If you were privately educated in the UK, what job do you do and how much do you get paid?

[MNisMyGuiltyPleasure]

You often hear that people who were privately educated had a better start in life and that's why they are more likely to secure better-paid jobs.

I was not privately educated but I am well paid. So I'm curious to see what jobs people who were privately educated in the UK have as adults, an how much they earn from those jobs.

I was privately educated (hated most of it) while DH went to a comp. We are both on about 130k (me professional services, him nhs). Kids both private from 11. That wasn’t the intention until eldest was allocated an awful school (we are London and didn’t get a place at the nearest comp where most of their primary friends went).

They are both really enjoying school. Teaching and sport especially. The music and drama is amazing (but not my kids’ thing). Sometimes I wonder if it was the right thing to do, but they are happy there and pretty grounded.

Privately educated through secondary. Did not do that well at GCSEs, (suspect undiagnosed ND). Got a degree later on at the OU. Currently earn around £30k as a house manager/self employed housekeeper.
Just an observation - of everyone that I'm still in touch with from school, the ones with pots of money, massive houses and luxury lifestyles don't work at all; they all married filthy rich blokes .
(I guess you could argue that private school gave them the 'connections' to meet said blokes?)

DH and I both privately educated. I'm on 42k in a job you need a degree for DH 100k no degree.

Its a weird topic if you think private education is about 'investing' and expecting a better return as a result. I am not privately educated but earn circa £15Ok. I have 2 children, one privately educated and one state. We choose the schools that suited them best and were fortunate to have a choice. In terms of careers they both have first class degrees (from the same Uni) and careers in large well respected companies. So was it a waste of money? Absolutely not, the private education went well beyond teaching to an exam syllabus and the benefits are very evident (and for those MNs who like to bash private education I am not talking about networking and privilege!). I expect that both my children now have exactly the same opportunities post-Uni and their earnings will be down t their career choices!

My dad went to private school, was terribly behaved, failed all his o-levels, and is now a millionaire from starting his own business back when I was a child (with zero family investment - his dad died young and his mum was hard up financially). Your success in life is generally to do with your character type than anything else (I believe, anyway). Contacts that a private school brings may help you I suppose in getting your foot on the ladder of better careers, investments etc…however…:

I went to a good comprehensive for all my education bar one term at a private school. I was amazed at the private school facilities. Beautiful sports facilities, amazing art departments incl things like printing presses and pottery wheels. Much more interesting / aspirational school trips. Friends with more money who were therefore having a wide range of interesting life experiences.

personally I would love to send my three children to private school for the enjoyment of experiencing all these things while they are there. I think the facilities at private schools support children whose strengths aren’t maths and English better - eg a child who is strong at sports or art will go further in those subjects, and may well end up in a better suited career due to that. Or they may see friends who have the money to travel and do interesting things, and therefore fly further from the nest than someone whose friends leave school at 16 and get jobs in the local area. These are all massive generalisations though.

In terms of earning potential, I am not sure private vs state is relevant.

What has always struck me with say DH and I, and many of our friends, is that it isn't necessarily the method of schooling that makes the biggest difference but the confidence and back up of a financially secure family. So for example DH and I both had help to buy our first properties, cars etc. Both had help at uni (he is a bit older so had grants anyway). Both had professional, university educated parents and wider family, our social circle growing up was the same. DH is one of 4 and his dad went to Oxford, all of his brothers went on to good universities etc.

So while he didn't have an expensive education, we both grew up with help and the knowledge that should it all go tits up we had family to help out. That makes a big difference.

That money would much better invested on tutors, extracurricular activities, enriching learning activities (like learning days out) and different hobbies like a different one each semester to expand on their knowledge level.

Why are assuming it's one OR the other? Many parents who choose private schools for their children also invest time enriching their learning?

Same here.

Its a weird topic if you think private education is about 'investing' and expecting a better return as a result.

This!

We live in a free society and people are free to spend their money how they wish. As evidenced on this thread many parents are very happy spending money on their children's schooling.

Education is not about a return on your investment. It's about an enriching and happy childhood!

DH privately educated, earns £500k+ pa. BUT is incredibly messed up emotionally. Still seeking approval from a mother he believes abandoned him.

I dont pay for private education so that they have a better job later in life. I pay for private education so that they have a more enjoyable school experience now.

Exactly.

Did he go to boarding school?

@Tarantullah THIS

I meant this

On the paying for a better childhood rather than a better future salary - I think this is true, though I also think "better" is subjective.

My parents would have sent us to single sex grammar schools by preference, but didn't feel strongly enough to actually remain in an area with a grammar school system and moved when we were primary age, and put us into private.

They didn't take into account that the move + school combination actually made us outsiders in the small community they moved to, and although I enjoyed school itself I'm not sure that feeling (and bring treated) like an outsider around local children/ teens was necessarily a better childhood.

There were lots of odd things about my school though I was happy in my rather disconnected from the world bubble with my friends. I learnt later that there was horrible bullying in other year groups, and there were a much higher than average level of eating disorders and suicide attempts (luckily none successful and probably not completely intended to be) in my year group. Some actually quite dangerous things happened at night which I'm quite sure nobody told their parents about and school only told the pupil's own parents if a pupil was suspended (or expelled obviously - and we had several expulsions just within my year group, the same in most years).

Like most things about secondary children's lives, parents have a better idea about what's going on if they had similar experiences. Children and teens just automatically keep some things from their parents and tell their parents what their parents want to hear.

I was actually quite disruptive myself in some lessons 😳 but I got good grades and it was largely tolerated. I taught in state schools myself later and it was a different type of bad behaviour - certainly I was never directly rude to a teacher but we pulled a lot of whole class "pranks" which completely made a mockery of whole lessons or even series of non core lessons (running gags which totally took over)... The disruption was actually pretty significant but very different to the constant talking or occasional actual shouting and swearing and throwing things which I encountered in some state school classes.

Years 4-11 I was privately educated currently earn £21k in education

Because on average it does help.

Not always obviously but kids educated in the private sector generally do better, for a variety of reasons obviously, but the Sutton Trust (I think) did some compare and contrast research equalising other factors as best they could.

Me too!

OP, perhaps it is because you are not a parent yourself that you are surprised that many people pay for private school not as an investment in their kids' future careers, but in order to give them an enjoyable time at school.

It's easy to think of children in the abstract when you are not thinking about real people. When you have a living breathing person in front of you, you know all their quirks and their strengths and weaknesses, and you are legally obliged to send them to school 5 days a week, it makes perfect sense to do what you can to make sure they come home each day feeling happy. Otherwise you couldn't wave them off each day without feeling terrible guilt. It's a lot of hours in the week and 13 years of someone's life!

@ChocChipHandbag I think you are spot on. It's just that I was having this conversation with friends with kids and the one sending his to a private school was going on and on about the fact that they will likely have more chances to get a well-paid job and lead a comfortable life. Hence the angle of my post.

@Meandfour I was confused by your salary & hefty mortgage comment. The only people I know without a hefty mortgage have family money. And when I worked at a private school invariably gps helped a lot.

You do know you can’t choose your State school don’t you? You have a preference not a choice

Well you can live close by. You can't always chose your private school either though.

Lots of my colleagues were privately educated, same for DH. I went to excellent faith schools, my dc will do the same.

My DC are at private school. I can only think of 2 families that go without to send their children there. The majority of us don’t cut back. We have frequent holidays abroad, the children will get house deposits / gifted properties in a lot of cases.
I think this narrative of Mr and Mrs average driving old bangers and camping in wales once every 6 years so William can go to private school is only ever trotted out on MN and rarely the true picture.
The majority at DCs school have real wealth. Not an 85k a year salary and a hefty mortgage.

Your post makes a refreshing change on Mumsnet regarding why you send your children to private school, and I think is probably true for many people in this country who do. Unfortunately plenty of people come on here and protest they are not wealthy, or privileged, and make great sacrifices to send their children to private schools.

You are saying you can comfortably afford to pay for your children to go to a school that has added extras, that even a good state school doesn't, that will hopefully enhance their school experience, so why wouldn't you? It's no different to buying a fancier car, or bigger house, really - just because you can.

I think it is the parents who choose to spend on schools, rather than other things, that expect a return on their 'investment' to justify their sacrifices. Their children are under pressure expected to come out with top grades, get places at the 'best' universities, and eventually get great, well-paid jobs.

Thanks for replying. After seeing that another poster had questioned you being on MN at all as a non-parent, I did wonder after I posted whether you would read it as a snarky "you can't possibly understand the world unless you have children", which was not my intent at all. For the record, I was a card-carrying Mumsnetter for at least 5 years before my son was born and wholeheartedly agree that it is so much more than a parenting site!

My partner - posh private boarding school and Oxford, but chose a creative/performing arts career path and earns around 25k. He says himself he never would’ve gone into a 6-figure role even though a lot of people from his school and uni did because he doesn’t like the hustle culture and rampant capitalism and prefers being creative.

Me - state educated and dropped out of my degree - earn around 60k self employed in digital creative industry with a lot of potential to increase that. From speaking to him, it’s a lot about attitude. In my school, people who liked learning were teased and called geeks and boffs and it was more important to look right and have a scene/group to belong to. In his school leaning wasn’t uncool because everyone was on a similar level and they were told anything was possible. Our career adviser would tell people with too flighty ambitions to be more realistic!

It’s also very much about privilege and family money. My partner knows he’ll inherit a packet so had the freedom to piss about in a creative career. I think many people who went to private school will have a comfortable life regardless of income because the money is already in the family. My parents don’t have a pot to piss in so I had to stop pissing about creatively and translate those skills to a “real” job