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 earns more than that and works 9-5.30. He's a web developer.

I'm a hospital based scientist and earn just less than £50K for a 40hr week. Very rarely have to work any over time or extra hours.

Wow all these ‘IT professionals’ clocking off at or near 5 everyday. Have never seen it happen in real life, or if it does the staff in question aren’t considered good enough to get plum projects.

DH is a managing editor and works a standard 9 to 5.30pm, with only the occasional overtime to meet a deadline. He’s been with his company for donkeys years though.

^ hmm if you work in the top tech companies there’s a massive push for better work life balance now as it’s burning out a lot of staff in their prime .

I work 8.30 - 4.30 and earn 100k plus bonus.

Sorry meant to add my job - I’m an in house lawyer.

I earn £65k, project manager but with expertise in a particular area. Educated to A level. I’m 46. I work 40hr pw and longer when needed but that’s only occasional.

I earn just over 50k self employed as a tutor and editor
No boss and work from home a lot. Love it too. I work about 40 hours I would say.

Yes I four days so 30 hours contracted and make more than 50k. I'm in consulting, post grad degree and 13 years experience. Sometimes longer hours but it's not frequent. Some travel, not frequently.

I don’t quite earn 50k but work 7-2.30 Monday to Friday as a senior developer for a bank. Could earn more if I went to another company but work home life balance is important and works for us.

On 64k, 37.5hr week, lot of flexibility, work from home as needed. Work for a fantastic company of 28000 people with a real culture of employees first. Happy employees = productive workforce

I do, pro rata. Self employed and I choose to work PT and take most of the school holidays off, so I have about 10 weeks holiday a year or more. I'm a business writer so work from home most of the time. My DSiL is in a similar position - she's a WFH legal editor. It's a cushy life in comparison with commuting 9-5, though it has its downsides.

Yup. Earn more than that and work 80%, so four days a week. I’m an odd mix of scientist, project manager and a few other boys that might put me but basically where science meets real world/getting people to work together on stuff.

It requires some flexibility and so dh and I alternate days where we can work late/early and days where we don’t and do the nursery run.

It’s only possible because I have a supportive husband who is an equal parent and because I spent ten years doing the bit you’re doing now - the 60-80 hour weeks. And before that four degrees and a few years of grindingly shit pay to get my foot in. Oh and multiple country/city moves.

It’s also stalled my career hugely and I don’t expect it to pick back up again until I’m able to work the crazy hours again.

I see it as a mid career lull - I work and am more productive than many full timers, I’m good at my job, and while I’d jack it in tomorrow if I win the lotto I’m grateful I have a role that does let me have work life balance.

In my experience people who routinely work significantly more than 40 hours a week in IT or project management are either badly organised or unhealthily workaholic and preoccupied with climbing the ladder. Sometimes both. If you are competent and uninterested in playing at presenteeism it is entirely possible to do a good job within your contract hours most of the time.

I'm a patent attorney. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week. My job is normally office hours only Mon-Fri. It's very interesting and well paid. I'm in-house rather than private practice, and I genuinely enjoy my job. I qualified 5 years ago, and I currently earn around £100k. The exams are pretty brutal, but definitely worth the effort.

£60k for a 35hour working week here - 8-4 with an hr for lunch and flexibility to WFH. But it's only because im experienced at what I do, with 17yrs experience.

I earn quite bit over £50K in Software dev/Data analytics, very good work life balance with a lot of flexi time and TIL etc, but still expected to turn in for 40 hours but mostly 50 hours.

I am expected to drop everything at 5 minutes before the end of my day and stay late if the shit hits the fan or we have a target to meet, so swings and roundabouts, some weeks in the summer I can slope off and do 16 hours in a week, others I'm chained to my desk.

Think its pretty common

either badly organised or unhealthily workaholic

I’d agree with a couple of caveats - what drove my hours was not my inability to get the work done, it was working in a team spread across the globe. If you need to speak in person to the team in Taiwan and the team on the west coast of the USA regularly you end up doing some very long hours.
Which is ok if it’s genuinely needed but if I had a pound for every time I’ve put my foot down over the USA based trans rxpecting the Russian office to stay late just because the Texas office has no respect for time zones, I’d be a rich woman...

Or alternative 2, which is that your organisation is understaffed or people leave regularly and people end up doing far more than their fair share.

NMP here niche area. 55k. Plenty of opportunity for overtime.

8-4 Monday -Friday. I’m out that door and don’t think twice about the place

18hrs at 21400. Plus 13 wks holiday.

Work 32.5 hours a week and earn well over 50k. Have just been promoted. I work for a niche IT company. I put the hours and effort in in the early years mind.

Financial services manager, no overtime

Not me unfortunately, but DH earns over £100k and works a standard 40 hour week. I’m fact he’s contracted to 35 hours but probably does a bit more.

Agency social worker.