How much does the highest paid person you know earn.....

[PowerRangerGoGo]

A friend if mine earns 700k per year
She works in investment

Base salary of 400k rest is commission

I don’t know for sure but I suspect one of my relatives earns several million as a very senior lawyer in an American firm. Their lifestyle is suprisingly low key. 2 kids private school, 2 lovely cars, leased including a Porsche. Big but not enormous house in a really lovely but not mind blowing road, plainly decorated because they’re not interested in interiors and it doesn’t both them, wife is a SAHM, no designer clothes, I bumped into her in next the other day, cleaner and gardener once a week. Shopping from Tesco. No holiday homes. Amazing holidays twice a year but they don’t ski, no interest. Kids are not spoilt, they have Saturday jobs.

Rumoured to be approx a million a month from a pharmaceutical patent.

To add I don’t know many people who I suspect earn less than £100k and lots earning many multiples of that. It’s not unusual in professional London circles. One of my kids seems to have found themselves mixing with the proper uber wealthy, fully staffed households, houses across the world, drivers. Now that is a whole other level of wealth, they must be into the £10’s or hundreds of millions level

I've no idea because I don't ask people how much they earn and I'm not friends with anyone who would think it's a cool thing to brag about.

A friend of DS1’s is a premier league footballer. Whilst I don’t know his salary for sure I’d say it’s fairly certain he’s the highest earner I know.

Which is kinda amusing as for me he’s the kid that super polite when hanging out here to the point of asking if it was ok to have a glass of water as water wasn’t in the cupboard they had free reign to help themselves in 😂

I genuinely don't know, I'd be guessing.
A neighbour of mine I think has like maybe about 50 million from the businesses he sells. I've a cousin who's loaded through property (dubious beginnings as a slumlord and rip off merchant) and I think he's got like tens of millions but not as much as the other guy. Not that I'd ask either of them!

Others I guess that are pretty rich are in law or finance. But not really obviously so. They seem comfortable, definitely. I guess I don't know many flashy people. Most people I know are broke!

Quite a few people that I know who have assets or shares etc worth over £10 million and are technology workers or law partners or city finance.

My best friend, who is single, owns 3 London houses (public sector worker). She bought them many years ago when you could get 100% mortgages, lived in one, rented out after a bit then bought the next one etc. This was in an unfashionable at the time area which then shot up in value and is very popular today. Portfolio worth over £4 million now. She is retiring early this year and selling one to release the money to have fun with. Her brother did the same and has 10 properties in SE London at 55 - also took early retirement from a bog standard telecommunications job and lives off the income.

I’m sure I heard recently that there are 400,000 people in the Uk that earn over £2 million or something like that.

Well, our good friends sold their business and earned £108 million pounds that year. So that year, I was definitely them!

Maybe 75k.

Yes, my friends and I discuss this. I’m self employed and last year earned 150k which I think would make me the highest-earning person I know. I’m not going to earn that this year because I stepped away from that consultancy to do something I enjoyed more but paid less. All my friends are in media, arts or nonprofit so I think the highest paid person aside from me would be around 70k.

Either the family who own the business I work for, or the people across the road who own and run 3 successful businesses.
All incredibly hard working people who must clear £1 million a year take home.

Very unusual to me for someone in investment to have a £400k base if the total is £700k.

Id expect the very lions share of that income to be bonuses.

At my previous employer the average Partner earned 1m, but would range from around 400k up to 6m a year. Outside of work a friend of mine’s dad (now retired for many years) was a prominent CEO and his published base salary was 4m. Most of my clients will be earning in the region of 500k-4m a year I’d say - senior or C suite level at blue chip orgs.

I earn much less but we are both “high earners” in UK terms and comfortable though not rich. I think social circles tend to be pretty homogenous in most places in SE England, less so when you go north or in the devolved nations.

Know in what way? The highest earning person at my workplace that I know to speak to is probably on about £1-1.5m. He’s the lower earner in his household, but I don’t know his wife to speak to.

If we’re talking just people we know socially, not through work, maybe £120k. This is a guess based on her role and my knowledge of the industry, I’ve never discussed it. I did have a friend who earned a fair bit more in a law firm but she had a bit of a breakdown, developed an addiction to painkillers, and quit to do something totally different.

Typo / dropped words...
I should have said lifetime allowance on his pension.

The UK Pension Lifetime Allowance (LTA) was £1,073,100 up until recently.

basically by 35 he had put over £1m in a pension which I find crazy....

No idea. I’ve never discussed this with friends.

There used to be a maximum you could pay into a pension in your lifetime but this was scrapped in 2024 in the UK.

well I'm a dentist so... me? I do however own a private practise, most dentists are on much less

I have an incredibly wealthy friend who received an enourmous inheritance a couple of decades ago, lives off interest which is over a million a year and has never worked bar the odd hobby job.

I also know an incredibly successful business woman who will easily make a few million a year but she also is insanely addicted to the work (and income), she’s left family weddings for work purposes before…

Three people I know are in the Sunday Times Rich List 2026.

I don't know their exact earnings - not interested enough to go and check.

I know someone who retired in their 40s after 25ish years at a well-known international bank. I Don’t know what they earned but it must have been a very significant sum.

i also know someone who works for one of the big 4 accountancy firms. She is not an accountant. I’m sure she must be on a gigantic salary because they put her up in the swankiest of the world’s hotels eg Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

101k

So....?

It's interesting. I just had a look at the Rich List. Amazing how many Johns, Steves and Marks are on it. Not at all popular names now. I see the king is 260 and Euan Blair (Tiny Blair's son) also always largely due to his Multiverse company (you know that one offering educational apprenticeships that OFSTED says 'needs attention').

My takeaways is that you should probably call your kids John, Steve and Mark, and it helps to have powerful parents so you can run an idea into the ground and still be worth £millions.

Friend of a friend, apparently he made $55 million last year. He works in tech investing in the US.

i knew him vaguely at school, he was a chancer then and clearly it has paid off 🤷‍♀️