To not understand the wealth in London?

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Posting this for traffic. I genuinely don’t understand how “normal people” in London are so wealthy. I went to university with some people who now at age 40 live in multi million pound houses. Send their children to £40k a year schools, and have amazing holidays, skiing, etc.

Lots of them became lawyers or consultants, I don’t understand how they seem to have so much dosh.

There are streets and streets and streets with houses and families like this.

The Partners in Consulting and Law firms earn a lot - starting around £400k and moving generously upwards with increased responsibility and seniority! Those beneath them earn well but not enough to live the kind of lifestyle described in the OP without having jumped on the housing ladder in the 90s or having received a generous inheritance.

I grew up in SW London, my dad had the city job so we had the 5 bed but plenty of neighbours & school friends were the children of teachers, nurses etc.& many had only one parent working/part time. They lived in 3 bed terraces.
Even in the 90s a family friend payed 1m for a house in Wimbledon VIllage probably worth 10m plus now.

We looked at house about 5 years ago that needed work, It was a little too much at the time & a property developer wanted it. Plus the catchment area was risky but I loved it & it would have been our forever home. Developer got it for around 760k, spent max 150k on it & 2 yrs later sold it for 1.7m.

The things is no one really knows the ins and outs of people's finances.

School fees could be paid by grandparents ( I know a fair few like this at) large deposits for houses mean lower mortgage payments.

I also know people with jobs that pay the London average, who have benefited from large increases in house prices and are able to live a life far beyond what they would have been able to because of low mortgage payments, access to lump sums on remortgaging, and of course credit, its easier to spend when you know you have an asset that far outweighs your debts.

A very tiny number of such jobs
According to ONS, in 2014-15, 26% of Londoners earned more than £40k, 7% earned more than 85k & 5% more than 100k.
In numbers, that relates to over 1 million on over 40, 280,00 on more than 85 and 200,000 on more than 100.
That was 5 years ago, so even with low wage inflation I'm sure its gone up. Hardly 'tiny' number of jobs.

A consultant earns upwards of 75k basic, add on overtime, out of hours and on call allowances and private practice work your looking at 3 figures easily. That's a pretty good salary to me!

" Hardly 'tiny' number of jobs."

It is in comparison with the number of jobs in London under that.

In fact about 3 million people in the labour force in London earn less than 40,000.

Its actually only slightly higher than the rest of the country.

@Cuddlykitten123 A medical consultant's bottom end 6 figure salary is really not going to buy you the lifestyle or house described in the OP. The consultants that earn the big money are Partners in a Management Consultancy firm.

Easy:

1. Higher incomes;
2. Making money on property (esp if kick-started by BOMAD).

In my experience it’s MUCH easier to make serious money in a London because the other big UK cities don’t have the same employment opportunities, esp in the private sector, or the same price rises.

Though if all that money is locked into the value of your home and servicing a huge mortgage, it doesn’t necessarily buy you a better quality of life...

lots of people who have major significant incomes choose to move to london. they potentially could be living anywhere but choose this city over paris or new york.
sometimes the type of work they offer is not necessarily traditional and is something you would think was already included in another sector.