Incompetent work colleague on higher salary than me

I don’t think you can say you know he’s being paid more than you. You’ll be told it’s none of your business what he’s being paid, he’s a better negotiator blah blah blah. I’ve been in a similar situation- vastly underpaid and overworked. I was asked to present a business plan to justify a salary increase after I had asked for one. I was strung along for months and then told I was getting nothing. I left - probably was too patient with my employer.
I’d ask for a salary increase as you feel you’re being underpaid. See what happens- but be prepared to explore other avenues and put the feelers out for better opportunities. Don’t leave it too long or it’ll eat away at you. It’s not worth the stress.

Your salary is your problem to be honest. If you feel undervalued now, then check similar job listings and see what could be on offer for you.

It's not a good look if you march to your managers office and shout "He gets paid more than me"

Better to find out why he's paid more, and use that as a bargaining chip.

My daughter who now works for a large bank - back in the day was working in a local convenience store/garage - I asked her did she know the 'PLU' / Barcode number for a Cadburys Creme Egg and she rattled it off without a thought - I explained therefore that she knew everything possible about that job and it was time to move on.

And move on she did - it was just a means to an end which is what your job is - qualify yourself (get more qualifications) and move on when the time is right - you can do it.

(Creme Eggs don't scan because the foil breaks up the barcode so you have to manually add it in - the fact that she knew it off by heart meant it was time to move on)

Your salary is your issue, try negotiate a better deal if you're not happy with it.

You mentioned you haven’t got a raise in seven years or even asked for a raise, that’s your problem. Wages have gone up substantially in that seven years.

Ask for a raise or move job. This happens in a lot of companies.

It’s only a job at the end of the day, if you don’t like it move on.

People with more career experience are typically paid more. It doesn't matter if the individual is not as good as you in a particular facet of work. They may bring other experience you might not even be aware of but the management might be. It's also your responsibility to fight your corner in terms of salary.

Forget about your colleague, think about yourself and ask for a raise and explain why you deserve it. Saying "x gets paid more than me but I'm better" I don't think is likely to go down well as a strategy. It might but I doubt it.

if you value the remote work set up that much be careful about rocking any boats till you have an other option properly lined up....

Ahem..

how can being enabled with another person’s salary be a sackable offence ? The poster has asserted that it wasn’t a data breach…

The only way to find that information is if the employee in question tells you, or a manager does.

Why is this colleague still being trained by you after eight months in the job? Is training other staff part of your role? If it's not and you were assigned to just this new colleague, how long was that supposed to last? If you are still spending part of your day training him, is that having an impact on your own work/tasks?

It can be stressful trying to complete your own job if you have somehow become 'responsible' for ensuring your colleague does their job right - surely that's the role of your manager? Workplace stress can also lead to health problems. What would happen if you stopped training / hand holding now, or if you were out sick for weeks due to stress?

Agree with other posters, check out other opportunities and what your skills, qualifications and experience would pay.

Salary is not personally identifiable information, or sensitive data.

Some companies even have full salary transparency. Some workplace have published scales, and a culture where people are open about their grade on the scale.

In this situation, the other employee may have told. Or they may have left their contract or payslip in a discoverable place.

It may be a data breach, if the OP, or someone else, breached procedure to get the information. But it's not necessarily one.

Too much focusing on your colleague. Your salary is between you and your management.

His salary is between him and your management. If he's not pulling his weight that's an issue that should be brought up if it wasn't before no matter what the salary is. I wouldn't be covering for him. If you haven't brought this up before it looks like your only doing it for revenge. That wouldn't shower you in any glory either.

Forget about his salary. You now know that management pay more for a job equal or lower than yours. If your negotiation skills only equal to "he's on more so I want more" then I can see why you're on the lower wages.

If it was me, I'd be checking to see what other companies are paying and either applying to those jobs or using that as my negotiation tactic. If they don't value you they won't move much and then your next step is up to you. They may be stuck in only being able to give certain percentages as pay rises (large companies sometimes put you in a band and to move out of it you have to change role). If that's the case you and your manager need to come up with a plan to resolve that. Pointing at your colleague and saying "but he's on more" won't do the trick.

Most don't, from the information provided the OP is not supposed to have someone else salary and if they got it then it wasn't provided correctly.

They also haven't told how they got the information so reading between lines it is dodgy, so yes some companies would see that as sackable as you are getting personal information about other employees

In this case the OP went looking for the information as well, it was not provided by mistake

Steer away from dishing him. As someone said on this thread, he may be there due to connections. The most incompetent overpaid person I ever worked with was a friend of a couple of Board members. Anyone who complained got nowhere and disadvantaged themselves going forward. Concentrate on establishing your own worth to justify an increase.

You've been there seven years; what you're experiencing is called "wage compression". Basically, internal compensation increases usually don't keep up with the broader market, so long-tenured employees end up making the same (or often even less, as in your case) as new hires, simply because the salary that has to be offered to get those new hires to accept the role has increased much more than the pay rises given to long-term employees over the years.

Now, the problem is that it's usually very hard to convince your current employer that they need to give you a significant pay bump up to market rate. When they're hiring a new employee, they simply have no choice but to offer a competitive salary, as otherwise they're not going to be able to fill the position at all. As a current employee, however, you're already working for them for your current rate of pay, so there is a lot less incentive for them to give you a large pay rise just for continuing to do your current job when they can just gamble on loyalty or fear of change or just plain inertia to keep you around instead. Unless you actually come to them with a better offer in hand, the chances of your getting an increase to the level of your new colleague are unfortunately quite low; usually the only way to get a pay rise to market value is going to be to look for a new job elsewhere.

If you do manage to secure a better offer, it's possible your current employer would consider matching it at that stage, as that changes their calculations quite a bit when your leaving has suddenly become a strong probability rather than just an unlikely hypothetical. There's a chance you will be branded as a "flight risk" and "disloyal" if you were to accept a counter-offer, however, which could have a negative effect on your future career with your current employer, so you'd want to consider any such offer very carefully. It can often be better to go with the new offer instead.