What is your salary and what is your job role?

[YourBusyTurtle]

Been at my company 5 years and am earning under £35K. Albeit did start on £19k.

I really enjoy what I do and mostly find the pressure manageable - I think if you don’t enjoy it you would likely make different choices and leave to something better for you personally along the way, not everyone stays in consulting

It can get tiring, quite a bit of travel, yet I find on the whole the work fun and energising

I wouldn’t be able to do it without DH (he works), he is supportive and understands that sometimes I am completely swamped

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, the volume of hours and working here and there on holiday, email is constant, my DH tends to do school events that aren’t booked far enough in advance, working after the DC go to sleep etc

Now is pretty flexible, can dictate my schedule and fit it around kids.

All the hard work was done earlier to get to where I am, not taking holidays, having honeymoon / every holiday interrupted / working weekends and evenings / always being contactable. I’m sure the stress caused a miscarriage.

The main thing now is the pressure of the responsibilities and having to constantly make decisions.

I don’t particularly enjoy it but the conditions are great, the pay is insane and my team are lovely.

Now tell me all doctors/clinicians are well paid! Shameful. I'm sad to read this.

Vet 34 years experience 56K

Off half the year? Do you really think that? I would imagine there is a huge amount of planning etc and behind the scenes work we don’t see.

And starting work at 7.30, finishing at 6pm I imagine.

On the whole, my job in Finance isn't particularly stressful. I get in at 8.45am, and leave at 4.30pm so I have a bit of an evening with my DC (I'm a single parent, and have a full-time Nanny Housekeeper to support my worklife). I work from home 1-2 days a week. I do log back on to finish things off when the children are sleeping.

I also have a large team of people under me who are able to step on and deal with all but the complex issues. There are times of crisis perhaps every couple of weeks or so, and that's really what they're paying for; someone who is calm in the chaos, and carries on with resolving the issues at hand, which generally involves £££.

45k analyst.

Worked for my org. For 15 years. Started on 14k part time in customer services.

@tachetastic always hard for public servants when comparing to private sector! Pesky morals

When you say government working together assume you mean international organisation, doubt a national government pays that much! PM is on less!

@Chiaseedz she's paid in euros so not a civil servant. I knew someone who did something in policy but not directly government, lived all over the world, paid well, always said they worked for a "think tank" I've never understood what it was exactly!!

Nursery and mortgage (tax adjusted) cost £90k. I don't get discounts for Nursery. It's the Nursery that's the killer cost though.

Just an observation. My career was only 33 years long which I spent working in the private sector, 100 ftse companies (services but not finance). I earned well with bonuses and a good pension and for the last 13 years of my career I worked as a consultant. I can't comment on the public services, judiciary or the 3rd sector but from looking around me on my career journey, all the high salary roles come with buckets of stress, fear, anxiety and constant pressure to succeed. My DP would say that I was always at work evenings, weekends and holidays, if not actually then emotionally. These salaries have all been well earned but the lives not necessarily well lived. Like everything in life, it's about balance.

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I now work fewer hours than at probably any point in my career. The sacrifices and commitment needed to reach the higher paid role were earlier in my career. I now work from home Mon-Fri 9-5 and never work evenings or weekends. I can do all nursery and school pick ups which makes things much more sustainable for me.

I do have to make decisions that can have a huge impact on the business and people I work with but years of experience means I’m extremely confident I won’t make a huge error so stress is pretty minimal.

Another big factor is the reduced stress when you become financially secure. I’ve paid off my mortgage and built up large pension and investment pots so wouldn’t have to worry how to fund life if I lost my job. I now look at each year at a time and think why wouldn’t I work another year for 200k+ when it’s not that much hassle to do so. I imagine I’ll carry on like that for the next 10 years or so and then call it a day.

@TammyBundleballs Good for you - you've obviously put in the hours and it's paying off now. Jealous of the mortgage & pension situation. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm earning well now (certainly not 6 figures though 😆) but I'm still sorting out finances from being terrible with money when younger (wish I'd known about compound interest from my 20s and delayed gratification... it's something I'll be drilling into my kids early doors).

I was also pretty rubbish with money when I was younger so am very fortunate to have been able to rectify that as my career developed.

I agree that financial planning is something that should be taught to everyone at a young age. Too much is reliant on people finding out for themselves, often when it’s too late.

People need to assess whether their careers are likely to be relatively stable in terms of income levels or if they are likely to be heavily weighted towards much higher earning later on. If it is the former then an early start to saving and investment is crucial. If it is the latter then it often makes sense to plan to put huge sums into pensions once you hit 45% or 60% marginal tax rates.

I’m a senior medical director at a large pharmaceutical company and my current base pay is £156k with a ~£74k bonus this year.

Been in the same company since 2015 with a starting base pay of £75k. The most recent rises are attached. As a note I have a medical degree which qualifies me for the role.

There’s also a benefit fund (~£17k this year) from which I can choose to spend on private healthcare, critical illness insurance, travel insurance etc. and I get the net as cash, plus car allowance (£8k).

Work M-F 9 to 5, with 3 days a week in the office. There can be the occasional out of hours meeting due to time zones (eg Japan or the US). Travel once or twice a year to medical congresses which generally go over weekends; in the past this was more frequent.

Mortgage free since 2016, and agree with @TammyBundleballs this is less stressful and allows for building a pension pot and investments. We don’t live extravagantly (cars from 2014, no designer clothes/bags, economy flights for holidays) but live comfortably and can buy things (eg a new laptop for DS16 and a new dishwasher [previous one from 2016 having problems]) in the same month without thinking too much about it.

I am on base of 145k with a 25% bonus. I am general counsel for a media company.

I am the sole earner though so don't feel wildly well off. I would love to be mortgage free!

That's right. I did work for the UK government for a few years but I now work for an IO.

I also made a mistake when converting my salary from Euros to Sterling, and I'm actually earning a chunk more than I said but that would probably go down a boast so I will say no more! 🤔

That's the nature of many professionals earlier in their career. I'm an architect and a partner however our junior employees after 5 years would earn similar, straight out of uni £25k 7 years studying for us too. It doesn't stay like that though does it.

Not left on their own on night shifts making decisions about people's lives though are they?

No just designing the buildings they are in…that’s not a job/skill to be snuffed at to be fair.

I did the same in my 30s. Studied the GDL and LPC part time while working full time and with two young kids. I had a lot of family support but it was tough.

Took a huge pay cut from £45k (insurance operations manager) to £20k as a paralegal. Qualified at age 43 in 2017. Promoted to Associate then Partner and currently on £80k.

@WantOutOfMyHouse It’s never too late to retrain or try something new.

Could somebody earning 100+ transfer 10k over to this person?
You won't notice it missing, would you.

@countrytweed Good for you - you've obviously put in the hours and it's paying off now.

Most people work hard, but a large part of earning very high salaries is luck, which is being in the right place at the right time.

There's also the phenomenon that ugly people are generally overlooked for promotions and leadership positions, for obvious reasons, so anyone who wants to earn more has to find a way to not be ugly. I am certainly ugly, and it's had a large impact on my career and earnings.