A senior nurse who quit in tears after suffering crippling burnout now earns the same salary in an entry-level tech job.
Sean Cherry, 31, spent nine years in the NHS, rising to a Band 7 nurse at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
Yet his monthly take home wage of just over £2,500 is only on a par with his junior role at a financial consultancy.
Sean, of South East London, quit last September after being signed off for 10 weeks. He said: “Nursing is never about money, you go into it because you want to help people.
“But it staggers me that my pay after bouncing around the NHS for nearly a decade is more or less the same as this very junior job.”
Sean had led his paediatric nursing team through Covid.
He hoped the intense pressure would subside post-pandemic – but it never did.
He added: “I saw burnout and stress all around me, colleagues in tears on a daily basis. I had been ground down to the point where I lacked any resilience.
“The week I went back from burnout was the same week as my wedding. It was meant to be the happiest time of my life yet I was crippled with indecision.
“I just came to realise I couldn’t be a nurse any more.”
