If you have a high level job, roughly what hours do you work in a week?

[EleanorLavish]

I'm a part timer, so not asking for myself. Also I don't live in England, which I think might make a difference.
But if you have a quite high corporate job, 'head of whatever', senior management type thing, roughly how many hours do you work?
A dear friend of mine has returned 'in house' this year, in England, after being self employed whilst her kids were small. She is very competent, and loves working. But is doing 70 hours a week, every week.She is completely exhausted. She said she thinks that's just expected in these sorts of roles now. I don't know.
I have family members who have very high jobs in the city but they have live in nannies, my friend is trying to squeeze time in with kids before she sits down again at night for a few more hours.
Do people really live like this? Is this the norm now?

Not me, but dh works between 50 and 60 hours...usually closer to the the 50

But we think he has quite a good work/life balance as he can adjust his working hours slightly

70 hours is a horrendous amount to work...but if he was in a different company then closer to 60 would probably be the norm

60 usually. Up to 70.

DH is a senior manager in a professional job (ie accountant, engineer etc). He’s in the office for about 40 hours per week. I’d say 35 of that is actually working.

He’s well paid for what he does, and his hours will ramp up over the next couple of years - probably to 60 hour weeks, including some weekend work.

DH is a director at the company he works at. He probably does about 45-50hrs a week, some of it flexibly as he leaves early some Fridays to collect DSS from school 200 miles away.

60-70 is the norm in my experience. It's not possible to "have it all" - something has to give in the end.

(The above is under the assumption that both parents or single parent is averaging 60-70 hour weeks excluding commute time)

DH and I both do c.60 hours per week, but both work at least one day a week from home.

60-70 sounds normal for that kind of job, sorry. It's crap.

Agree 60-70...

DH works between 55 and 60 hours a week on top of 75 min commute each way. He leaves the house at 5:45 and gets home at around 7:30 pm Also does quite a bit at the weekends.

He is never off duty even when we are on holiday. Some crisis happened when we were on away last year and he spent the best part of a week on his I pad ( which his IT person back home helpfully set up for him remotely ) and engaged in conference calls. At one point he was on the verge of going back home but his boss told him not to. And on other days was on his phone keeping up with the news for at least two hours.

Upside is- he is well paid.

I'm fairly low down and do 40-45 hrs a week. Those above me seem to do 55-65 ish, at the very top of the game I've seen them do 3 15 hour days in a row...

I am a pretty high up civil servant in law (not UK). I work 60/100 of a standard week, which is 3 days in theory but works out at about 40 hours per week. People in the UK are horrified about how little I earn compared to those doing the same job in the UK. It's a good salary for this country though, but part time and I am the sole breadwinner and not allowed to have another income.

Full timers would do approx 60-80 hours. It's horrendous.

I'm a relatively senior investment banker, leave the house at 6.50am, drop DC at their wrap around at 7am, I'm then in work from 8am - 7pm and home at 8pm on a normal day. If a big trade is on, then I can be at my desk until midnight easily, for several days in a row.

DH is a currency trader, leaves the house at 5.15am to ensure he can collect DC from wrap around at 6.30pm. It's a constant, exhausting juggling act.

I don't know if I quite meet the criteria myself but I work very closely with 2 bosses who are both officially 'Senior Civil Servants' so I can answer for them. They are both married with small children at primary school/nursery, with partners who both work full time. They both are flexible workers with one compressing full time hours over 9 days in a fortnight and the other compressing full time hours into 4.5 days a week.

A typical work day for either of them would be to get in to the office at about 8 (often having spent a bit of time answering emails or reviewing docs on the train on the way in), and will be in the office until about 4.30-5, when they will leave to pick kids up (again usually spending train journey mainly on laptop/iphone). They will then do pick up / kids evening routine and frequently spent anything up to 2 hours in the evening at home or at the weekend working - but not every night/every week. I would estimate they probably work about a 45-50 hour week on average. About once a week they have to travel to other offices/parts of the country so that means an early start/late finish, and maybe once a month they would need to stay overnight somewhere. Plus a couple of time a year sh*t will hit the fan and they will work much longer hours, more like 60-70 in a week, but this is balanced by much quieter weeks when parliament is in recess or over Christmas. Plus they can work from home whenever not needed in the office and can leave to pick up sick children or take an afternoon's 'flexi' time to watch a school play or whatever, no questions asked (same applies to the rest of the team I must add!).

People do say public sector is much easier on the hours that private and I do think it's generally true although in the last few years things have got much tighter so there is less flex than there was!

I am a senior manager and on average I work my 35 hours contracted a week (plus half an hour extra each day as I get in 30 mins before I need t I set boundaries in every role I take on and those boundaries are to work my contracted hours. Obviously if last minute panic emergencies come up I stay later to deal with it.

Dh works for about 60-70hrs Mon-Fri and then about 8 hrs over the weekend...and maybe 4 hrs a day when we’re on holiday...no idea how both parents in a family work these hours this must be really tough.

60 hours and that's relatively low compared to my peers.

Dh used to be a senior civil servant - one of the very top grades - hours were horrendous, some people worked less hours than him but he said they weren’t the type to get promoted.
One of his colleagues tried to eliminate flexitime - it didn’t fly. Dh was put in charge of improving work-life balance in the office - probably the only thing he has ever failed at.

Thanks for all the replies. Sadly looks like the 60/70 hpw is the norm.
Very hard to have any family life with those hours.

My work is massively up and down (well, when I'm there - currently on mat leave). Some weeks are 35 hours, some are 70-80 and sometimes I travel a lot.

Technology has definitely made hours longer, but on the plus side, lets you have a bit more control. I get in early, leave early so I can have dinner with the family and do bathtime, then log back in later for an hour or so with the US. I also travel at least once a month, and use that time to get loads of work done so I can be offline more for the rest of that week (I also use travel time to do more exercise and get a massage and manicure if possible!). Once a week I work from home and encourage my team to do the same. When at home, DH and I both turn off work phones during dinner and bed time to be fully focussed.
In return for all this, I am well paid and have a great team.

However - it's exhausting and if I were not the main earner, I'd quit and become a SAHP in a second