AIBU to think many Mumsnet posters seem to be high earners?

@Jane143 Of course Mumsnet skews higher on income.

I just typed into Google:
How do mumsnet demographics compare to uk population?

Answer:
Mumsnet's user base skews significantly more middle-class, affluent, university-educated, and white British compared to the general UK population. 1, 2]

Socioeconomic and Income Differences

• Income: Roughly 74% of www.mumsnet.com&ved=2ahUKEwiX9sauzPGWAxXe3gIHHfelMSIQy_kOegoIAggACAAICxAD&opi=89978449&cd&psig=AOvVaw0nITg1VV-aPOjn_V_793ll&ust=1789596432669000" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mumsnet users report a household income above the national average, whereas the general UK population follows a standard statistical distribution around median earnings. 1]
• Education: A disproportionately high percentage of the platform’s active demographic holds university degrees compared to the wider UK average. 1, 2]
• Social Class: Academic and sociological analyses characterize the core user base as predominantly middle-class or upper-middle-class, contrasting with the socioeconomic diversity of the entire UK. 1, 2, 3]

Ethnicity and Background

• Ethnicity: The active Mumsnet demographic is predominantly white British, which represents a higher concentration than the broader, more ethnically diverse UK census figures. 1]
• Geography: While users span the UK, historical and cultural discussions on the forum often reflect a heavy skew toward professional, urban, and suburban households, with frequent commentary on southern or London-centric living costs and lifestyle norms. 1]

Family Structure and Age

• Age: The core cohort consists largely of established parents aged 30 to 40, omitting the broader distribution of young adults, single people, and older retirees who make up a major portion of the total UK populace. 1]
• Family Size: Users frequently discuss multi-child households or specific parenting challenges (such as special educational needs support), representing a concentrated slice of family-focused demographics rather than the complete spectrum of UK households (which includes a high prevalence of single-person and childfree homes).

Women who earn 6 figures won’t be the ones putting up with abusive behaviour from their retard of a partner!

"Fanny about "
Lol
Love that phrase

Absolutely this. I won the academic prize in high school every year but am now minimum wage due to a lack of confidence, depression and PTSD (childhood sa) and I'm possibly ND but have never been tested.
I know people who fucked about in school who add now earning more than me because they're basically v confident and are able to climb the corporate ladder as their "face fits".

Bullshit. Nobody is ultimately worth more than anyone else!!

Yep, and the people earning the least should still be able to have a decent standard of living.

I suppose it is mostly because my increase in earnings will be used for future priorities rather than significant present day changes.

I have a young DS and have enough set aside to put him through private school but he’s not started yet. Same for uni.

I have money invested to buy him his first home albeit that is probably 20 years away.

I have enough to retire very comfortably while he’s still at primary school and never have to work again.

All these are great for the future but have had little impact on my day to day life so far. I still live in the same house I lived in when I was on 50k. I still have similar holidays, buy similar clothes and have similar hobbies.

Earning more has provided me with future choices and security but hasn’t changed my present day life other than removing pretty much all stress about the future which is not to be underestimated.

You should learn how to question AI-generated responses.

Click on the references. References 1 and 2 are drawn from a single research paper from 2013. Do you know how reliable that paper is?

Useless information in 2026.

Median wage is closer to 40k, and it’s probably skewed by age to some extent, with more people in their 20s on the lower salaries, and people in their 40s and 50s on higher salaries.

I suspect that MN has more people in the older demographic, hence the higher wage averages.

Most of my friends earn more than me. I work part time, agreed w/DH. I know they earn more because one has 2 kids in a private prep school and my closest friend sends her oldest to a secondary school that costs them £11k/term. These are my real life examples so I have no doubts that people online can and do earn £80/100/150k/yr and it's fine. I don't compare myself to my friends and will definitely not be comparing myself to anonymous folk on the Internet. To me its a pointless exercise.

Philosophically? Maybe not.

In a capitalist economy? Evidently they are.

Yes, the economy of a county has absolutely no bearing on the quality of life of those living in it /s

It works both ways.

Without high earning workers, the country would grind to a halt too. Where do you think much of the tax revenue that funds the welfare state comes from?

Depending on the context some people are worth more than others.

Pretty much every person in every investment bank in London who is at MD level earns around £400k so do most CEOs and CFOs of listed companies. There are tens of thousands of them in London.

Listed - FTSE listed? I'd be really surprised if there is at least one CEO of FTSE100 earning less than £1m pa before bonus. The next level below them would be 700k+, CFOs are usually at least £1m+ as well
Standard daily rate for a mid level IT contractor is 600, InfoSec can easily be 800+ per day.

This comes up often. I've been posting here a few years and think there is a good cross section:
high earners,
medium - reasonably comfortable but none to spare,
quite low to poor,
on benefits.

I'm a pensioner who manages with nothing left over but not complaining.

Only 1% of women in the UK earns 100k or more. 2% earn over 70k. So high earning women should be extremely rare indeed on the site and the number claiming to be is at odds with that.
Some might mean their partners are high earners.

No one’s saying we shouldn’t have high earners. The point is the gap. Also if a company pays wages low enough that the state has to top them up with benefits, the taxpayer is effectively subsidising that business. Higher wages, less reliance on benefits, and a less extreme gap seems pretty reasonable to me.

We're a high earning family due to the fact we did work hard at school. Very hard. Getting out of poverty in India, education is the way. We both did engineering at university and later did our own skilled masters.

DH worked and works is arse off to be. And he's rewarded by being in the 45p rate, paying an effective 60% tax even though he single handedly earns more than what most families together do.

It’s really not because you are not taking home double the average after tax. I truly am grateful that my husband and I earn well but take home is not that much . I’m on £900 a day (contractor), however I’m inside IR35, if it was an outside contract I would be laughing all the way to the bank. My Husband is on 180k, luckily no school age children as we wouldn’t be able to afford private school fees. I wish the govt schools in this country had better standards all around.

It really isn’t luxury living, however it’s not to say I’m not grateful and thankful to Jesus everyday. Just trying to show that the disposable income you get after is not what many would think.

I often ask myself the same question...

I assume there are quite a few people on here who just make things up, add their partner's salary to their own to make up their 100K figure or have family wealth and properties (rather than making their living from a regular job).

There probably are also quite a few Londoners and salaries are higher there, although again many Londoners just have normal salaries.

It is best not to compare yourself to anyone else anyway.

But there’s something like 20 million women in the UK of working age. And if there’s a skew towards middle class women in the South East and London, which is often claimed but I can’t verify it, it seems likely that wealthier women are over-represented.

There could very easily be a few thousand women on Mumsnet in that income bracket. Certainly in the £70k + bracket.

My DH on his own is £150k. It's lovely. Buy unfortunately so much gets eaten in tax.

And while 2% sounds little, how many hundreds of thousands of women is that?

This is more common on MN - people who ARE high earners but say they are not. Earning a salary in the top 10% (or so) is a high earner.