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 an IT consultant and I earn more than £50k. Some weeks I work 10 hours a day, some weeks I watch Love Island at home in my pyjamas while ‘working from home’. Depends on the project cycle, the client and my own motivation.

In the early '90s I ran a media consultancy, made £100k for a 45 hour week. It was a lot of money in those days. Quite a stressful job. And I partied much too hard. And had depression which wasn't treated successfully. I got CFS/ME. Then cancer. The chemo made the CFS worse and I had to give up work. Am now getting £28k+ tax free in benefits for a 0 hour week. Equivalent to £33k+ before tax. I might be about to get another 5k, it's so complicated I can't work it out. Anyway, I have many regrets. If I could turn back time....

Most weeks I do my hours (35) and even have a few long lunches. Some weeks I work a lot more. I'd average at doing the 35 or maybe a bit less. Salary is £72k. I did spend three years doing awful exams as part of a grad scheme to get a certain qualification though which led to a good salary. So having a good work balance now is my reward I think.

You earn a very reasonable salary therefore could you exist on less and go part time. Would at least reduce the stress from work as long as you do not get drawn in to working extra hours. In my experience part time/job share employees seem to be able to walk away when their time is up.

Both my husband and I earn over 50k (before bonuses which can be another 15-30%+ typically). We both do IT roles for energy companies.

I disagree with a previous poster not recommending STEM for woman. Yes I’m very outnumbered but at my company the culture is great.

The work life balance for both of us is fine - just like any role on occasion we may have to work out of hours but we’re alwaus able to get that time back.

Not me but DH works for an investment bank (not a trader) and does 9-5 in office 3 days and 2 days a week from home. He earns £80,000 plus bonus. He has however worked about 12 hours a day plus (used to be out the house from 6am-midnight 5 days a week plus travel abroad a lot) for 12 years in various related positions so he has put in a lot. Also he changed direction in his career to go for the money and work/life balance over everything once we had kids... his previous career was something different but slightly related! He basically went for boring corporate so he could have a life.

Bumping! Great thread, thanks OP!

I earn about that - at home as a a writer and blogger. I work around my kids - sometimes 20 hours a week, sometimes 60 - and I slogged for 10 years in mainstream media jobs to get to this point. I am the breadwinner in my house so I feel a lot of pressure to earn, but I do genuinely love it.

My job isn’t high flying, but I have studied for 6 years for it overall - 2 post graduate years.
Im a cognitive behavioural therapist. I earn 28k for full time, but I work 28.5 hours to work around child care so pick up about 21k before tax etc.

My stepdad is an expert chemist specialising in industrial paint. He now works as an expert witness producing reports and inspecting for insurance companies on a consultancy basis. He earns a lot, well over 100k.
He works 8-3 three days and two days from home. There is quite a lot of foreign travel though but he always gets the time back in leave.

Another lawyer here, I work 3 days a week 8.30 to 4.30 so 24 hours a week and earn £60k. I don’t work directly with clients so can usually finish on time although I do have the odd bit of work to do in some weekends. My firm is a mid-sized city one specialising in advising a particular industry, mostly regulatory and litigation, not corporate or banking law.

I put in the hours when I was more junior though and (with no regrets) gave up a very senior role to do what I do. As another poster rightly said, I was in the right place at the right time when the role came up.

My DH works in IT for an investment bank and earns about 100k working pretty regular full time hours-he’s usually home by 7.

I would however second the advice upthread for teenagers starting out to choose jobs that are not tied to London. Ours are so our salaries don’t go as far as you might think.

Surprised I haven’t seen any dentists in yet. This is such an interesting thread - I’m going to show it to my daughter. I wasn’t educated about salaries when I was choosing career.
Accountancy must be one of the most misunderstood professions. Those I know who do it have fantastic salaries and seem to love it and find it very interesting.

Ooh my friend also works from home four days a week training people how to work the stock market. She did live in London before but now lives up North working for the same company. Her house is worth half a million so I’m guessing she’s a high earner.

£90k, in the property industry, hours roughly 8 till 5. Rarely work later or need to come in earlier but sometimes need to attend events. I realise I am very lucky.

Very interesting
Some of these jobs are ‘traditiinal’ Eg law and require a traditional educational pathway

However, many have only come into existence in the last 10-15 years

I think good advice is to keep learning and be flexible about what you do.

I work in a hospital on 35k - I have done a 3 year BSc, a 2 year post grad and my Masters specialised in my choosen path. My chosen path is very stressful, long physical and mental Days, where increasingly I come in earlier and go home later. I work 4 long days to cover 37.5 hours basic and then on 2 out of my 3 days off I work extra as sadly need the money as OH earns less than 10k a year. Work has taken over my life, I am incredibly unhappy, over tired, and stressed. If I could do it all again it’s not something I would do - I do love my job but for a work life balance and your own sanity it’s not a full time position - but if I was to drop my hours we would be struggling to live.
I would love to go and re-train to do something else but I feel it’s too late now to start again as i don’t know what to do!
Sorry I am not much help!

Head of Finance in a University Support Group so I am a chartered accountant on £54k. Contracted hours are 35 hours with 36 days holiday I generally work between 35-40 hours per week but never over 40. Used all my holiday bar 2 days last year which I carried over to this. I think about work at the weekends occasionally but not when I am away on holiday. It is possible

I too have a masters and other post grad related qualifications- I too work as a teacher in a management position but for over 20 years (and because of the particular department/ role, have on average once a week, worked until 9/10pm in school as well as the at home stuff). My salary has never reached the dizzy heights of 50K. In fact, due to restructuring, I will in the future be expected to do the same job on 5K less. So I'm feeling rather jealous of your situation!

And most likely earning significantly more than the lawyers posting here.

I also am a lawyer, I predominantly work from home and earn over £120k for less than 40 hours pw. There is an expectation that I check emails and are available if needed but generally provided I get all my work done everyone is happy.

I worked incredibly hard and long hours getting to this point and could earn a lot more if I was willing to sacrifice the work / life balance which I am not.

Lawyer for the civil service. I earn about £60k though it's pro rated as I work part time. I do sometimes work more than my contracted hours but not my miles, on average.

I work in HR for a bank and work flexible and part time hours. I'm strict with my time but my boss respects my contribution and I know that I'm more efficient than most of my colleagues. I have to be.

I tend to reject meetings where I don't see value and won't respond to emails etc on my non work days unless I think they're important. I know it drives my colleagues who work long hours mad but it's the way I choose to work.

I know it's limiting my promotion prospects but I earn decent money and my ambition flew out of the window after I had children anyway.

I'm in my 9th year of teaching full time and am on £31k per year. I work 50-60 hours a week.

PS I am thinking of applying to be a tribunal judge. That's well paid and flexible, but you do need the experience first.

Work in universities is well paid. I’m a librarian and would be on just under 50k if I worked full time for a 9-5 pretty much week (some later evenings required and I do occasional weekends). And some times of term are busier and work will be taken home then. Plus there is really good access to professional development and training and I got an extra qualification paid for whilst in this job. Also excellent maternity package
I have two degrees plus a professional qualification and it took seven years post-qualification to get this job.
Well-paid librarian jobs (NOT library assistant jobs) are in universities and law firms. Other places such as public libraries, schools, private companies tend to be much more poorly paid.