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.

Me too - what job is it @redsuitcase ?! Totally intrigued

We need to know redsuitcase

I work in the voluntary sector, which is not as terribly paid as you might think. I earn a bit over that for a 36 hour week, which I do in 4 days, in a specialist business development role. 32 days holiday.

Most weeks are fine- I have about 6 really awful weeks a year of the all-nighter kind, but generally slack off a bit afterwards. I do travel, and those weeks can be long, but I do generally take the time back even if not immediately. I work from home quite a lot and leave early if I need to.

I'm about to move to a more senior role for 20% more. It might be a bit more stressful but am expecting similar.

DH is SE in IT, and earns over 150k. Mon-thur in the office and then works from him on a Friday.
Very flexible and family friendly. He does have the luxury though of being SE so he can pick the contracts he wants to suit our family.

I earn £70k in financial services too Mojito - compliance. Professional qualifications and experience obtained throughout 20 year career, now work mostly at home with anywhere from 1 to 4 days out on appointments, meetings, running seminars etc. Sometimes spend a lot of time travelling, and I do have a heavy workload, but with the flexible working I'd say it was a very good balance.

It's taken a good few years and some tough times to get here, but I am very lucky.

DH is a design engineer with a BSc, no higher degree, and earns £57k for a 37 hour week. Due to his 1 hr commute and traffic he chooses to work 7-3.30 Mon-Thurs and 7-12 on Fridays. Sometimes he can wok from home which saves 2 hours of travelling time and if he does overtime it's paid.

@sensaiChris

Can I ask a question?

Just been offered a role with a prestigious uni myself, but not sure on the tech side of things.

I work high up in the one of the big 3 tech firms, so all the perks are taken for granted (international travel/generous bonuses etc), but they are telling me that it's literally clock off at x time, and a lot of time off.

What's it like a few years down the line, I'm on the very bleeding edge side and think I may get bored but I'm not sure and like to get my hands dirty in the code etc.

I want to keep my hands dirty but the promise of walking out the door at x and x holidays is very tempting, is there a lot of bluster in what I'm offered.

Genuine question.

I'm a digital strategy consultant. I'm a contractor so don't earn a fixed salary, but charge based on day rate. Currently I'm on a 6-month project based on 4 days a week - at my current day rate that's approx £72k for 6 months (part time - if I was full time that would be £90k for 6 months). Not every project will be at the same day rate, but if I take time off it's by choice, I almost always have contracts lined up back to back. So annual income in 6 figures.

Sometimes I have to bring work home evenings and weekends, but it depends. Mostly I'm 9-6-ish as a rule.

Management accountant at middle management level in a big organisation or senior level in a small one. Project manager in change projects especially if qualified. Or in IT as database programmer.

Software engineer/computer programmer/bug fixer in a investment management firm. Not me, DH. A bit more than 50k plus bonus for Mon to Fri, 9 to 5 including lunch breaks.
He has a computer science degree and 20 years’ experience. It’s not in management.

I earn over £50k for 3 days a week as an accountant in the head office of a huge bank. I have worked bloomin' hard to get to this level and it can be stressful while I am there and tbh I could easily work many more hours but I force myself to be very self disciplined to limit my hours and to make it work. I have a long commute on top of my part time hours but can work from home any time it suits. I do consider myself fortunate to have the pay and balance I have.

I work in an accountancy practice in a specialist role. I work PT and have been known to work pretty hard. Im no longer in the 'big 4' where they expected blood and didn't pay me well. I now get ok pay for reasonable hours. I do often do FT hours for PT wage but that means c36 hours for c£60k. Much better in London. Im trying to get promoted so hopefully either my wage or my work life balance will improve.

I do sometimes kill myself especially when busy so im not really claiming it is a doddle and great hours. There is lots of flexibility for home working and time out to do things for the dc.

Not me but DH works 9-5 and earns £60,000. Works in IT for a major company.

I do. I’m an HR manager and as a single mum I literally can’t do more than 40 hours. It does limit my career choices though

Work 80% of full time hours (probably about 35-40 hours) for about £100k including bonus. Aware that I'm lucky.

Earning £150k+ now, but I started on a £16k salary in 2004. No post grad degree. Earnings increased with experience & skill-set in a sought after area, and going freelance and therefore being able to set my own day rate. Contractors can charge more on the basis we aren't guaranteed work. I work in an area where there's a wealth of demand and a dearth of supply of people that do what I do at my level, so don't struggle for work - it's more about picking and choosing the roles that I'll find most rewarding

@Merryoldgoat - I think your husband has similar job to me although I am in private sector (and salary is higher). My friends also think I am Chandler. Job title is Data Analyst.
35 hours a week with one day at home although I usually do about 5 to or 10 hours extra a week.

I earn significantly more than £50k. Am contracted to do 37 hours per week and very rarely exceed this. I do occasionally have to work late or take stuff home with me, but I have learnt over the years to be much more disciplined about this and rarely do it now. Job is stressful and full on while I'm there, but I don't really worry about it when I'm not there - again, I have learnt to be disciplined and to switch off. I am fortunate enough to have long holidays too (45 days including bank holidays) and only a 5-minute commute. My employer is very flexible - can take time off for family emergencies/work from home if dd is ill etc - and generous with sick pay/pension contributions etc. Can't complain!

I have a good undergraduate degree that is in no way relevant to my current work.😀 Also have MBA that was paid for by my current employer. Main factor in getting the job was relevant skills and experience. A degree was a requirement, but no particular subject required.

I’m a senior IT consultant/developer in a midsize company (50 people). I work almost exclusively from home with perhaps 3-5 days/month at client sites. We’re very hot on work life balance so we allow people to flex their time as much as possible, as long as the work is getting done. I’m on 95k. I do have 25 years experience which does make me almost embarrassingly old in this industry, most of our staff are in their early to kid 30s.

This thread is depressing me and making me regret all of my life choices.

But the common theme seems to be that most of you have had to sacrifice and work through tough times to see rewards and get to where you are now. So fair play.

Yes I earn £56k for 4 days a week and generally work 9-4:45. If I worked 5 days it’d be c.£70k

I work in marketing and people in my industry often work longer hours but I don’t. I just stopped when I had my children and now manage to get it all done in the normal hours. I do check email outside of those hours but that doesn’t bother me too much!

But the common theme seems to be that most of you have had to sacrifice and work through tough times to see rewards and get to where you are now.

Yes, I worked bloody hard when I was younger to get to where I am now. That said, there is a significant element of luck too - being in the right place at the right time. I know others who worked bloody hard when they were younger who have not been so fortunate in how their careers have panned out.

35 hours a week, on 55k. Local Authority advisory role. Flexibility to work from home.

I am in my 4th year of working as a doctor and earn £49k before deductions. I work 46h per week on average, 1/4 weekends and 1/8 nights, 1/8 evenings.

Account, useful speciality, did do stupid hours for 10 years, now in house. 9-5, no overtime, well over £50k.