The Queen is advertising for a new maid but while the successful applicant will get to live in a palace and rub shoulders with royalty, they’ll be paid less than a third of what housekeepers in other government branches earn.
Her Majesty is currently seeking a full-time housekeeping assistant to work at The Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The role involves 37.5 hours a week of cleaning, dusting, bed-making and waiting on guests at special functions.
Applicants must have hospitality experience, be passionate, hard-working, flexible and “committed to achieving exceptional standards of service provision” but will receive just over minimum wage, the equivalent of just over $10 an hour or $20,000 per annum.
This is a meagre wage indeed compared to other similar positions in UK government offices.
Brighton and Hove City Council in England’s south are currently advertising for an housekeeping assistant to help clean the Royal Pavilion Estate. Despite requiring just 15 hours per week of work, less than half of the Holyroodhouse job, the position pays $26,000, an hourly rate of $33, more than three times as much as the royal household role.
Similarly in the private sector, housekeeping assistants are paid an average of $32,000 per annum, more than twice as much as the same position in the royal household.
Royal Household jobs are famously low-paid, but are still extremely coveted by British job seekers.
While salaries are small, there are many perks including accommodation in royal palaces (although this is not as glamorous as it sounds and is deducted from employees’ salaries), free lunches, generous annual leave and sick pay entitlements, bicycle and mobile phone salary sacrifice schemes and free tickets to a large number of events each year.
The Royal Household also has attractive entitlements surrounding maternity and paternity leave, fertility treatment leave, parental leave, and child care vouchers.
It is also regarded as an extremely social workplace where people work hard and play hard, with a party in staff quarters most nights.
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