If you earn £80k or more, what do you do?

[wheresmymojo]

Following on from another thread.

Partly because I'm nosey and partly because I'd love a career change but I'm the breadwinner so would still need to earn £££ to keep our current lifestyle.

I think we may decide in time to dial the lifestyle down so I don't have to work in a job I hate but for now debt means that's impossible.

So what do those on here who are high earners (£80k+) do?

I do. I’m 33. I work 8-4, 5 days a week.
I’m in Strategic Comms in the Middle East.

I work half time (3 days a week, term time) and earn about half of that. I'm an educational psychologist in private practice. I also spend about half a week doing pro bono stuff. It take about a million years to train, and then you have to cut your teeth in the public sector before making the break. But it's a great job, well remunerated and very flexible.

Because not all of us want to waste our lives in a souless corporate job working 60+ hour weeks? Not all of us are that greedy?

Woah, nasty. I earn well into 6 figures and I can assure you I don't work overtime, i have complete flexibility. I love my job and whilst it keeps me interested and challenged I'm not stressed or wasting my life. The money I earn gives me choices about how I live my life.

I can second the above poster. I’m paid very well (about £80k) to do a job I find easy with nice colleagues, working from home in my pjs 9-5 with zero overtime. It’s a pretty sweet gig!

DH is a engineer in the nuclear power industry, 40hrs a week, flexi, and some but not much travel.

The really depressing thing about this thread is how many socially harmful bullshit jobs are so ridiculously overpaid.

Macavity I'm on similar (pro rata, as I'm part time) as a translator too. I'm dead curious about your speciality, wonder if it's anything like mine. Whoever it was looking into it, some sectors are more AI-proof than others, do some more digging!

The really depressing thing about this thread is how many socially harmful bullshit jobs are so ridiculously overpaid.

I would fucking love it if the thread was full of teachers and nurses on that kind of salary and the bankers and headhunters were starting on £17,000

DH has two jobs but the money maker is writing code for a software developer.

@donajimena actually, female graduates earn more than their male counterparts up until their early thirties (and child-bearing)

Completely agree with @JingsMahBucket there.
Higher paid jobs can be stressful, or not, enjoyable, or not, and doable in a 9-5 time window, or not.
I earn at this level. Like many others also work in tech field, in London. 12 years of experience to get here!

@FutureIsWhere
I don’t suppose you are based in or near Manchester?

Senior manager in a company, doing something I care about and not soulless! I work 4 days thought so my pro rata salary is below that

I don’t think it’s depressing, I think it’s understandable in a lot of ways .... most high earning jobs require long hours and not much flexibility and that simply doesn’t fit with a family if you want to be the one caring for your children. I thinks it’s a fallacy that women can have it all - something has to give for the majority of women, despite the occasional poster above having been able to work part time and make the money.

@Shylo I find it depressing that caring for children is almost always the woman though. My DH will be the SAHD and he's much more suited to it than I am but we've a long way to go until housework, childcare, elderly care and family admin is shared 50/50 across society and that's depressing to me

I earn more than my husband. I have a harder job than my husband. I'm a general manager for a small and growing local company. I'm also studying part time to improve myself. My husband is a SAHD and we're both happy and fulfilled with our roles.

It's not all about the mens but it's clear from this thread that it's bloody easier to be one.

@HundredMilesAnHour

My contract is due up in October and I've started to have a quick look at how the market is doing for Programme Managers in FS (insurance/pensions) and it hasn't been looking brilliant.

I'm shitting myself a bit TBH as I just got married and bought a family house so don't currently have the usual savings to see me through a 'dry patch'

I'm trying not to lose sleep over it given I don't need to look until September but already feeling nervous.

Do you work in banking?

At £30k, I was earning my stripes, trying to prove myself, and constantly going over and above.

I agree with this too. When I was in roles earning £30k every crisis and situation I encountered was new and stressful.

Now, with more experience, it's pretty straightforward, only occasionally stressful and actually less hours.

Are you ok for IR35 next year OP?

I am always bemused by the conception that a well-paid job is necessarily boring, stressful or some how harmful to society.

A well paid job is most typically well paid because a person has skills or knowledge that are difficult to come by and are in demand. A well pad job is not well paid because it is boring, stressful or socially harmful. Any category of job can be any of those things.

I'm older and because of how my life has gone, most of my social group are in well paid jobs. They are include a psychiatrist, ophthalmologist, anesthesoilogist, headteacher, accountant, barrister, physicist, software designer, concert pianist, editor, trader, three hundred and twelve lawyers and a few people who own businesses.

Those aren't occupations I'd typically characterise as either boring or socially harmful. Yes, stressful at times, but no more stressful than working in a really busy shop, meeting unreasonable targets in a call centre or supporting people with dementia.

Regional head of CSR for a multi-national.

Senior Quantity Surveyor heading up £50m+ construction contracts.

Hours go from one extreme to the other and work follows me home and on holiday.

Working 2 hours a day doesn't make me feel guilty knowing I will have 20 hour days and working from laptop on my hols

Product manager in Fintech. Started on 30K 8 years ago.

I do - in-house lawyer.

Because not all of us want to waste our lives in a souless corporate job working 60+ hour weeks? Not all of us are that greedy?

I’d rather be happy in my £30k a year job than ruin my life in some high pressured stressful job for what? A nicer car? Who cares.

Hard to tell if that’s judgemental or just jealous... I earn £40k a year (teacher, second in dept, core department) earning about £4K less than the average. To get to about £60 I’d need to be SLT and not sure if I can bear to sell my soul for that.
I like these threads - reminds me to keep working. Oh, and for judgy posters - I work hard and want a high salary so that I can have and enjoy a nicer lifestyle and not be terrified about every bill that comes in, unlike my parents. Reason enough?