It’d be interesting to see some figures relating to league one players wages as compared to a year or two ago. It would obviously be new contract figures as most will be on 2 or 3 year deals
Got a big pay rise in 2014 when I switched jobs. Since then, in my current role, 1% a year or 0% some years. Definitely going backwards. My company has a nifty trick of moving the salary review date. I never know when it is but think it is now November. Do that trick a couple or three times and you magically 'lose' a year. If this next review is not significant, then it may be time to test the going rate at competitors and consider moving on. It's the only real way of securing worthwhile upticks in salary in the private sector in my experience
Such naivety in the private sector from employers is so frustrating. In a previous life I worked in a very niche sector where two biggest companies would spend small fortunes in training up people with no experience to only lose them a few years later to competitors who were willing to pay more. It took years and a change of owners in the one I was at for the penny to drop it was cheaper to keep investing in the team you had.
The company I joined was a small / medium sized independent based in Peterborough paying pretty generous salaries and they had the best bonus scheme I had encountered. We were bought out by the kind of company that grows through acquisition and is owned by private equity. Not the same now. Our support team in particular is woefully under skilled because all the people with years of experience moved on. The experienced ones were actually told they were too highly paid as support staff so wouldn't be getting a pay rise. So one moved over into our consultancy team where the base rate is higher and the others just upped sticks and left. Years of experience gone because they weren't valued. The reputational damage is still being felt 3 years later.
