Last Friday, I travelled to Birmingham for the day to speak at the Midlands DFT (first-year dental graduates) careers day.
I spoke about oral surgery, implant dentistry, and entrepreneurship.
It's a beautiful day, one of the best, just really engaging, exciting, and full of energy. As I said several times while speaking to the groups, it was a privilege to be there.
One of the things I wanted to get across, though (which I always want to get across to DFTs), is income.
What happens about this point in a DFT's career is they are reaching the end of the first section of their first year of work, the nights are dark, the mornings are dark, it's hard to get up, it's hard to get motivated (It's about to get worse in January, guys).
And so it's easy to reach the point where you think, What the hell is this all about? I have another 40 or 50 years of this to go, so a little perspective is helpful.
While I was travelling on the train, I used my friend and genius Perplexity to figure out a few facts and figures about UK income status.
And so, just in case you haven't done this for a while, here they are.
The average salary in the United Kingdom outside of London is £24,400; let's just repeat that again in case you missed it, the average salary is £24,400.
That means if you earn anything over £24,400, you are above average; if you were lucky enough to earn £48,800, you're earning twice as much as the average person in the United Kingdom.
It's also worth remembering that the amount of people that earn over, for example, £500,000 is so infinitesimally small that you're unlikely to meet one, let alone be one.
The average salary for a dentist in the United Kingdom, and this is a fully qualified dentist, is between £50,000 and £70,000 per year from different sources. Some dentists can earn over £120,000 a year, but only those at the very top of their profession are the ones that are doing extremely well.
If you earn over £120,000 per year, you are at the very top end of the UK's income rates.
So, let's figure out what the DFTs are earning.
The DFT's are earning £38,400 or thereabouts. This is approximately 40% more than the average salary of everybody in their first year qualified; this is more than a doctor, more than a teacher, more than a nurse, more than a scientist, and more than almost anybody else who ever graduates.
For this money, The DFTs do not have to be on call, so they are effectively working hours, which are equivalent to nine till five, but many of the weeks that they are working include a study day, usually on the Friday, which doesn't usually involve a full day but it is certainly not classified as 'proper work' really.
And so what's the point of this and the point of spouting about what people are earning and what they're not earning?
It's easy to think that everybody you see is earning more than you or has more than you, but that's usually not the case.
You can rationalise this against the objective numbers and understand that there are families trying to raise their children, feed them, educate them and give them a nice life on £24,400 a year if one of the parents is not going to work to look after the kids. That would be considered an average income for those people.
In dentistry, and that will be the majority of people who read this, we are so lucky with the opportunities we have, the lifestyle we can provide for ourselves and our families and the choices we can make.
It's important that we reflect on this and understand that I have taught DFT groups since 1998, and I have had guys tell me that what they expect to earn as a dentist is £250,000 a year.
All the best with that, and all the best with targeting 10 times the average as your baseline.
Blog Post Number - 4019
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