To ask if you earn £50K+ what do you do?

[Poppi89]

I have seen a lot of posts on here where people say how much they earn and I am shocked how many people earn over £50K, so I was just wondering what it is that you do?

Also, do you think it is more important to have a high income or a job that you enjoy?

@converseandjeans please try and understand how Fundraising works. Our fundraisers earn £23-30k pa. The Head of Fundraising earns considerably more than £50k but is responsible for bringing in millions and millions of £ a year. It requires skills, often good contacts, strong management skills and experience to do this. You know the saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” that’s very true in this case. A small local charity may well be able to run their fundraising on a small part time salary or by a volunteer but then they might only be bringing in a small amount of money pa. once you’re looking to bring in serious money, ours have a £3m pa target you need to pay for it and paying someone with a track record 50k to bring in several million is a no brained. Pay someone less experienced and usually bring in less money. Oh and don’t siggest a volunteer do it in a charity with a considerable income. It is a professional role and needs to be done by a professional

theschool yes I knew it was decent salaries but not executive level.
I stopped donating to Oxfam when I heard about some of the aid workers' behaviour in places like Haiti.
School my children go to sends bulk of funds to charity (Catholic school). My school I work in we also donate pretty much all we make - there is a fundraising target.

You don't have to be good at maths. I wasn't.

That's good to know.

I think I read that only about 50 thousand women get paid 160k plus.

Software developer, just started a new job on £55k. I’m a single mum and it’s been a VERY hard slog up to this point - 18 months ago I was struggling on £20k as a web developer (on my own with childcare on top and debts to service from a period of not earning and not qualifying for help).

I earned around £200k this financial year. Given CV, this might be the last year I earn such an amount for a while. I own my own company and employ 50 + staff. It’s stressful, incredibly hard work and huge amount of pressure. Being responsible for 50 + families is something that I found indescribable even before this pandemic.

Technology project / programme manager. Do I like it? Very much depends on the project / team. If it's a cool technology, doing something important or an interesting application of an existing technology that helps. Best thing is if you have a good, cohesive team (and with geeks, that often goes with having something cool or important to work on, so....)

I earn 13K, I work 8:30-4pm term time. I take home £1100 plus tax credits. So around 2k per month. I can afford nice things and holidays so I consider myself very lucky.

@OntheWaves40 It sounds like we have a similar job and pay. Are you in an area of Universal Credit? I am a single parent but I don't get tax credits now it has moved to UC

I run a medium sized law firm - 50 ish full time. It is very stressful, and does not start or end with a normal workday. I love it though. Times like this not so much - I am just steeling myself to calculate how long I can keep everyone on staff during this event. Very worrying. Glad to say we run a tight ship so have enough funds to last about 3 months, if we tighten our belts right now.

Earn more than 150k, but feel like I actually do earn it, if you see what I mean. Not that I work harder than those with more important jobs, in any way. Not fooling myself that I work harder than a cleaner or nurse. At least, we do social justice law, so it is good work done for the common person.

I make gin !
It’s a good living .

I think the higher you are or the more successful, you also get more choices so you can jump elsewhere where you enjoy your job.

Interesting thread. I'm wondering, what do you do with all that money, if you live outside of the expensive London/SE areas, as some have said?
I earn around £25k, so does my husband, we put away 10K in savings over the past year because we have loads left over even after paying for mortgage and bills, hobbies, reasonably active social lives and loads of travel. We're in a city (not London), Ok area, not posh but not sink estate either.
It's true that we don't have children yet and obviously I can see how that would add significantly to your outgoings, but still...I know people in our area whose household income is twice as much as ours and they say they're skint at the end of the month and that their salary is low...then someone on here said £50k (£3k a month net) wasn't that much. I'm genuinely curious because I would struggle to spend £3k a month unless I was going out of my way to buy loads of expensive things.

@Poppi89 no we haven’t moved to Universal Credit in our area yet

I'm genuinely curious because I would struggle to spend £3k a month unless I was going out of my way to buy loads of expensive things

a) people tend to spend within their means and so the more you earn, the more the little things tend to increase. Slightly more expensive food, wine, holidays, etc.

b) most people really like spending money. It's what makes the economy go round, after all.

I work in investment banking covering a niche area, and I love it. Earn around £100K. But there have been ups and downs, I’ve been made redundant and scrapped to get to this place.

I'm genuinely curious because I would struggle to spend £3k a month unless I was going out of my way to buy loads of expensive things.

We don’t spend, we invest. Other than the DCs we really haven’t grown our outgoings much per month along with our salaries, but we have bought rental properties and made other long term investments for the future.

Hi @SimplySteveRedux*

If you wouldn't mind, would you be happy to share more about what becoming a Gaming Strategist involves as it sounds like something my son would find fascinating.

Thanks very much.*

Hi @wedoliketobebesidetheseaside ,

Due to the meteoric speed at which the gaming industry is evolving (gaming over the past two years has taken more revenue than the rest of the industry combined) the role is changing year-on-year.

In terms of how to get noticed I'll share what the core basics still are.

• Have a love of games (well, duh!)

• Have an intrinsic knowledge of the genres of games (it's recommended to focus on one genre and one game. My genre was strategy).

• Get noticed, Reddit, gaming forums, social media.

• Be a superb gamer (I was amongst world best players) and streaming is a great way of getting noticed too.

• Get into a clan/guild as high up the ladder as you can achieve. Gaming must be number one on the entertainment front.

I won't lie, it's difficult to enter the industry, and there are tens of thousands of people with the mindset.

I was developing boss encounters, devising strategies, determining game balance, (then gaming these encounters), developing website elements and much more.

What's better than being paid to game!!

But on the flip side, burnout is ridiculous. I was in the industry a few years but I left it because of the strain on my family. (I'm still among world best in a couple of games though ).

If you've any questions feel free to PM me anytime.

If you (or anyone) is interested in getting started feel free to reach out... 😊

Absolutely, I've procrastinated for years whether to write "my story", so any tips on the process would be brilliant @Falacy

specialist explosive atmospheres engineer

That sounds very interesting.

I don't make quite £50k but I agree with the comments about having automony being a big thing to be satisfied and less stressed at work, also being interested in what you do.

I'm a safety consultant in a very specialist area and see lots of different things and have had some great work experiences and been involved in some genuinely interesting projects.

But OP you say that most people you know earn £15k full time. This can't be true unless you and your peers are all very young as NMW for people over 25 is £16/17k depending on hours worked. And if you are very young it's not valid to compare yourself with the people on here who are likely to be older and more experienced to be in a higher earning position.

Lower paid jobs are not automatically less stressful either, imagine what it's like working in a supermarket or food manufacturer right now, or during other peak periods, or in the care industry with all the rushing around trying to look after vulnerable people in time slots that are too short for all but the bare minimum. Plus not earning enough to comfortably pay the bills and have some left over for a nice life.

Management Consultant: love it lots of different roles scenarios - never bored.

Re how people spend 3k a month - both DH and I live rurally but travel to London 2-3 times a week, so each of us racks up £10k travel expenses. We also pay 1k a month childcare.
Thats nearly 3k a month gone - commute and nursery fee.

@SimplySteveRedux that’s cool, I’m an avid gamer myself (or used to be, pre-baby). MMORPG is more my thing though I dabble in some MOBAs when I feel like punishing 12y/o noobs.

MMORPG is more my thing though I dabble in some MOBAs when I feel like punishing 12y/o noobs.

@7Penguins
Yes definitely love smashing noobs at Dota 2 and watching them ramp up the insults! WoW is my main game although I've barely logged on this past couple of years.

@Overthinker1988 It’s easy sadly, it would just cover my mortgage, service charge, council tax and utilities. I would have barely anything left for food, childcare etc.

Recruitment consultant and I do love it seems the pay is just a bonus

@SimplySteveRedux Ha, I met my husband in WoW a decade ago, bonded over the server firsts during WotLK*.

*Not quite as guild-breaking as pre-nerf Kael’thas but still pretty darn hard!