Company paying below market rate and not allowing salary negotiations
26F with 2YOE based in London. Recently promoted to Consultant but was only offered £40k, no bonus.
Wasn’t happy with this salary for two reasons - the first being that it’s below the £42k last year’s consultants were paid, and the second being that I work 50-60 hour weeks and regularly take on more responsibility for my role, including writing proposals where I’ve ended up winning 9% of our total department’s revenue from January to present.
I presented this to my line manager who said she didn’t feel comfortable supporting or raising my request with the senior leadership team given how the wider business is performing. This is while our department has been making our targets and expensing 5 star hotels for our partners. She could tell I wasn’t happy with what she’d said so she offered to see whether there was scope to negotiate my salary with a more senior manager.
The more senior manager also said no with her reason being that ‘this has come from head office’ and that ‘the business is cutting budgets’. That said, I don’t think asking for my salary to be benchmarked against previous cohorts let alone reflect my contribution is asking for much, particularly when the increase in question wouldn’t have amounted to more than £300 or so month.
Feel so exhausted, demotivated, and resentful when I reflect on my experience working for this company. I’ve updated my CV and LinkedIn but I’m not sure I can make it through another 3-6 months while I look for another job. I don’t think I can force myself to rewrite content that’s been blatantly been written by AI, juggle multiple projects where I’m usually the only person working on them other than the project lead, or even bring myself to go into the office.
I don’t think calling in sick is an option given that I’m the only person working on the projects I’m on, though. What do I do? Would really appreciate any advice.
TLDR: burnt out, demotivated, and resentful after company refused to negotiate salary. Need advice on how to make it through without crashing out until I find another job.