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?

Head hunter
I have my own business and work from home.
Has it’s ups and downs, but generally it’s amazing.
Average between 80-120k per year.

Women do have barriers. While it's very, very rare for organisations to actively not recruit women we are still finding that women are underrepresented in certain sectors, in senior positions and are more likely to be working part time and earning less.

Yes women have a choice but these 'choices' are restricted and influenced and framed by societal expectations, cultural norms and stereotypes.
The same applies to ethnic minorities and socioeconomic group.

Women do not have more barriers

You’ve never had your knee squeezed I take it. You’re talking shite.

Head teacher - love my job even though it's stressful (especially at the moment!)

I co-own a Performing Arts school in London which also holds events, workshops and exam sessions and puts on shows. DH runs his dads haulage firm which he will own one day (his dads doesn’t really work anymore but still owns the firm).

Women do not have more barriers

You’ve never had your knee squeezed I take it. You’re talking shite.

Or being accused of sleeping your way to the top when you are networking?

Senior teacher in an independent school. I absolutely love my job.

Or being accused of sleeping your way to the top when you are networking

Or indeed having the offer to in exchange for a £10m contract.

No barriers if you’re willing

Women do not have more barriers

You’ve never had your knee squeezed I take it. You’re talking shite

Or being accused of sleeping your way to the top when you are networking

Or not getting offered the career enhancing international trip because you have children...even though your male counterpart who does get to go also has a young family.

*Many ( not all ) jobs that pay £50k involve working for less than that for quite a few years. And need qualifications and / or experience. And involve working long , hard and sometimes anti social hours for years.

And that taking a significant amount of time out of the labour market in your 20s will almost certainly have a huge and lifelong impact on your career and pension. And that even going part time in your 30s will have an impact*

@I0NA I agree. I earn much less than most of my peer group (though I don't whinge about it!) I have had opportunities to take routes with higher earning potential, but chose not to. I don't regret it, though - I just couldn't have coped with the jobs they do.

Specialist Nurse- Best job in the whole world .

When I started teaching I did A LOT more work than I do now for 36k! 10yrs later I do less technically as I have 10yrs of experience and all of my planning is set up and I just amend them each year etc. I'm now on over 52k, and that will increase to over 64k...for no extra responsibilities.

Advising on protection from ionising radiation.

It’s important to have a life that you enjoy. Not being broke helps with that.

Or not getting offered the career enhancing international trip because you have children...even though your male counterpart who does get to go also has a young family.

I had this happen to me as an engineer too.

When discussing a vacancy/ promotion my boss once said "Oh Falacy will be focusing on her family" in front of me, to Steve (who was fucking useless) and also had a family

Yes I was a single mum, but my kids were in full time wraparound care. We had flexitime, I worked 7 - 4 and he worked 9 - 6. Exactly the same hours, but he made it look like he was "the last one to leave".

I also had another boss pass me over for a course because I "wasn't academic enough".

What he meant was I didn't look academic enough, because in his opinion academic people weren't pretty girls with big boobs who wore makeup and highlighted their hair. Someone else got to do the course, typical "boffin" in appearance but actually I had the better grades from college.

It's pretty obvious when it happens. I could write a list as long as my arm of all those little occurrences.

It's why I eventually left and started my own business. Couldn't deal with it anymore.

Women often choose to stay at home with their children. That is not a barrier, it's a choice.

It's a 'choice' mandated by society that impacts on all women even when they don't have and have no plans to have children. I know no man who has been considered too attractive to do a technical job, or has been asked about his plans for a family in a job interview, or who has been asked who looks after the children when he is at work, or who is told that fathers in their 40s aren't ambitious etc etc. Things are so much better than they were when an old colleague of mine returned to work after having her first child in the 80s and she was put in an office on her own and told if she decided she couldn't face working and not being with her baby everyone would understand but those kind of attitudes are still around just hidden a bit more.

Software engineer here 🙋🏼‍♀️ I love my job and adore my colleagues, but I love maternity leave more.

To answer the original question, I think decent pay and a job you enjoy are important in equal measure... But a job you enjoy is more equal that the other 😉

Every move I've made up until this point has been well thought out and I've pushed until it's happened.

This.

Btw, I’m an ethnic minority and female and mum of two primary kids so it’s definitely possible to be a top exec high earner. And my dh is the same. What’s made it possible is that I deliberately targeted flexible working companies.

Re work/travel children, that's a difficult one.

We we are all faced with plenty of men who don't take into account their DCs needs when sorting out their work, so they're often happy to work away, without a thought about who will look after their DC, more than a passive assumption that their DW will keep the show on the road at home.

So as a woman who is a mother and is also in a 'big job' she has the dual battle of not being overlooked for this sort of work on the assumption that she wouldn't leave her DC plus with her DH over it not always being her that stays at home and that he can also do the childcare while she travels for work.

But some women don't do themselves any favours, I have more than one colleague who openly refuses to do the 'career enhancing international travel/other interesting jobs that require working away etc' because she has young DC, who they couldn't possibly leave, even though she lives with the father of her children. Some of them are even the major earner and claim that he does his share at home.

Sadly at my workplace the end result often is that it's not the interesting/worthwhile jobs but the shitty ones that no-one wants to do so they end up being dropped on people who don't have an excuse not to do them, as in 'you don't have DC to care for, so there's no reason why we can't send you off to do the crappy remote project that no-one likes'.

Thanks Op😀 Poppi89

cookiedough nobody is saying it isn't possible for women to get high paying exec jobs. Of course it is. However, as a group we tend to face more barriers and challenges. Not every woman will encounter these but it doesn't mean they don't exist.

I've spent years researching career development and specifically the career development of women and I can categorically tell you these barriers exist. People talk about women having choices and of course we do but for some women that choice isn't as free as it should be. Just a cursory glance on some of the boards on here will show you that.

I'm very career focussed. I'm a senior academic at university and on track to become one of the youngest professors in the department. I've planned my career and worked hard to get where I am. Acknowledging the role of luck and chance doesn't detract from that - right place, right time for specific government funding, meeting someone at a conference who I now collaborate with etc.

I've also faced barriers my male colleagues simply don't have to deal with.

I'm judged on my appearance as apparently i look too young to do my job and academics don't dress the way I do or have platinum blonde hair and wear bright lipstick. I've had to deal with complaints from students who have stated I'm not experienced enough to teach them.....i have a PhD, im an active researcher and years of industry and teaching experience. 🤷

I also took maternity leave - so essentially a career break ( unfortunately shared parental leave didn't exist), my colleagues assumed I would want to work part time when I returned

I've been overlooked for international trips despite being the most qualified person, when I do travel I'm asked who is caring for my child - funny how my male colleagues are never asked this......I could go on.

Urg....there were paragraphs

Freelance translator.