Why do you think mumsnet has a more wealthy user base than average or do you think it’s full of bullshitters?

I just read here on my night shifts and I remember someone saying I was lying about my job 🤣 Why would you even do that on a forum??? 🤣

Just had thought but I'm a Step Granny so should probably graduate over to Gransnet these days. Not sure I'll ever have enough wealth to fit in there 😆.

I suspect people who are struggling don't brag about it on here and/or avoid threads with people earning 10 squillion £ a week.

Over on the Premium Bond winners thread this month it all got a bit unpleasant when someone took exception to those of us who have £50K/£100K spare cash sitting around. No idea why they were looking at that thread but it did make me think that MN is probably covering all income ranges.

I think a lot of it is bullshit. I’m sure I remember something on here years ago where a very regular poster who bragged constantly and said she and her husband were rich, was outed for lying.

Ah OK sorry - you're right, that makes sense why I see those when I have my VPN on (I am not in the UK).

Mumsnet is still saying they do advertising partnerships with a minimum spend of £5k @BertieBotts

https://advertising.mumsnet.com/media-kit-page

MN doesn't sell space to advertisers directly any more, they haven't done that for years. They use an ad service which "bids" constantly for different ads to show so each user will in theory get their own personalised ads.

But yes back in the days when they did sell advertising it was all Boden and Bugaboo.

The way to tell who the user base is is to look at the advertisers. Are they cheaper, mass market? High end ? That will tell you what demographic the readers are. And i am sure mumsnet has all that data broken down. To sell to advertisers. Remember, when the app is free, you are the product.

I have been on MN a long time when it was still a very small site. This was before smart phones existed and even when they started appearing they were very expensive as was data generally so access to the internet was expensive so at that point the demographic would have very probably been better off and lots of us have stayed from habit.

One of my husbands women friends from University will be earning around 100k, she is manager of a huge chemical site. He has a couple of friends that work in banking, they earn 100k plus, ridiculous amounts really. They all met when studying at Cambridge.

At our earning peak DH was on 70k and I was on 37k. So as a household we were just nudging in to top 5% of earners. The point with intelligence is it is proven by taking qualifications it doesn’t mean people without qualifications are not intelligent.

I am very definitely not part of the new parent element because my only DC is 27, but I encountered MN 20+ years ago, and I have stayed, sometimes to laugh my socks off, occasionally to ask for information, and for comfort and companionship during dark moments. MN is my social whirl. I come here to talk politics and ask for advice about all kinds of stuff like the best product to degunk the bathroom sink drain. Honestly, I can't think of anything that I would miss more than MN.

On Mumsnet, I've noticed that the spelling and grammar are much better than on Facebook. Also, generally mumsnetters seem more educated, eloquent and articulate. It makes sense that generally, mumsnetters earn more than average. There's bound to be some exaggerating or bullshitting.

I always wondered how people could make a chicken last ten meals for a family of five.

Actually Starling Bank posted on 9 May 2025 that the top 10% gross income in London was £105,000, so just over the figure of interest.

With a sad consensus that 3x as many male as female Londoners earn at this level, only 2.5% of London women are in the top 10% of London earners.

Is it because the demographic is older than average, so we’re more advanced in our careers and/or has a partner with a more advanced career? People in that bracket will not only be earning more but probably have small mortgages if any, their kids are adults and long gone, so they’re very comfortable with high income & low outgoings in the run up to retirement. Well, that’s pretty much the position we’re in, one adult DC still in education but leaving imminently.

Interesting perspective, @Putneydad7

I agree MumsNet is London-centric.
Thank you for pointing that out.

In the 2021 census only 16% of London households had an income of £100K or more. Growth under both parties has not been very good since. Let’s assume 20% have this income now.

We can assume that some reasonable portion of these households have two earners, neither making £100K. Certainly half, because incomes cluster lower. That leaves 10% of London households where at least one person makes £100K. Again, I am making generous assumptions.

There are many headline figures on Google that in London over 3x as many men as women make £100K. So in 7.5% of households it’s a man and in only 2.5% it’s a woman making £100K. Even in London 5% of women are sadly not at that income level.

You don’t know if they’re bullshittin though. I’m just a rich girl
trapped in a poor girls body!!

For an accurate UK picture, you'd need to adjust London salaries downwards to reflect London weighting. If someone here posted that they earned £50k and lived in London, I'd take it as a given they had less disposable income than someone who earned the same amount and lived in, say, Newcastle.

Haven’t read whole thread but I think mumsnet skews older as well - I’m always surprised by how many posters refer to being in their 50s with young school age children.

I’m definitely mumsnet demographic for various reasons. I appreciate the well written and often informative posts. I’m highly educated and in a high earning professional role and I’ve learned so, so much here.

I appreciate the generally good SPAG, the specific old fashioned MN emojis, the simple interface, the restrained moderation and the fact that we’re allowed to swear 😀

The average salary in London is just over 50k, and there are a shit load of people in London. So saying that a salary of 50k on mumsnet seems high seems naive.
Quite often people are turned off from comments/threads they can't associate with (private schools, well paid careers, ski holidays) and so de-select MN as a site of interest this then skews the user base

OP, when people are researching / googling independent schools, you very often see google listings for a MN thread in which that school has been discussed. So, I suspect many people find MN this way - via the Education Boards. That was how I found MN. Then I found AIBU and waste time on there!

Also, on threads about high earners or some such, it's obviously going to be self selecting because people only respond to threads that resonate with them, or that they feel they have a personal and relevant perspective on.

There will be plenty of high earning women on MN. Why wouldn't there be? It's the internet! Similarly, there will be many women married to very high earning men.

From my perspective, I'd say I barely relate to 80% of threads on here. But that doesn't lead me to assume they are made up! Just different people across different demographics and areas of the country - as it should be.

Theres a huge lack of understand here about the wider demographic of workers

Firstly, how many very young porters do you see, or cleaners in offices? They tend to be much older, in our office probably in their 40s and 50s. I can tell during brief interactions that perhaps they may not have huge cognitive abilities. The work is part time in any case, an hour here, a session there, ideal for somone who might only want to or be able to work part time. These jobs arent being done by motivated and enthusiastic school leavers with their eye on supervising.

And on that note, how many supervisors or managers do you think there are for ever 20 cleaners or porters or supermarket staff? 1, perhaps 2 depending on the set up? You can be as competent, experienced, knowledgeable as you like but 19 out of that 20 looking to be the next manager are going to be disappointed.

Being a supervisor or manager has a completely different skill set to coming in every day, rotating stock, wiping bums, pushing trolleys, its stressful, you need people management skills, which I have found over my career cant really be taught, you can upskill to some degree in that area but you've either got it or you havent. its not for everyone, its draining and more timely. People may not enjoy that or want it.

Many workers may have either undiagnosed or diagnosed learning difficulties, dyspraxia, dyslexia, just lower than average cognition and nothing specific. They're not going to want or be able to get mor and more qualifications or study to achieve something, and thats ok

I really take issue with this idea that someone isnt valuable because they're doing a low skill job, these jobs are valuable and necessary to society, its really prejudice and snobbery about someone working on the shop floor and how they should or could work harder, work smarter, achieve more. Well they have achieved what they want and can and thats ok.

Some of the threads on here are an eye opener about that, countless angst about a child dropping out of college and getting bar work or shop work and its like the child is dying or something the way its spoken about.

This.

Definitely loads of bullshitter. But definitely a lot of wealthier people - I think a lot are probably married to money, and that's why they have time to always be on Mumsnet, but some well-off consultants etc as well.

It does skew upper-middle class, which is a bracket I also fall into.

CEO where I work earns approximately a million a MONTH! I’m 3 years qualified and earn 50k…

Sure, but these are data points. Eight million unique MumsNet users per month. 284,000 women in the UK paying additional rate taxes in 2025.

I am not underestimating. We have a long way to go. @Thundertoast is right, the tech industry is a high paying sector. Statistically it is male dominated.

If that was for me, I am a scientist. I was annoyed at PP’s facile claim that 5% of women make £100K ( which she then rounded up generously). She also dropped her own salary into the mix.

I thought she did women a great disservice by ignoring the roles of sexism, the motherhood tax, etc. I am not in the habit of questioning MumsNetters about their reports of their own lives so I assume her profession is focused on creative or verbal, rather than analytical, ability. She has not been back.

My own friendship circle encompasses people of hugely varying financial means and I couldn’t care less about that side of things.

(Perhaps you weren’t writing for me, as I am not sure in what sense I am ‘middle’? Although I confess here to lacking a title of nobility)