247:

Why are u calling her as if u are calling your village gods?

revomind: Hehe. Much ado over nothing.
Big ups to those making ends meet in Nigeria, Big ups to those doing same in the diaspora. If you don't fall into any of these groups, stop hating and get on your grind.

HiiiPower:

A couple of Indian clubs
Dhol Damaka club - earls court
The Nightingale Club - Birmingham
Club Tamingo - Kingsbury, London
Bombay Dreams Restaurant and Club - wembley


Indians don't do bouncers like that,
but they employ people, don't ask me how I know,
I used to work as a bouncer from 2005 - 2008.

sisieko2001:

oh my days !

now i understand why you worked as a bouncer for three years

somebody:

You are right - I am on holiday and getting some much needed rest. A look at my profile suggests I have 206 posts since January 2006 so that should tell you I don't spend all my time on nairaland. Infact, I can't access nairaland from my work pc. Anyways, what kind of job are you looking for? Are you in Nigeria?