Vets may be interested to see how they compare to other professions when considering their earnings and helpfully there is a list here of the "...best paid UK jobs 2014".

It takes most vets at least five years at vet school before they can work as a vet anywhere, and then they still have to do some time in their professional development phase or equivalent before they manage to achieve anything like a reasonable salary. So at number 66 in the list they languish behind pipe fitters, garage managers and proprietors, 'biological scientists and biochemists'. I wonder how long it takes to train before you get to be a pipe-fitter....

At first sight the figures look low and it's tempting to think of reasons why the figures are so low. Your first thoughts might be 'is this to do with the increasing feminisation of the veterinary profession?...perhaps more female vets work part time? Or maybe vets are just smart enough to realise that the higher income threshold just dropped and think ******this for a game of soldiers...I'll do fewer hours." I doubt this though: These claim to be average annual salaries. The sample size also appears to be about 10,000 or more than 50% of the UK veterinary workforce, so these figures are probably reasonably accurate. As for working shorter hours, vets don't just have to train a long time to get to be employed, they also have an out-of-hours obligation imposed the the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (although the College is not legally obliged to impose it). Vets work longer hours than most people.

You might also be tempted to think that with the trend towards incorporation the figures might be skewed as vets opt to take a tiny proportion of their income as salaries and opt for dividends instead in order to save income tax and national insurance. But again, I doubt this makes much difference as only a tiny proportion of the veterinary workforce has any kind of equity stake in veterinary practice.

Not very well paid then...and not very surprising given the obligations imposed on vets.

It can be a tough job being a vet in practice. I think any organisation concerned with the welfare of animals or considering how vets should be regulated would do well to look at those figures and think. "Should I be imposing any more costs on this group of professionals? Should I be imposing any more regulation or professional obligations? And what burdens can I reasonably remove from a population of people that is extremely hard-working and not very well paid?"