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 earn considerably more than 80k. Five day week, usual hours approx 7:30 til 4:30, a fair bit of travel. I work in a niche area of the food industry.

I’m British but I don’t live in the UK and probably wouldn’t now, the salaries just aren’t competitive these days.

I don't but my dh has in the past (though those days seem to be long gone). He's a specialist mechanical fitter in the defence industry. Long hours, physical and dangerous work but they used to have various lifts and rosters with overtime, plus working abroad so he earned brilliantly for a blue collar role. Then the EU time directive came in and it all stopped. He still earns ok but the potential has gone right down.

Just to add, I don’t think my job is particularly hard or stressful. It is a little bit corporate (I work for a corporation) but I’m good at what I do and I’m paid accordingly. I don’t feel like I’ve sold my soul to the devil or anything, why would I? Some really weird comments on this post.

I do what you do OP. It’s dull. I just take the money and spend it on making the rest of my life fun!

Fascinating thread. I love that so many women earn big money. It warms my heart.

I earn only half that despite being very senior and experienced in my role, and if I had my time back I'd have looked further along the career path to see what my role would mean long term. I'll be encouraging my kids to look at the bigger picture when they're choosing a uni course or career.

What I do now is very specialised, but I do have transferable skills. I keep looking at management courses to prepare to move to the next level. One day!

I do. I'm a law firm partner in the City. My first job as a paralegal had a salary of 14k. I've worked my way up from there in increments with two big jumps - one on qualification and one on making partner.

In-house legal counsel. I love my job. I work 08:00 to 16:30 Monday to Friday, have a 20 min commute and earn a 6 figure salary.

I love these threads. I used to earn around that, but have been an SAHM for a few years and looking for a new career!

Dads in electrical contracting, friend is in finance

I should add that the hours I worked getting to this stage, the travel and the general 24/7 availability expected of me made me a shitty mother and wife. We could not have made it as a family if we had not made the decision for DH to be a stay at home dad. It changed all of our lives, and frankly we did not need his (not in inconsiderable) wage.

I've earned my stripes and now do much less time and travel, but still, work often has to come first.

@BlamesFartsOnTheNeighbour

What’s your definition of a socially harmful job?

This thread makes me sad. I've got a good degree in a science discipline. I've worked my arse off for the last 10 years and in that time have only managed to go from £18k to £34k.
My job is stressful and demanding. I have some good non financial perks but nothing incredible.
I feel like I've taken a wrong turning career wise somewhere along the line

@Minkies11

I hope so. I always have my contracts reviewed and they've always been outside of IR35 however I would say in reality my role is borderline when I use the HMRC online tool.

It really depends on how the industry I work for deals with it.

HSBC have given all of their current contractors notice that they need to become permanent or will have their contracts terminated

I'm hoping that's an extreme reaction and other players in financial services will just tighten up how they treat contractors (I.e. stop treating us as employees which is what they tend to do sometimes).

It would be rather painful to go back to a perm salary. I was just looking at a perm role I liked the look of and they calculated the net salary and gulped. I've done the silly thing of living up to my earnings...

Are you a contractor Minkies? Interested in anything you've heard about the private sector adapting to IR35.

I'm also interested in the 'socially harmful' comment...

I would apply that to tobacco, the sex industry, arms, fossil fuel producers.

I don't think insurance and pensions counts as harmful other than death by boredom

...and some on here are scientists, head teachers, hospital consultants, etc.

*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.*

Luckily I don’t believe I am wasting my life. I believe my job has significant social worth - as does my husband’s. We are well paid and yes, we’ve worked incredibly hard to get to this point. I do it not for the money - my husband would probably prefer I didn’t work and we could both have retired if we’d chosen to. We do it because we can now make a real difference to some pretty vulnerable people. I love my work. The money is irrelevant; it’s the autonomy and feeling of a job well done that is the driver.

My car was chosen for the dog!

Well I can imagine that my point of view won't be popular with a lot of people on this thread, but I'd count things like investment banking and the pension industry (insofar as it relies on hedge funds) as socially harmful. Of course I'm not counting all high-earning jobs like head teachers and scientists. I do, however, think it's interesting that few of the jobs above involve a) making a direct positive contribution to society in general and b) actually making things.

I also don't think the skills needed to be a really good HR person or headhunter are much rarer than those needed to be a really good teacher or nurse. They are differently valued socially, though, which is reflected in rates of pay not unconnected with the gender balance in those fields of work.

Morality is subjective. Trying to build your career around a vague idea of what is 'acceptable' to 'society' is always going to be a mess. What may be something absolutely unacceptable and socially harmful in my eyes may be something you wouldn't question at all, or vice versa. Your career is just that, yours.

Well obviously.

BlamesFartsOnTheNeighbour. I know full well the skills for a really good teacher or good nurse can be comparable which is why, with time, further qualifications and experience those excellent teachers and nurses can end up very well paid indeed with some reaching packages of £500k

Not yet. Hopefully one day! My salary has doubled in the last 3 years so hoping it will again. This is inspirational

I have an online business that I started about 11 years ago. Work part time. Most of my work is writing and teaching.

I work in finance (although not financial services) am have been a contracted for 6 years. I moved out of the private sector due to IR35 so am really worried about the private sector roll out. Now control (assessment of status) is with the Client I'm finding some private sector companies just issue a blanket 'inside' rather than bother to look at each case. I'm hoping it will be delayed as I think it will be a real project killer come the end of the year. Luckily I'm booked up until Feb 2020 but who knows after then
Think it's going to be impossible to continue contracting if it happens.....

Sorry for the typos....I do have a brain!
But not after 5pm on a Friday

Is it the job or the particular contract/employer that you're fed up with?

DH is a contractor and after a brief flirtation with the idea of going permanent we've decided to take the money.