9th November 2010, 09:35 PM
trowel monkey Wrote:Very true.
However, as someone else on the thread has noted, the low wages in the sector are deterring the highest achievers (academically) from working commercially.
The current AHRC stipend for a PhD is ?13,590, (more in London) which is tax free and doesn't contribute to your personal allowance.
Add in the fact that you don't have to pay council tax, and that's another ?1000 or so.
This equates to needing an income of ?19-20k before tax to have the same take home pay.
Compare this with the BAJR rates for G1 and G2, which are at the high end in the sector.
G1 : Training Position) ?14,462.33 (?278.11 pw)
G2 : (ie Basic Site Assistant) ?15,396.71 (?296.09 pw).
People do the maths, if they can get a scholarship, they won't even bother with commercial archaeology when the money's less than you'd get to be a student...
Most people want to work and contribute something to society rather than doing a ( probably pointless ) PhD, spending their life being a student. Yes, the money in Archaeology is bad but presumably an uber intelligent ''high achiever'' would have realised that from the start and done something else instead.