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.

My husband is a civil service accountant. He works 37hrs a week and any overtime is given back in liu. He earns over £50k. He gets 6weeks holiday a year, career average pension, flexable working hours. Those jobs are rare but they do exist

@babyno5 do you work for a retailer? I'm food safety but on a rubbish local authority pay grade

I always think these threads are very interesting and wish teenagers got more change to be shown different jobs and pay - some of the jobs they probably don't even know exist and also shown the route into those jobs which is usually not quick starting with particular A levels, a certain kind of degree and then the kinds of companies where you get the promotions or skills. Adaptability is useful too as many of us will have to change and move over the decades of a 40 year + career. I was looking at may diary last night from the year before I went to university to read law and I wrote I either wanted to be an "EEC Lawyer" (using my German A level - some of the diary entries are in German) or a "country solicitor" (I liked the countryside), despite the school being so off putting about law. I am glad I stuck to my guns. Within 7 years of that I was at a big City law firm indeed in their EEC department (I think it may have just changed its name to EC Department by then - I can't remember the exact year we ceased to be European Economic Community and moved to EC).

Rafferty - how did you get into project management in pharma?

I do a similar thing. First degree, PhD, postdoc, (the last two aren’t strictly needed) entry level crap project support post for buttons, five years work experience then a change of companies and countries.

sidthesnail no I’m in manufacturing. Have worked in retail on similar pay but with a lot of travel. I’m 25 years in the industry too

For all of the lawyers who answered:

Which area of law would you recommend qualifying in to reach a similar level?

My DD is starting the Bar course this September after getting a scholarship to do it but her university have been quite negative saying there’s no money in it anymore. (I secretly think that’s to get her to do the solicitor version of the course instead as they offer that but not the bar one.)

£60k here working in a comms role. I do a 35 hour week. I'm not saying I never answer emails in the evening but I very rarely do any proper work after hours. I've also been in the top 15% of performers in my firm two years running. My tips for not working all hours (obviously a lot of things are structural, but in terms of self-management these are my rules).

• DO not feed the email beast. It's amazing what people will work out for themselves if you just don't respond to their email (particularly out of hours). I'm really choosy about what I answer, I don't weigh in on big email threads unless I am the only one who has the knowledge or I have a really strong opinion. Email = pointless work.
• Delegate, delegate, delegate. If it's not your job don't do it (there are exceptions, like if you really care about getting it done, or you want to do a favour for someone. But don't pick up admin or emotional labour that isn't technically yours).
• If you don't have the resources (i.e. you're working over your hours and so are other people), always make the business case for more (and don't just pick up all the slack - as that will make people think there is no business case for more resources - as you can cope with it!).
• Be transparent and up front about the fact that you believe in being productive but you don't believe in a culture of long hours, right from the beginning. This will help you to weed out employers who don't have the same values as you.
• Know what you are really good at, what value you add to the business, and make sure you are doing that and are visible doing that.
• Always have a good attitude and find nice ways to say no to things that are not your job / you don't have resources for. You can be SEEN as a yes person, while actually setting quite clear boundaries around your role.

My DH earns 165K plus a 12% bonus annually. Software engineer. He 'only' has a computer science honours degree, but got lucky with some quirks of fate in his mid30s and has a super impressive CV, which allowed him to take this current position. He probably works more than 40 hours but has a lot of flexibility and autonomy; if he feels like working from home he can; if he needs to collect DC from school he can work around that.
I have three degrees and am currently doing my Masters. I work 12 hours a week as a specialist contractor and earn about 4K a month. I don't work all year, though.

Morning, don't let your daughter be put off. I work with the commercial bar all the time and if you succeed there you will often earn £200k - £2m+. I am not saying it is at all easy to get there but it is possible for some.

Basically if people who pay you have a lot of money (eg leading plcs, huge companies etc) the area of law will be well paid as indeed was the case back in 1979 when I wrote that diary entry and it was as clear as day to potential lawyers then as it is in 2018. there are a few criminal barristers and solicitors who make a lot of money but in my view not most. However all areas of law are interesting and she may not be motivated by money. if she has sponsorship from chambers then she will be working there as a pupil and doing whatever law they do in those chambers. If the sponsorhip is somewhere else then she needs to have a look (as I am sure she will already be doing) at the various barristers' chambers and putting in applications in time etc. (I am not a barrister).

I was castigated elsewhere for saying top of the commercial bar could earn £2m (apparently it's much higher these days) but certainly some barristers do very badly on low pay so hard to generalise. i think this post I found when trying to find an official survey of top end commercial bar might be helpful www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2426567. Top of law as you turn 30 can be £100k+ if you're good, more as you get older - again but you're only as good as your last case etc of course as in other things. In a sense some jobs you accept risk for the potential reward but high failure rate, redundancies in an instant etc etc. whereas most doctors or teachers or nurses don't get sacked. Too many women in my view aren't prepared to take risks and move jobs and move cities or travel for work which tends to lead to their having lower pay.

Morning does your daughter understand that barristers are basically self-employed? Therefore they can once experienced do as many or as few hours as they wish, but the downside is that if you make yourself unavailable then clients will forget about you and you will also be under pressure from your clerks (who take a cut) to do more work. Also they can be called to court at short notice or a trial can overrun by many days so hours are not predictable. If in the thick of a trial you could easily be working till the small hours every night to prepare for the next day. However a lot of barristers do a lot of written advisory work and don’t actually go to Court that often. And you can also transfer to a solicitors firm after you have qualified.

I am not a barrister but I am a litigation solicitor who has instructed many barristers. She should find a female senior role model at the Bar to talk to.

I know a train driver in London. 60K for 35 hr week. Final salary pension.
Spends 1/3rd of his time as cover (i.e. drinking tea and surfing the net). Gave up a stressful job in IT and not regretting it.

Senior freehold property manager and consultant, £50k pro rata - I work three days a week, term time only.

It's a funny industry as there are only about three job titles within your career and they're all the same job but at differing levels of seniority. Experience is what gets paid; I've been doing this for over ten years. No formal qualifications required to get into it, but a decent company will encourage you to take the industry exams.

The Government legal department employs both barristers and solicitors - indeed it has pupillages and training contracts. We obviously do public law mostly but people come from a range of backgrounds. I trained at a magic circle firm and have done a variety of things in my time from crime to EU to telecoms. I instruct a lot of barristers from the independent bar too and they do work v hard tbh, and have the uncertainty of income that comes with being self employed, but they tend to love their jobs. I mentioned the judiciary before, which can paradoxically be much more family friendly, and the Bar is the traditional route in (though it's diversifying).

Train driving is a bit of a closed shop though I thought?

I worked in recruitment and earnt varying amount but always over £50k once id done one trainee year after graduating. My first year (as I was good at sales & in a good market), from a basic salary of £16k I earnt £53k & was 23 at the time & went up from there, also got promoted to manager & got additional bonuses from that but always low basic salary & high commission, big stress. Usually around £70k for 9-6pm but awful stressful & the firm was horrible. My plan was to save save save my commission then get out. I ended up after surgery doing 4 day week of 9-5 hours still earning £50k but hating it but then left. I earnt my crust, most graduates who do wellin sakes & recruitment do it for 3-5 years then leave as its horrible or it sucks you in & you never leave.

My DB in IT earns over £90k plus equity.

I’d advise my DS to be a dentist. Needed evetywhere in country, good hours, professional, and high pay in private and NHS, plus shortage. 😁

Thank you very much for the replies. She hasn’t had much guidance and has achieved everything on her own so far but she’s now joined an Inn and is attending some women’s networking events through so will hopefully get the chance to ask these questions. As I say, I think the problem is that her currently university are geared towards the solicitor route as they offer that course and not the other so she’s stuck to searching online for information.

It was more out of interest for myself really, wondering which areas offer the best pay/life balance . I know she definitely doesn’t want to do crime but that’s about it.

Minister how did you get in to recruiting?

I work for a bank. My full time salary is close to 50k but I am part time so it's pro-rated. 90% of the time I work 9-5 with a day a week at home. Later this year I am upping my days so I will be two days in the office, two days at home. I am expected to go over and above occasionally but since having my DD I rarely get asked to travel, stay away once a year for a specific event and I can honestly say that bar some downs I feel I have a good balance. It has been hard won in our team as the boss is a workaholic.

I know a train driver in London. 60K for 35 hr week. Final salary pension.

Despite the strength of the rail unions, I wouldn't count of this being around for too much longer!

Drivers are not needed any more. As soon as someone has the balls to fuck the rail unions off drivers will be downgraded to 'train safety operatives' on shitty pay and conditions like so many industries.

DH earns >50k. He runs an online retail company and works from home. He does 4 days a week to allow wednesdays with our daughter. My job (doctor) is currently less flexible

@janniohlosty123 I just joined a private recruitment firm’s graduate scheme after uni, as a headhunter, just slightly higher level recruitment which was why my firm was very small & run by a nasty man but there are a many many larger better run national firms (Michael Page, Capita, Adecco, Hays) which operate the same type of graduate schemes & can get the same rewards if you are good at sales. Lots of ppl I know have the money to buy houses by 30 in recruitment, but then you want to get out.

^longestlurkerever
Train driving is a bit of a closed shop though I thought?^

No, the exact opposite. It used to be and as a result they externalised all recruitment. They publish all the criteria and so my friend knew exactly what to expect (he even found out enough to practice and get good at the concentration and reaction tests - which you have to pass before getting an interview - the vast majority fail at this stage). You can apply up until the age of 52 or 53 (he was 51).

I work 27.5 hrs pw for just under £50k, so full time would be more. I am home based for part of the time, with some travel to see clients (but can choose when, where and how much travel I do, all expensed). I work for a software company, training users either via screenshare (from home) or face to face (when I travel)