Job opportunity in London.

[katia]

Hi there,

I received an e-mail from the hand engravers association of Great Britain.
A company is looking for a hand engraver in London.
Before I leave you, just wanted to say that quite a lot of people have actually been surprised by the salary. See what you think! That aside, I still think it is a great opportunity.

Ha,it apparently comes for this website
Website: http://www.dashrecruitment.co.uk

Hand/Seal Engraver - £22K to £25K plus bonus - London
Our client who are situated in London are seeking a Hand / Seal Engraver to work within a busy and talented team.
The company work for businesses such as Links of London and various other prestigious firms. You will be responsible for high quality hand engraving into precious metal, do you have experience of hand engraving? Can you provide a portfolio of your work?
The main responsibilities for this role will be to ensure that the engraving departments delivers a high quality engraving service to its customers on a day to day, timely basis.
To hand/seal engrave day to day incoming customer jobs.
To take ownership of and be responsible for jobs given to you.
Liaise with management as necessary in order to agree an achievable course of action for incoming and scheduled jobs.
To report on engraving issues as required and calculate quotations.
We are seeking someone who has a basic knowledge of the rules of heraldry and terminology. A person who can seal engraving heraldic devices, to be able to translate the engraving illustrated work presented by line, point or structure and understand and be able to take out a scroll work and decorative patterns.
Other skills required would be the understanding of the different types of writing forms and locations for the labels and monograms. Understanding and demonstrating the importance of the safe operation and proper maintenance of tools and machines and experience of different types of lettering forms and monograms.
This company is a prestigious business that offer an outstanding service to all of their customers.
Maybe you are self-employed and now crave stability within a good working team. Excellent opportunity for an experienced candidate.
Industries such as Gun engravers, Medal makers, Copper plate stationary and bookplate engravers would all be of interest to my client.

 

[DakotaDocMartin]

...just wanted to say that quite a lot of people have actually been surprised by the salary...

Hand/Seal Engraver - £22K to £25K plus bonus - London

Yeh, I wonder what a person would do with all that money.

 

[katia]

Just a few indicators about salaries in the UK.

The average UK salary is 26.500 GBP. The London average salary is 41.000 GBP.

Yers...So 22k to 25 k for skilled professionals in London...

 

[GTJC460]

Is that what goes in your pocket or are there taxes that come out of the 22-25k?

 

[diandwill]

I am looking for a good provider of pure gold bullion. I will pay $500/oz plus a bonus of 10% for every ounce over 1000. Payment will be after I recycle the gold (sell). Any takers?

 

[katia]

Salary is before taxes.

 

[Dave London]

ouch that hurts

 

[Marcus Hunt]

What's the bonus? If it was at a decent level this could be quite attractive. Lets see, you get paid holidays, get to knock off at a reasonable time, have weekends off, sick pay, guaranteed basic salary, pension, etc. Seriously, don't knock it guys. In this day and age self employment is crap.

My mrs gets her weekends to herself, finishes work at 5 pm, gets 4 weeks holiday a year...... I, on the other hand find myself working til 7 pm and often later, get no sickness benefits, often have to work at weekends to keep clients happy but I can take as much holiday as I want, I just don't get paid whilst I'm away and have to make up the time and money lost when I get back. If the bonus gave the engraver the opportunity to earn another £10k+ it would be well worth a look. The only problem is the cost of living in London, tube drivers earn much more than this basic salary.

 

[katia]

Yes, this is why I posted this on the forum. I am self employed and would not want to change my situation for the moment but Maybe someone will be interested once they contact the company and find out what the bonus is.
I must say that I really hope they are not offering 25k for what they are looking for. I used to live in London an well, it will not get you far at all nowadays.

 

[Beathard]

Tax rate is very high in England. Wouldn't leave much to live off of unless the bonus is as high as the salary.

 

[Gemsetterchris]

Tax rate is very high in England.

Where do you get that from?

There are benefits of a regular wage unlike self employment. Then again you certainly won't get rich as a benchworker in the UK.
Skillful as you may be, engraving/setting ect doesn't rate as a dangerous or important enough job to warrant decent wages.
Nothing to stop you doing overtime at the weekend

 

[katia]

I will probably ring the agency during the week to know what the bonus is. it would be interesting have more details about this.
About taxes in the UK, here are the details

Income bands (2013/14) Income tax rate Dividend tax rate
Personal Allowance £1 - £9,440 0%
Basic rate tax band (1) £9,441 - £41,450 20%
Higher rate tax band (2) £41,451 - £150,000 40%
Additional rate tax band £150,001 and over 45%

Personal allowance is what you get to keep to yourself without paying any taxes.
Plus there also is national insurance to pay.
Something that will hit you quite hard is the price of living in London. Rents were already sky-high but have gone through the roof in the last few years.
I was paying 850 per month for a 2 bedroom flat ( 1 room for my workshop)on the outskirts of London 5 years ago. This is almost impossible to find now unless you are OK with living in the quite dodgy parts of London. Of course, if you do not mind you can flat/house share.
Add to this the price of transport to get you to Farringdon where the workshop seems to be.
Of course, one should not forget council tax, which can be as high as 1 k per year.
Working week-ends /overtime could be an issue unless you have full access to the company's workshop. I have had a few students from London and most of them found it difficult or almost impossible to fit in a small spot to engrave at home as space is usually limited. ( space comes at a hefty premium in London). And that was for people who wanted to try engraving the " old school" way, so can you imagine with an air assisted tool?

Still, It looks like this job might be for someone just starting their career. But we really need to have more facts about the bonus to judge it.

 

[Sam]

This thread reminds me of what Don Glaser used to say: "I know a lot of millionaires who became engravers, but no engravers who became millionaires."

 

[tundratrekers@mtaonline.n]

Katia,
From the level of work the person is expected to perform,I dont think a beginner will be accepted.

But probably by you with an apprenticeship ,
probably an beginner is more advanced.

Maybe you consider an beginner as one right out of apprenticeship, an journeyman , maybe?

michael

 

[Andrew Biggs]

What a great opportunity. All that stress and responsibility plus having to have a highly developed skill that you have to bring with you.....and all for minimum wage. I'm surprised people aren't queuing for the job!!!!

It used to be that a bonus was for work above and beyond the call of duty and seen as a bonus. Not bumping your pay up to a liveable wage.

It's a real shame as it actually looks like a good job. But they do need to be far more realistic with their pay rates.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

My son is living in London as he works there too. One thing I can say is that even a small apartment in London will cost at least 1000£ a month (something like 1500$)

arnaud

 

[bigransom]

So you only get to eat and sleep about three days a week... Very enticing.
br.

 

[rayf24]

You could live in a one bedroom flat with six others eat beans and then claim benefits from the goverment if you are from the EU area benefits will bring in another 10k plus if you work the system.
Hope this helps
Ray

 

[katia]

Micheal,

I mean someone having just finished an apprenticeship and also very quick to learn.

I must say I have very recently joined the hand Engravers association of Great Britain. One of their biggest concerns is the fact that we, GB engravers, are a dwindling population. They reckon that if things go on like this, we will go the way of the dodo. Maybe not so bad as if I am lucky enough, I might end up in a museum as a lovely piece of Taxidermy…

The new people who will want to enter the engraving career will have to dismiss the money side of things for quite a substential amount of time. Something even more shocking is that many established engravers who are in full time employment and display amazing skills still have relatively low wages. You would be shocked if you knew what they earn. ( I certainly am.)
I don't know what the solution is but it is a real problem.

PS Ray,I wonder how one works the system to get those benefits you speak of. I come from the EU and never claimed any benefits at all. That said, even if I could, I would not want to get any as I do not agree with taking advantages of the system.

 

[Roger Bleile]

Aside from the fact that if you hit the magic number of £41,451. your income tax doubles there is the VAT (value added tax) of 20% added to almost all goods and services. I love visiting GB and the great folks I meet there but the economic system there always makes me feel lucky to live in the US and Kentucky in particular, where the cost of living is particularly low.

On the other hand, if you are young and single, you can live very modestly and take advantage of the endless things to see and do in London. I have been there numerous times and don't feel like I have even scratched the surface.

Cheers,
Roger