‘Poor young man’: Lawyer’s salary stuns Aussies

A young lawyer in Brisbane has shared his salary and Aussies didn’t see it coming.

A young lawyer from Brisbane has revealed his annual salary and Aussies didn’t see it coming.

GetAhead is a job-matching app that works like Tinder but allows people to swipe and find jobs.

It has amassed over 13 million likes on TikTok by stopping people in the street and asking them what they do for a living and how much they make.

A blonde man looking casual in shorts and a polo was stopped and asked about his career and he explained that he was a lawyer and making $65,000.

He explained that he did two degrees and studied for over five years to be qualified to practice law.

“Lots of late nights and then it was just chucking the CV around. You’ve got to put it everywhere,” he explained.

The young lawyer said it took some late nights to get his degree. Picture: TikTok/ getahead.app

He added that it is important to remember to have fun at uni. Picture: TikTok/ getahead.app

MORE: A guide to salary averages in Australia in your industry

The lawyer shared that has specialised in construction law and deals with things like property defects and leaky buildings.

He said that he went straight from high school to university and in retrospect he wished he’d taken a gap year in-between.

“Once you go to uni and then straight into work it is hard to take a year once you’re in,” he said.

MORE: The highest paying jobs in Australia without a degree

The young lawyer said that at university the “less I tried the better I did” which he admitted was “weird”.

He added that when you’re a student you need to put in the work when it is required but never forget to have fun and let loose.

“If you don’t have balance you’ll burn out,” he advised.

According to SEEK the average wage for a lawyer in Aus is $100k. Picture: TikTok/ getahead.app

On social media Aussies were shocked to learn that the lawyer’s pay packet wasn’t as large as they expected it to be.

“$65,000 are you taking the mickey?” One asked.

“Two degrees for $65,000 is absolutely unbelievable! I barely made it through year 12 and I make six figures without ever going to university,” one wrote.

“This poor young man has probably worked his absolute heart out and to be only paid that is an absolute joke.”

“You can earn more spinning stop signs,” someone else wrote.

“Going to be a long road back to paying HECS,” one wrote.

Someone else guessed that he might be in a part-time role to be earning that salary and another said that wage wasn’t that “unusual” while another pointed out that law salaries tend to vary.

“Law salaries definitely depend on if its boutique, national, big six, in-house, government, etc. A law grad can earn $50k to $120k. It’s really varied,” the person explained.

Job search platform SEEK has found that the average salary for lawyers is just over $100,000 nationwide.

Interestingly in Brisbane, the average salary for a lawyer is the highest at $148,000 and the lowest average salary for a lawyer is in Darwin at $97,000.

According to the financial comparison website Finder’s Consumer Sentiment Tracker, 50 per cent of Australians earn between $10,000-$49,999, 32 per cent earn between $50,000-$99,999 and almost one in five earn above $100,000.

The cost of living has had a detrimental impact on people’s ability to save, with 48 per cent saying they could only survive up to a month living off their savings if their income dried up tomorrow.

Originally published as ‘Poor young man’: Lawyer’s salary stuns Aussies