Hi everyone,

Thanks for your replies. That's useful to know about the holiday and about the permit.

I didn't apply through an agency and it was the employer who said (after saying that they would be offering me the job) I had stipulated too low a salary and that they had to pay me within the range for the job (and then they seem to have done some kind of research into it), and that this was posing a problem for them. I am assuming that the problem was that they didn't want to pay me as much if they thought I would be happy with less, or does anyone know of a different problem with this scenario?

I have a friend in Switzerland who is a translator and she got about 30%+ more in CH than in UK; looking at managerial salaries in CH, it looks about a 30% difference to me. Since it is a cost of living issue, I would have thought that the UK-CH salary difference would be across the board of jobs, but it seems that this isn't necessarily the case (but surely it should be!).

I suppose my main worry is that, having stipulated too low a salary, the employer is trying to find a way to pay me lower than they had originally intended (I will never make this mistake again!). I am not sure if they have tweaked the job title a bit in their favour [from manager of group of products to manager of major (almost sole) product in that group]. On the other hand, they have been upfront about it, and they are offering me more than I asked for, so perhaps I shouldn't suspect them.

I don't suppose there is really any way for anyone to know, really, what their original intentions were.

Anyway, thanks! I will be glad when all this mental torture is over.

kfc.