Anyone in a job paying £50K+ working 40 h per week or less?

[notnearlythereyet]

Inspired by the work vs. life balance thread.

I have a Masters degree and five additional qualifications (all related to my profession and three of them postgraduate). I am on around £50 K and should be at a place in my career when I am reaping the benefits of my studies and 10 years of experience. Instead, I work 50-60 hours per week, suffer from work-related stress and anxiety and dream about retiring, although I love my profession and feel like I make a difference (full disclosure: I work in a school but work through around half of my holidays).

If you have a career related to your studies/experience, you are happy and have a good work-life balance (e.g. working 40 h/week) and earn £50K+, what is your job? I struggle to think of a career where you can earn a decent living and not be pushed to work more than 8h/day. I would like to advise my daughter and students on career choices that won’t ‘break’ them AND provide a good living, because I feel I failed to see the realities of the career path I chose.

Also-are you in a career that you feel ‘failed’ yyou in providing the work-life balance you hoped for, I would love to hear about it too.

I'm a senior nurse and work full time (37.5hrs) and earn about 50k with extra duty payments for nights/weekends. This is not a typical nursing wage but achievable if you specialise and the job opportunities come along

There are some careers where you never stop working 40 plus hours a week, you just change the venue - so you work from home / fit work around your schedule.

Not me but DP, he works for a tech start up in quite a specific communications type role, very good at his job and on 65k a year. He works 9-5.30 mon-fri, except one day where he works from home and basically only has a few meetings. Sometimes he even goes to play golf on his WFH days.

I'm a nurse. I manage community services and I work Monday- Friday 8-4. I do quite a bit from home and can leave early and come in late if I need to.

Getting to the top in nursing is a bit of a slog, mind...

Forgot to say I work 3 x 12.5hr shifts a week so plenty of work/life balance

not me but dh - he's a developer (IT) contracted for less than 40 hours a week & while he occasionally has deadlines which mean he works longer hours he always gets the time back. He did an engineering degree originally. It is not stressful at all, he works with a good team, gets lots of career development, it is interesting etc. Pretty easy compared to lots of things imo.

I left medicine because it was making me ill. I have strongly advised my children not to follow in my footsteps.

Mines a bit different. I work 40hrs and although it’s almost “expected “ to work more, I don’t and if I do one week, I make sure that I take the hours within a month.

I’m a Project Manager and was working be stupid 60-80hours a week until I put my foot down and nearly had a breakdown. Now I focus on my 40 hrs and if I can’t do that or stuff doesn’t get done, I expectation manage to say: this is what’s left.

It’s respected but sometimes they hate it

My DH is a Surveyor and is rarely expected to do any overtime for a salary at this level.

DH is a civil engineer. He leaves the house at 7, gets home at 5. Earns a good salary. He knows that the hours will increase if he gets promoted but it fits in with family life.

There is a shortage of women in engineering at the moment, if your DD is good at maths/science it might be worth considering.

I have a fantastic work life balance.

I don't earn £50k.

I would love both - but don't believe it exists for the vast majority.

I am a teacher and earn 50k - I work approx 45 hours a week and am lucky enough never to have to work at home. Not the easiest of rides though; school is in a very challenging area and I spend a lot of time thinking about safeguarding issues and children when I'm not at work.

Yes work for a tech company in HR although I’m not fully qualified ( will be eventually) - basic is 45 - travel make it up to £52k and two bonuses take me to 58

Contracted to 35 . Start around 9:45 - 10 and leave at 6ish . Lots of work from home flex but do have to come in late some days as I have evening events to attend . Overall love it. Relaxed dress code and dogs in the office too .

My friend is self employed in the software industry. Works four hours a day, and earns about £80k. But it wasn't always like that, it took a lot of hours to start with.

I’m a lawyer - I work part-time (28 hours a week) and earn around £100k (in London). But I worked longer hours for less pay before I got there!

Scientific R&D (industrial). Generally good work / life balance but can depend on the person and role. Plenty of people in my department on 50-150k who manage pretty normal hours.

I’m a project manager in Financial Services, Mon to Fri, 9-5 on more than £50k. Has taken me over 10 years to get to my level and some projects are better than others but I work from home full time at the moment with flexible hours so I clocked off at 4.30 today to take my little one swimming. I do feel very lucky.

I earn in excess of £50k as a Learning and Development Manager. I do around 37 hours a week - finish at 5pm each day except Friday which is a 1.30 finish.

I am currently in the Engineering sector, but when I worked in Health
I did long hours and lots of travelling.

I have 30 years experience in L and D, CIPD qualified, as well as being a qualified Exec Coach.

I love my current role and the work-life balance.

I earn £65k a year for a 27 hour week. I’m an insurance broker.....

Watching with interest....

Interesting to hear from nurses as my understanding was that your profession is notoriously underpaid. I understand you are both highly specialised though. It sounds like start-ups might be onto something, allowing for more work-life balance to their staff even those well-paid. I agree in some jobs you can work your socks off and climb the ladder but there is never a point where you reach a level of competency that allows for work-life balance-teaching is one for sure! Thank you for all replies-please keep them coming!

I earn 54k as a finance director of a small company, for a 37 hour week. Tend to work about 40 most weeks, but left today at 4:30.
4:00 finish on Friday.

I am paid for the skill I put in rather than time, in my view.

Another part-time lawyer. I work 24hrs/wk and am paid £90k. Officially I have set hours but actually, so long as I get the work done, I have almost complete flexibility.
I'm aware that I'm bloody lucky.

My DH earns a bit over £50k.

9-5 with little expectation of regular overtime although it’s unavoidable at certain points in the year.

He works with ‘data’ - analysis, presentation and configuration (I call him ‘Chandler’) for a university.

He gets 6 weeks holiday a year and informal flexi arrangements are easy to arrange. Final salary pension and other benefits are commonplace in his sector.

I earn £48k FTE (less because I work 3 days) - I’m a Finance Manager at an independent school and have a great balance - flexible start times to facilitate school drop off, laptop provided to work from home. If I took the next step up to FD or Bursar salary would be more like £60k to £75k - greater expectations - prob more like 8 to 5 every day but not unreasonable.

Also, whilst we work through school holidays, we usually do a short day finishing around 2/3pm.

Senior nursing does pay well but the opportunities to get there are fairly limited, and the roles usually come with a huge amount of responsibility. For every nurse in a very senior position there are many working junior to them.
(It doesn't stop me aiming for it though!)

I'm a contract business analyst and make more than that for a 40 hour week. I'd still make around that if I was a permanent employee. My partner earns slightly more than that as an IT manager. Again, 40 hours a week.