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.

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.

I don't think it's just luck that separates high and low earners (though I absolutely believe luck is involved which a lot of high earning people will not admit but I'm not having that conversation again so no one bother picking me up on it!)

BUT I think the other thing is strategy, when I look at the lower earners in my family and what has set me apart, it isn't hard work as you say, they all work hard (most of them work physically harder than me), but it's the fact I have strategised my career; be that qualifications, training, mentoring, I have regularly changed jobs against the comfort of familiarity to get up the next rung, I've taken on horrifically long commutes in order to get to the next step and made really difficult short term decisions (especially whilst having young children) with a view to it paying off in the long run. I've never coasted, whereas a lot of my family have no interest in that, they stay in their jobs for years, they go to work, do their job, come home and don't think about it again (obviously a very valid lifestyle choice!) for me, when people say "they've worked hard" it's those strategic and challenging decisions they mean rather than the physical daily work.

First impressions count but I can't say I've ever found anyone genuinely ugly. For women especially it's quite easy to look more attractive. Make up, weight loss, nicer flattering clothes and a decent haircut. Shallow but that's life.

@12three haha. Can you set up a crowdfunder for me? 'millionaires of mumsnet save Christmas for physically malfunctional moron' it would make a good Daily Mail headline!🤣🤣

This absolutely. I work no harder now on £66k than I did when I was on £11k, but it has been all those other steps and difficult and hard decisions in between that have got me to where I am today.

And in Mumsnet land £66k is small change, but to me as a WC miner's kid it's a fortune!

I totally get why people say they were lucky to be a high earner and there certainly are elements of luck. I think the danger though is that it can accidentally give people (especially people from backgrounds where nobody is a high earner) the impression that there's not much they can do to influence their own career.

Totally agree with the posters above talking about being strategic about their careers and taking risks. Also once you've been around a while at c suite level it becomes quite apparent who in the middle management layer (which you can reach in my experience by showing up and being reasonably competent) has leadership potential. There's a real mindset and it can be learned.

Obviously all that only applies if you actually want a high paid executive type role!

What is a civil servant? Sorry I've just always wondered

@Butterworths I will say only one thing on the matter because it really annoys me and I get into long drawn out discussions on it which is not a good use of my time lol. I see what you're saying about ability to influence their own career, hence I separate it out as luck, hard work, and strategy. But I think it's really immodest to not acknowledge the luck along the way as well as the other 2, for me personally I had a stable childhood, loving home, supportive parents, access to a good (state) education, I have my health, my children are (mostly) healthy, along with some good opportunities that came up at the right time, those are the things I class as lucky that have influenced my career, it will differ by person, and some people have much less luck than others, but I always believe there is something outside of our control we can be thankful for and it's humble to recognise it.

What is a civil servant? Sorry I've just always wondered

Someone who works for central government.

Yes I agree there is also loads of luck.

Sometimes. Others work for arms length bodies and include inspectors of health and safety or environment, scientific and technical staff and many other roles.

Here's a list of departments, agencies etc and an overview of what they all do.

www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/departments/

I agree that any woman can look nice, but for men, the problem is that men are universally ugly and there's not much that can be done.

Ah okay, thank you

I think it's also a lot of drive/right place and time. A friend is earning in the millions. He was lucky enough to be mentored early on in finance, and that combined with being very smart has allowed him to get to where he is now. He's from a single parent family and we studied together. He married a decent successful partner too, both are super supportive of their respective careers. I think sometimes women hold themselves back whereas there is a lot of a sense of entitlement with men.