I am a woman earning £500k+ a year

[Alljan]

Divorced, co-parent mum of 2.

in response to other thread, happy to answer any questions

Getting on a flight back from the US if there’s a delay!

OP this is a great thread. Thank you for sharing.

I have a similar earning potential to you and a supportive DH who works more regular hours, so in many ways I have it much easier than you have, but I feel I have hit a wall and can't work out whether I want to take the next step up.

Perhaps part of it is that the hours are punishing and when I reach the salary you're on I won't be doing 45 hour weeks. I'm worried I won't cope but will become trapped by the money.

But I'm ambitious and I despise the idea of all the men leapfrogging me if I take my foot off the pedal.

Did you ever hit a mental wall and what did you do about it?

i’ll help on that. Similar sector, used to work in tech, I’m also a high earner.

I’d say most firms have a de-facto ‘front office’ and ‘back office’. If you are front office you’re winning business or contracts, meeting with clients and / or investors, managing teams of people, or maybe managing a department of people and your performance impacts the bottom line of the firm. Jobs like these tend to command the highest salaries as they are jobs which are quite specific to retaining the person, if that individual were to leave it would hurt the firm, and getting the best person would make more money.

Back office roles are jobs where if that person weren’t there, it would be hard or bad for those around them but it probably wouldn’t imact the firm bottom line. Like say, working in IT, or being an administrator. Those roles are still important but don’t tend to command such high salaries.

My question is,to really high earners, do you think that what you do each month is worth£13.000 a month.
I have worked in NHS/ Social care for 35 years. I manage 50 staff over 3 hospital sites in 5 different teams. I work about 40 hours most weeks( 34 officially) with no lunch break most days. I take home less than £3,000 each month.
I am literally non stop from arriving to leaving. I have to manage HR issues( sickness/ performance/ behaviour etc), deal with difficult patients and relatives. Support staff who are treated like crap on a daily basis.

Then I think about the people who work 2 or 3 jobs just to put food on the table, and I really think that those watching big bucks are often working less hard than the rest of us.

What is the solution to making the world more fair and equitable? What would you do if you were prime minister to make things better.
Do you agree that no chief exec should earn more than 10 times their lowest paid staff member?

@Usernamen

I find it baffling when people on MN claim they don’t know anyone who earns more than £40k (I have literally seen comments like this). How is it possible to go through life without ever coming across a teacher, doctor, solicitor, accountant, dentist, MP, pharmacist, headteacher, plumber, electrician, etc.

World of difference between 'coming across' people and having them in your friendship groups .

I am being headhunted for a £100k/yr job (3 times what I earn now), I have two very young children and my inner voice tells me I am absolutely not good enough for this and should just stay put where I am comfortable.

My question is, did you or do you suffer from imposter syndrome and how do you deal with it?

You are misunderstanding what the lives of higher earners looks like. In many cases it’s probably no different in terms of hours to anyone in full time work - you might actually find they have more flexibility due to their seniority. OP works from home full time - not many workers can claim that.

Here's the thing.. the person being paid £500k may have exceptional skills at let's say closing a deal worth £50m.

So in isolation that person is laughably cheap and big companies are happy to pay £500k. They compete for top talent.

But people often misunderstand the downstream benefits beyond the highly paid exec...
With that deal in place the business now expands.
It employs more people. Those people are now in secured and stable employment.
The business invests into training and development.
It pays more tax.
It spends more with its suppliers.
Everyone employee contributes to society by spending it on stuff and being taxed on it.
Etc etc. it's an entire ecosystem.

Without that one highly paid exec, none of the downstream benefits may be happening. The opposite might be happening in fact.

It's a very narrow, possible even naive view, to consider are they worth it based on effort expended. And be under no illusion, high pay comes with high expectations that the value you deliver far outweighs the value of you're remuneration. Execs are generally as good as their last quarter.

Havent got any questions but might throw these two: are you helping the poor? I mean real tangible, continual help ? And are you aware of your eternal destiny?

At 500k she, like me, will be paying around £240k a year in tax. Plus VAT on a whole heap of the other stuff she buys with the remainder, so let’s call that £300k. That’s a lot of nurses. It’s a lot of teachers. It’s a whole load of universal credit.

I’d say with her taxes she’s doing absolutely plenty. That’s why we have redistributive taxation, so the rich don’t have to do philanthropy like they did in victorian times.

I’m another one lacking in knowing what this ‘in tech’ means. In one of your answers you said

“I like my job a lot because I lead a great team and i get to work on hard problems.”

Can you give an example of a hard problem please?

The top 10% of taxpayers paid 60% of all income tax in 2023–24.
The share of income tax revenue contributed by the top 1% of taxpayers was 29% in 2023–24.
Mumsnet often gets a wasp in its knickers regarding high earners.. but the poor in particular would have it much worse without them!

Do you have hobbies ? Time for yourself?
Do you fear ‘ageing’ in a young persons game ?
whats your exit plan/ retirement plans?
do you plan to take a step back / part time as meno hits ?
Just things I think about as I’m a similar age and female…

I don’t have any questions but well done!

Get a grip. Some people are doing well.
That's life.

To address the very fair ‘what is tech’ question. It’s just a type of company that focuses on technology products. Like a Google or Microsoft. Or Deliveroo etc even though the product is food, the team are largely software engineers building an app. A large number of their employees will do technical roles such as software engineering or product management building their products. But these companies have the same functions as other corporations so sales, HR, legal, marketing, facilities, admins. So as much as I work in tech I don’t do a tech job.

i have to be vague but my role is a key decision maker in how very large costs (more than $1 billion a year) are spent. Type of issue would be which country should we build a new type of product

Yes - I lift heavy weights and run 4/5 times a week. I’m learning to do a handstand as a new thing! I spend time with friends and my boyfriend.

i don’t have a retirement plan or exit strategy yet. I think that will develop over the next few years. I am worried about menopause and how it will impact me but that’s why I do a lot of exercise (always have) which my primitive understanding says will be a big help

Yes definitely suffered from imposter syndrome especially when I took this job straight after mat leave with my second. It was a big step up and I felt exposed. I did muddle through a bit but relied on having a good understanding of my strengths that had got me the job and really listening to new colleagues rather than trying to prove myself from day 1 (learned that the hard way previously)

@ButtermilkBeetroot Imposter Syndrome is very common, in fact if you look at women in workplace topics, this pops up everywhere. I just had something similar, a seminar at my work place.

The fact that you are being headhunted for something that pays 3 times more and juggling all that with two young kids do say a lot about your ability! You need to give yourself some credit and an effective exercise I believe to list out your tiny achievements at work and weight against when did you manage to do that(between school run, childcare, etc).

It.all.adds.up!

Really good question. I have burnt out a number of times rather than faced the impending wall more slowly. I guess keeping pushing up the career ladder gives you more choices rather than handcuffs overall unless you are doing it to max out mortgage potential/afford fees.

I also tend to have a more nuanced understanding of the urgency of then next career move now than even 5 years ago. You can still be a rockstar without having a crazy trajectory

Thanks OP for answering my question, its good to hear theres gender equality way up the too in tech. I am in financial services and it's coming up but not fast enough!

Thanks for answering my question, OP. I'm sorry to hear you've burnt out a number of times. How do you come back from that while continuing to be an employee and a mum?

How do you feel about the balance of family and work? Do you ever miss/feel guilty when you leave your DC? How long did you take off for your mat leaves?

I'm so pleased we've finally got a high earning woman doing one of these!

@Alljan thank you for answering my question, I'm exactly in that same place, halfway through maternity leave with my second baby. The company have said they'll wait for me but my subconscious whispers it's too good to be true. I have found your answers inspiring though, thank you for this thread despite all the negativity on it.

Also, adding to my question, I experienced maternity discrimination after my first mat leave and was illegally fired. I got a payout and found a promotion/better role at a new company, so it didn't hold me back - but have you ever experienced any overt sexism or discrimination? How did you deal with it?

Thanks for answering, so interesting!

I’ve not read all the thread, so may have missed this but..

• will you expect your children to earn the same kind of salaries when they are older or happy for them to be in lower paid roles?
• Do you ever get imposter syndrome?
• Do you need someone in a CRO role as I could really do with a higher paying job 😂