howmuchshouldyoubepaid jobs features Virgin Media

It's the last great taboo: the S word. Yes, nobody talks about salary in polite conversation. Sometimes, however, it pays to know what kind of money comes with a certain kind of job.

Once you understand what a particular role offers, you'll be better armed for the inevitable (unless you're in the public sector) salary negotiations.

You should, of course, bear a few factors in mind. Any information you find is likely to be an approximation. It will also probably not take into account where you are in the country - a banker in London and a banker in Stornoway are unlikely to have comparable incomes.

Other factors could be your qualifications, skills and work experience, and the size of the company - a web-development job at ICL will command a distinctly different salary to a similar role in a small web-design agency.

Supply and demand also come into the equation. When a skill is in short supply your skills might attract a higher reward, but if the market is flooded, you might not be so lucky.

Of course, salary isn't everything. It's important to take into account the whole package, including any commission or bonus, car allowance, training and flexibility of working hours.

If you want to see if you're getting a fair day's pay for your fair day's work, here are some of the main Internet resources:

The IT industry

Salary Services Ltd (SSL) provides IT salary information.

Each quarter, SSL works with Computer Weekly magazine to glean comprehensive and authoritative information on IT salaries in the UK. The survey covers the complete span of salaries nationwide for over 60 job functions, with regional variations. Their site, www.salaryservices.co.uk, includes a handy salary-checker.

Public sector ICT

Now in its seventh year, the Society of Information Technology Management survey provides comprehensive information on salaries of Information and Communications Technology staff at 11 job levels by type of authority, job type, geographical location, sex and age: www.socitm.gov.uk.

Office for National Statistics

The Monthly Wages and Salary Survey (MWSS), conducted by the Office for National Statistics, covers around 8,400 British businesses and 11 million employees. It measures commission, bonuses, overtime and pay-award arrears as well as pay.

The data are used for the Average Earnings Index (AEI), which the Treasury uses to measure pay growth and the Bank of England uses to set interest rates.

Designers

Design Week's salary survey finds that few designers' salaries have outpaced inflation, while those for new management roles seem to have weakened significantly.

Marketing

Marketing Week magazine found that, after several years of disappointing performances in relation to inflation, last year saw a significant jump in marketing incomes. Across the board, 1,471 survey respondents reported higher salaries.

Recruiters

Recruiters can find out just how much they are worth through the Recruitment and Employment Confederation's National Salary and Benefits Survey, which is available online.

PayWizard

The premise here is simple: Most people in the UK don't know how much other people earn. PayWizard aims to change all that by collating salary information from users. The PayWizard website enables you to compare your pay with that of others doing a similar job without you having to do anything unseemly like ask the person sitting next to you.

Of course, if none of that works for you, there's always good old word-of-mouth. If you're talking to colleagues about an internal vacancy, bear in mind that the information could fall into the speculation category. Still, at least we'll be a step nearer breaking down some of those taboos.