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.

Gah make that 3 in 8 weekends, I didn't include my weekends of nights

DH works no more than 37 hours a week and his total package is about 70k. He works in marketing for a financial services organisation. He works in the City so a hideous commute three days a week, although it’s our choice to live in the naice leafy suburbs. He works from home two days a week.

My hourly rate is infitinitly better than his, though, as I am retired so work precisely 0 hours a week.

Both me and dh earn more than 50k, I am unqualified in my role, however am degree educated in another field however can adapt it to this role, dh is qualified in hisn profession, we both work on average 60-65 hours per week, however no weekends and the rule is we don’t bring work home.

I earn more than that for 36 hours a week. Work from home two or three times a week and can flex my hours within reason to do some school drop offs and pick ups.

I do usually end up doing a few extra hours a week, but can sometimes balance that out across the summer when we can finish at lunchtime if we like.

Yes, accountant here too. 35 hour week with uk travel once/twice a month.

@Justanotherlurker I'm not sure I fully understood your question, but if it boils down to "can I really leave at the time they say I can leave?" then yes - nobody works overtime and your colleagues would probably be resentful if you did - one of my previous managers made himself unpopular just by sending emails in the evenings that were intended for people to read the next morning - he had to schedule them to be auto-sent the next day instead.

I've never heard of anyone being told they can't book holiday because there's a deadline, though I suppose it must happen because sometimes things need to be completed around the term dates - it's much more common in my experience that the deadline will be extended.

The downside of that is that it can get frustrating when you're trying to get something done but everyone is on holiday! Only take the job if you're prepared to be relaxed about that.

Lots of posters saying yes. What age were you when you reached that 50k

DH was 29. I earned 45k at 28 for less than 40 hours work but left my job when I had children and work freelance now.

DH earns over £50k. He is a mechanical engineer. Wind energy. I'm not far off, but I'm quite a bit younger. I'm an engineering physicist. We both do 37 hours a week, no home working. Very occasional travel. I'm mid 30s and he's early 40s. Both with PhDs.

I’m another one in IT. I’m self employed and work from home for about £56k per year

It's funny what different people consider a "decent living". I'd consider 50K plus as being highly paid.

I've been a teacher for about 25 years, earn under 40K (chose to stay in the classroom rather than going into management) and probably work about 60 hours most weeks.

I'm happy with the money (I earn more than my partner or any of my friends), but the work-life balance is crap.

DH does. He runs his own small company providing a niche IT service for some very well known industry names. When he first started he worked crazy stupid hours but now he can cherry pick projects. He has rarely missed a parent's evening or sports day because he dictates his hours, and can easily catch up later on. There are still deadlines sometimes where he has to drop everything and I barely see him for a few days, but we have lots of days where he will just work a half day or take me out for a three hour lunch Because of his success I've only had to work PT for the last ten years so my work/life balance is perfect for me. Life is very good but it nearly took everything we had to get here.

Work in IT and earn > 50k. I manage a 38 hour week but if we have any issues I might have to work an extra long day. Only happens once or twice a year so I can live with that.

I’m on that pro rata and 90% of the time I’m 9-5 (equivilent) but it does involve international travel about 8 times a year which technically eats into my 40 hour week. I love it though so it doesn’t feel like a hardship...

Well over 50k, 37.5 hours a week, mostly working from home.

Tech based, got a couple of O levels somewhere. Joined after over a decade in the Army.

Bosses seem to think I'm really good at what I do, can't argue with that.

Name changed for this

I work 3 days a week, on £60k a year (pro rate down from £100k pa)

I am a management consultant

Just back from mat leave so still finding my feet a bit as to whether it's going to work but will see how it goes for now

Find some of this hard to believe. IT and lawyers working such strict hours. Really?
My friend is a partner of a law firm and she's working 60+ hours, till 3am many/most days.

I work in IT. Earn more than £50k and work 37.5 hrs per week. Started earning over that mid 30’s. I’ve worked bloody hard to get there tho. I guess I’m now paid for my experience

Yes I do, I work 25 hours a week- and earn that much.
I work from home -self employed.

Me. I'm an academic and earn a fair bit over 50K all in. I'm the process of moving from a research/teaching position, via teaching/admin to probably pure admin in the future. Sometimes I work more than 40 hours, but sometimes it is less, and often from home. The flexibility is particularly good at the moment and I'm worried I may lose that as I move more to admin.

I think I've been unusually lucky though. It could all have gone horribly wrong if I hadn't been in the right place at the right time etc

Once I was qualified as an accountant, probably 26/27.

DH too actually. Half research academic, half self-employed. Works entirely from home. Again slightly variable but flexible hours, so a bit hard to count. And he loves it anyway.

Meant to say almost entirely. Not entirely.

I work in IT in finance. Contracted hours less than 40 hours per week and work a day from home per week. My total package is in region of 90k
Sometimes have to do the odd bit extra but usually just my normal hours

@sensaiChris

Only take the job if you're prepared to be relaxed about that.

Yeah that's where I'm struggling I think

It's interesting to see how many on here are mid/high in tech, I suspect like me they do not pipe up or get shouted down with the no women in STEM threads come up.