Do YOU earn over 40K? What do you do?

[MoneyBunny]

Obviously only for those of you comfortable with disclosing what you earn.

In another thread I could see a lot of posters saying it's no biggie earning over 40K, however this is just under me and my husband's JOINT income so it does feel like a very distant wage for us.

So, if you earn 40K, what do you o for a living? How many year's experience have you got and what is your education level?

And I do mean to pry.

DH does. He is an Aero Engineer, manages a team of people.

He has a Masters degree (4yrs study) and has worked in the field field since graduating 10+ years ago.

I was earning about what you do now 5yrs ago when I stopped work to became a SAHP. I was working in Marketing/PR in charity sector. I had professional qualification and nearly 10 yrs experience.

Work in IT (but technical sales, not "turn it off and on again"), 20+ years experience, Masters degree.

With 0 years experience I earned a lot less than 24K but obviously that was back in the dark ages

Freelance software developer. So-so degree from so-so university. Once you get the technical skills and experience, no one really cares about what came before.

£45 FTE health and safety manager in construction industry, 2 degrees, 2 charterships, 16 years experience

I work for a pharma company (not in London).

I am contracting so my rate is inflated compared to a permanent wage, also I am currently acting in the role above mine so am getting paid slightly more than my experience level may suggest IYSWIM. I reckon a perm. role at the job I'm doing now would be ~£40k + good benefits.

I have a degree, a PhD (although this is not necessary for the role, but that was 3-4 years of my potential working life taken up) and coming up to 5 years experience in the industry. I started in an entry level £14k job but it paid off to get the experience and the salary has progressed fairly quickly (now in my 3rd company, ~2 levels up from where I started). My job can be complicated and stressful but I know I am lucky to be in a good position.

Yes.

Manager type job in a call centre, no degree, just hard work .

Army Warrant Officer
20 years experience (including a few 'conflicts')
5 'O' Levels
(Started on 10K, worked my way up)

I earn much more than 40K - well you did ask!

Lawyer, 5 years of uni including a Masters, 2 years of professional training and now 10 years in. But I do have a great work - life balance. AAAAARGH this wasn't meant to be showing off, honest. Not everything in my life is great (although that's a different story not for here)

Yes, lawyer, 3 years post qualification experience (but a two year training contract, post grad law and a degree before that). Only just over £40k, though.

You also have to take location into account. If I did my job in London instead of Northeast I would get paid
More...

But everything would cost more.

I earned £50k very briefly as a music tutor before I ditched it to be a SAHM. The trick is NEVER WORK FOR A MUSIC CENTRE!

My qualifications are actually all in law though, not music. I spent 5 years at uni getting undergrad degree, masters and postgrad professional quals but then couldn't get a training contract so further developed a tutoring business I had set up to fund my way through uni.

Yes, as Kayano say, location is a vital detail. I was living in leafy buckinghamshire. I couldn't earn that where I live now! But then, I wouldn't need to.

I only work 3 days a week but would probably earn over £40k if I was full time. I am a self-employed PR and marketing consultant, working specifically in academic publishing.

I have a history degree and about 15 years experience in the industry i work in. My last job before I went freelance was as a Marketing Manager with a team of about 9 people and I earned just under that. That was 5 years ago.

£60k, matron-level nurse (you can earn 90k plus in NHS Trust at HON level). 25 years experience, BSc, professional qual, post grad dip, finishing MSc.

toddlerama, DH is also a private music tutor and earns nowhere near that. What instrument do you teach and can I ask how much per hour you charged?

Earn just over

Work as a consultant - planning drug development strategy for big pharma

BSc, PhD from good uni's, 1y work experience as a postdoc scientist, 2y in my current industry. It's a real niche area hence the high-ish starting salary.

In London btw.

Agree £24k as a starting salary is good (esp if you're outside London). Agree with coraltoes to focus on development, but start thinking now about what you want out of the 'worthy job you love'/ money balance. They don't need to be mutually exclusive, but sometimes it is a consideration.

Me: Strategy/web consultancy. (only work half time though)

DH: financial services consultancy sales.

Both: 15 years work experience, Oxbridge degrees, Dh has MBA from top business school as well. Both work in London, though I work a lot from home; I'm very lucky in that.

Not anymore but did earn £48k 11 years ago before changing jobs. I am a Chartered Accountant with a degree then chartered studies until aged 25, that wage was with 4 years post qualification experience.
Friends I was with who didn't get out for kids are on between £100k and £150k now, I am earning a fraction of that working for myself but at least my kids know me!

DP and I both earn over £40K, though I'm only just above whilst he's quite a bit above that.

I'm a social researcher - 10 years experience in housing, welfare and criminal justice (practical and policy-based), educated to Masters level. I worked in London for ten years before re-locating to Edinburgh this year. I interned without pay for over a year to get into what can be quite a difficult field, and my starting salary for the first two years after that was barely above minimum wage.

DP is an architectural lighting specialist with nearly twenty years' experience in lighting design, engineering and eco-technology. He's affectionately known as 'Mr Three Degrees' because that's what he has. In terms of graft, he's put in more than I have: in the early stages of his career he was working 70-hour weeks to get recognition from his employers and when he graduated with his MSc and couldn't find work in his native Scotland he packed up his life and moved to London, sold everything he had to fund his second MSc.

Not suggesting for a moment that most people who earn below £40K don't work hard enough, nor that everybody who earns over £40K is working their socks off - neither are true, but nor is the idea held by some that it's purely luck to fall into a high-paying job.

Not even close. But I should be. I'm just in a situation where I'm doing a job below my abilities because a) I had kids and I can't be ars*d with responsiblity at work b) I cant have convenience AND a high paying job it would seem.

I dont want to commute into London for 40k+ or work full time. I also don't want massive stress dashing back to collect the kids from nursery/out of school club on time and being stuck in a traffic jam/on a broken train.

I AM a software tester. (can pretty lucrative, especially contracting)
I WAS a software developer. (very lucrative, especially contracting) Once. BK.

However even as a tester I could earn £35+ where I live IF I chose to put my kids into nursery/out of school full time or go contracting. I choose not to do this :) I earn half that on 3.5 days. But thats fine.

I have a degree in mech eng (lost interest after going to work in a chemical plant in Grimsby for a year designing steam pipes. bleugh) and a masters in IT.

Am trying very hard not to mind that I would earn £30k if I was full time (I earn £24k for four days a week). I am deputy editor on a successful, national magazine. I have a degree from a good uni, a post-grad diploma and a smattering of professional training and I've been working for 14 years, or maybe 15 actually.

sobs quietly in the corner googles how to change career

Work in a narrow branch of management consultancy.
Educated to degree level and 15 years of work experience.
Started on an above average graduate salary of £16k and essentially worked my way up from an analyst, to a specialist, to a team leader, to a manager largely in Financial Services.
I don't think you need the degree though to get to where I am - but attitude once you are in a good company will make the difference. I can see the opportunities for people that come in on the bottom rung of a ladder in a call centre and want to progress - but it takes a certain attitude and playing the game. Example here - 2 bright guys but 1 only does extra work/hours if he gets overtime pay for them, the other 1 gets on and does it. The second one has got the promotion. To be honest the rise in salary hasn't been that dramatic for the second one straightaway, but he's the one that is talked about for career progression discussions at management level and if you are looking at a picture 10 years hence I would put money on him being the one that is earning 50k sooner than the other guy...

Before I became a SAHM I did. 15 years experience, degree and professional qualifications.

Nearly, I work in the accounts end of things in a construction company, BSc degree in construction related discipline. 7yrs experience minus 9months off to have LO.