I am thinking of a possible career change but was wondering what the average wage for a zookeeper in the UK.
From what i've seen from job vacancies they tend to start on £16000-£17000 and then after a 6 month period the wage may rise to £18000-$19000. Although I guess it will be different in differnt parks.
You are very right to say it varies in different parks. As a zookeeper who has worked in various collections in the UK over the past 6 years I can tell you that, from my experience, the average salary for a trainee keeper can range from £12,000 to about £13,500. This can then rise to anything up to about £16,000 for qualified, experienced keepers. Head keepers usually tip the scales at approx £17,000- £20,000. There are very few Head keeper jobs become available! So most of us fall in to the £14,000-£17,000 bracket. I must repeat, this does vary from collection to collection, and different areas of the country will pay more to reflect the different costs of living. But on the whole, we are one of the lowest paid professions! If you average out our salary over our actual working hours, we barely reach minimum wage! But, of course, we dont do it for the money. As a little word of advice, anyone thinking of doing this either as a change of profession or as a first profession, should realise that salary is of low importance to those of us who do this job. The first thing you need to do is gain experience through volunteering and that means working for free!
