To ask how you've reached a high salary? 50k+

@Abridget7 Wow, that’s crazy to me - I don’t know where I’m going wrong as I’m a Londoner with no CV gaps, degree, always worked in large financial organisations, and had good performance reviews. I’m earning far far less than 50k 😓

With very little effort you could do a bit of cursory learning and get an entry level IT job on a monitoring desk. It's boring and usually involves shift work, but you'd probably get £40k+. If you use the enormous quantities of paid 'free time'* to study and upskill, you could use it as a springboard into an entry level job in your chosen field (£50k+). Once you're doing the job and gaining experience, you can do the zigzag and rapidly increase your wages - if you're competent and don't piss people off.

What you don't want to do is get comfortable on the monitoring desk doing as little as possible and learning as little as possible. It's what lots of people do and there's a reason they never progress.

I'm on £97k and I'm expecting a 4% pay rise and a £7k+ bonus.

* Monitoring desks usually work 12 hour shifts. The day workers get all the crap jobs nobody else can be bothered to do. After the evening shift change, you're normally just getting paid to sit and react to alarms - this normally just requires a ticket to be created and passed to the correct team. You can sit there watching Netflix on a laptop or you can study, study, study. I used to cart a large networking lab into work and set it up on the night and weekend shifts. My colleagues would sit around moaning about life and, as far as I'm aware, they're probably still there - but each to their own, if you can live on £45k it's easy money.

Really?!? Well I was just about to come on to say don't move to the charity sector! I'm much older than the OP after a career change late 40's and on similar wage in a fairly junior role, but really struggling to see how to progress as my role is quite niche.

Teacher of languages are often in demand (Area dependent of course) so you may be able to negotiate a higher pay scale depending on your experience. If you have any local, look for SEND specialist schools as they will have a SEND allowance of top of your salary and due to their smaller size, are easier to progress within.

I’m also in the Civil Service. You break the £50k barrier by seeking promotions. It’s incredibly easy to move up in the CS. So many internal jobs out there.

What area of teaching? Could look for stem social value roles in energy or construction sectors. I made the jump from charity sector and am paid about £20k above the average wage for my age in this area. I do have 20 years experience though. Even if you go in lower as a social value adviser there are lots of progression opportunities.

Maybe look at college teaching? Ime behaviour was good, the teaching easy.

Go where the money is - either picking an industry like insurance, finance, tech which has a lot of money sloshing about, or sticking broadly with your current industry (define it as "education") and going into sales and bringing in revenue for the company.

Clean up your LinkedIn profile and apply for private sector jobs there - happy to advise on any specific questions.

Seems like a cushy number. The people I know who work in CS are around for every school play, school drop off and pick up times etc. They have lots of flexibility and I just assumed it's incredibly well paid. I didn't realise that you need to work Saturdays though. That surprised me. Thought it was purely Monday to Friday working hour contracts.

I job hopped, a lot. Gaining higher salaries each time and more and more experience in different companies and scenarios, dealing with different problems. I also trained myself in new areas related in some ways to my job but in new emerging areas in my spare time, not even official qualifications but just leaned, a lot through reading, watching videos and podcasts etc on the areas I wanted to knoe about. I stretched myself and never waited for promotion, I just got a new job when I felt I knew enough to earn more. Then became a consultant. Now 40+ and been earning over 100k consistently for about 5 years. I could push myself more to earn more, but I also now work flexibly which suits my family life.

I'm 38, work in Audit for an ALB, and am on £62k

Which is...?

Hard work and networking. Started as an AA, now a G7 in the civil service. Have a look at the development programmes I did one as an EO. Don't stay in the same role for more than 18mths unless you are getting varied opportunities. I have had 5 children in that time too.

If you are bright and ambitious you can work your way up in the civil service quite quickly. You just need to know how to write an application as it's very specific. As a pp said use EOIs to get experience and apply apply apply.

Charity sector can be reasonably well paid, if that appeals/you think you have the skills.

My last charity role was 90k and currently around 70 following a move to a more interesting role.

Senior in both but more junior reports were earning 50k +.

Maybe research companies in the Educational Tech sector or a software company that services the public sector

You have to aggressively hunt for roles higher up the scale. You've only been in the current role for a couple of months but give it another 6 and then start applying for higher grade roles. That's what I have done anyway.
I did an art degree as a mature student. Prior to that I was earning decent money working as a freelance massage therapist but I needed a career break and didn't have excuse of children. So went to uni. After I finished my degree, I toyed with the idea of becoming an arts teacher but I had one experience day (which, luckily, was a prerequisite to applying for PGCE) and hated everything about it. So I used my skills and experience to apply to clinical masters. Started as band 5, moved up to band 6 at 9 months mark when an opportunity came up. I then wanted to move to a different city and to make it work I needed a band 7 role. So I ended up moving three grades up in my first 18 months. These opportunities didn't land on my lap. I had to seek them out. I've now been band 7 for three years and I got incremental salary increase. By the end of year 5 I will be at the top of the pay scale and can then make a decision about my next steps. I also run a small creative business to supplement my income so my combined salary + business profit were around 56k last year. Not amazing money but comfortable.

At 34 I earned around 22k in a local government job, at 44 I earn 700 a day as an IT consultant. My biggest regret was staying too long in that position with no opportunity for advancement. Loyalty is rarely rewarded, moving and working away for good opportunities is how I've progressed.

SEN/SEMH teaching. Behaviour is highly challenging but there’s more support/infrastructure for it. Smaller classes, very little planning, next no marking. Plus SEN additional allowance.

I'm almost at 50k 😂

I work in insurance

It's very boring, but well paid

The benefits are great too (pension, great insurance, obv 😉, decent hols, WFH)

I'm 37 and joined the Civil Service when I was 23 as an EO on about 19k. I've moved roles regularly, sometimes via sideways moves, to gain more experience and skills and I've just moved into a G6 role at 68k with lots of room now for pay progression. I work at home full time, have flexi hours, good leave entitlements (including mat leave) and a brilliant pension.

I've hated every single job role I've done after two months so I'd ordinarily say I'd be looking to stick it out for a few months more just to get a proper feel for the role... But that said, I've only heard negative things about HMRC 🙈. I'd start looking at internal Civil Service moves as it really can be a great place to work with loads of interesting work and potential for progression.

This has definitely been my experience. I went from 30k to 52k in 3 years that way.

I have always had partners that earned loads more than me. The difference is that I have always worked in the public sector, they have always worked in the private sector. If I had my time over again I would do law/finance, I'm too old to change now. My salary is £60k which when I was young would have seemed huge. It's a lot of money true but everything is soooo expensive now.

I’m 35 (so similar to you) and earn £52,500 as a UPS3 teacher with a TLR for leading English (primary).
Still can’t afford to buy a house though!

I’m a similar age to you and have a decent salary. I’m a psychologist. This took 8 years of study and many years working very low paid jobs so I wouldn’t recommend it as a route to make money!

The job market is tough in general and most jobs are underpaid. I wish you the best OP.