Afternoon,I'm after a bit of advice re: salary. I'm in the process of moving from medicine to mc. Currently work in the NHS and have a great work life balance and put in 40 hrs a week for 48k. I'm being asked by recruiters what my expectations are money wise. I have zero commercial business experience but 9 years in healthcare including project design, senior clinical leadership roles, audit , research and policy design. I'm looking at mc roles in healthcare consulting or people and change. I have an oxbridge degree and graduated top of my year at medical school so my academics are good.I'm assuming I'll be working 50-60 hrs a week at a more intense (and hopefully interesting) pace. So should I just multiply 48k by 1.5? Is this a reasonable thing to ask with no business experience?All advice gratefully received, thanks.

You realise 48K x 1.5 is 72K right??? If that's what you're expecting you're in for a hell of a shock! dont extrapolate a figure based on hours, consultancy is NOT the public sector, thee are no roles with cushy hours, you work hard, in te hope that you'll be rewarded for good work... but they're not going to throw 72K at someone with zero consulting experience! Why should you come in at a pay level above what those already there, with a few years experience have? I wouldn't expect much improvement on your base salary at all!

How depressing DJD,matilda, i'm not a headhunter but at a guess you'd come in as a senior consultant and could earn around 50-60k with that experience, shortly after that you'd make manager and be on 70's all in. Depends where you go though!These are total guesses as the experienced hire thing confuses me.

Thanks to both of you, it's helpful to get an idea of what is realistic. Reading this forum at times it's easy to assume that everyone is earning 7 figure salaries. I'm strangely reassured that this is not the case.I'm very aware that I have no business experience, hence was very up front about it. I will have to accept that by changing careers I set myself back a couple of years in terms of progression because I'll have a lot to learn.If anyone else has differing opinions do let me know.

Ok Matilda, But don't forget everyone has to consult 'in something', and by the sounds of it your skill set's pretty good - even if you're not too hot on writing a proposal or working out day rates; of which neither are rocket science and others can help/lead on.Bear in mind that unlike the public sector you can negotiate on/add in bonus, car allowance, pension and other benefits, so base pay can be a bit misleading. The point about transfering is that if you are good at what you do you should be able to progress quickly, and then starting salary will be less important - the key thing is to make sure you are progressing in the right direction...