American List-Members may be interested to know that for well over 20
years the [UK] Museums Association has recommended a minimum salary level
equivalent to the nationally agreed local government staff scale 4 for
established professionals at the level of the Association's Associateship
(AMA) or equivalent.

I do not have the latest local government salary scales at home, but I
suppose that he starting salary of Scale 4 would be equivalent to around
US$ 27,000 - $ 28,000 per year.

(The AMA scheme is currently in transition - see details of this on
http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/ma-ama.html)- but traditionally required
a bachelor's degree plus one year full-time postgraduate Museum
Studies (or part-time equivalent), plus a minimum of two years'
professional experience, so we are talking about graduate professionals
aged from 24 upwards.)

The Association has, of course, no control over what individual museum
governing bodies do, but the Association's "Museums Journal" has for many
years refused to accept advertisements offering less that the equivalent of
Scale 4 for a post "requiring" the AMA.

However, employers easily get round this by not "requiring" such a
qualification.  The situation with some of the leading national museums -
following the quasi-privatisation of their staffing - is even worse.  It
is not at all unusual for academic/professional jobs which in reality need
a PhD or at least Master's degree to be advertised as short-term contracts
on a former Civil Service salary grade that was established for 16 year
old high school leavers.

Patrick Boylan