Surely it's a good thing for British teachers to have higher wages? It would encourage British people to go into teaching, become educated and pass on that education. Britain has a problem with stagnant wages and concentration of wealth.

And it would seem in literacy and numeracy. 2013 OECD study on England's 16 to 24-year-olds: - 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy out of 24 countries.

One more data point: my friend is a doctor and has lived in the UK for about 9 years. She's terribly overworked and makes less than the stated amount.

She must still be in training then as most qualified doctors in the UK NHS earn way more than that:

https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/about/careers-medicine/pay-...

Worth noting that there are no limits on what doctors in private practice can earn and some NHS doctors do private work on the side to augment their NHS salaries.

The GP's comment doesn't seem inconceivable. Remember that terms like junior doctor or doctor in training in the UK typically refer to anyone below the level of GP or Consultant. That covers typically 6 years of academic training, followed by at least 5 years of postgraduate clinical practice. Even someone in their fifth postgraduate year, working full time, and making progress as rapidly as the system allows still has a base salary under 35K, and not everyone will progress that quickly.

So, depending on what funny business happens with counting base salaries vs. additional income and what happens with junior doctors' contracts when the current clash with the government has been resolved, a proposal like the one we're talking about really could wind up with someone several years into a career as a junior doctor falling foul of the rules.

Of course it's highly unlikely to come to that, because the NHS is already in serious trouble and would surely collapse completely without the foreign workers it employs not just as doctors but more widely. Any rules about minimum salary are inevitably going to have get-out clauses to protect essential industries from catastrophic consequences.

NHS can't afford to pay it's doctors rockstar wages because it is arguably the most efficient healthcare system on the planet.

I can't see how "NHS can't afford to pay it's (sic) doctors rockstar wages" follows from "it is arguably the most efficient healthcare system on the planet". Why are these mutually exclusive?

Efficient in the sense that you get more bang for your buck healthcare wise in the UK than you would get from the US or any other country that follows the US model. NHS is already barely able to make ends meet right now and would basically flop as a system if it had to match US wages for doctors.

US healthcare in comparison to UK healthcare is bloated, costly and inefficient in the sense that a whole lot of money is spent with nothing to show of it (patients are not getting any better services).

For more information on this read "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care"

Also is the use of 'sic' really necessary? I find it to be pretentious.

Wow... in my countries, doctors are by far the best paid among "standard" professions, and most make about that amout - working 2 or 3 jobs and being terribly overworked as well, but I'm sure their standard of living is much better.

And many are tempted to move to Brazil or other countries. So I guess she should try to move (unless she likes the UK a lot).

Just one other data point: a friend teaches IT and cannot find any permanent employment, it's all temporary gigs of three or six months. So in some respects, it might be like IT workers - they are there, but employers are ruling them out for inscrutable reasons, and demanding access to migrants instead.

Was confused with this for a moment as I thought you were referring to London, Ontario. Anyways it is a pity that your sister may be impacted by this not so well thought out mandate. I also have a friend who graduated from teacher's college (OISE) last year but left for South America.

Ha, no, not that London. She's love to have a job there- they pay teachers well.

It isn't the wage it's self that bothers me, it is this 35K GBP figure without any other context that bothers me.

I think it depends entirely on if someone is trying to become /part/ of a country, or if they are merely there to work in it.

For the former the rules should be more lax, that person should need to make at least the median wage for a given job (until they are fully emigrated).

For the latter that person should need to make at least 150% of the median wage.

Family's complicate the decision; but I would say that the most favored member of the family should be the deciding factor.