High Earners on MN?

[BitOfFun]

How? The actual leader of my county council doesn't earn more than £100K- where and what are all these super-maxed out occupations? I genuinely don't understand how mumsnetters (often relatively young) access these magic jobs I've never heard of.

YABU- they are there for the taking, you just made poor choices

YANBU- people here are very creative and there's an outside chance they may be lying exaggerating.

Lawyer in finance (in house). I earn just over 100k plus 30% bonus in a good year. I am part time (4 days) which keeps me sane and gives me the balance to manage although I effectively do 5 days work for 4 days' pay in 4 days.

Not from a wealthy background but was in a grammar area which helped.

I am definitely paid for skills and experience now, not time on the clock (although the time on the clock can be intense sometimes) so I have flex as to when I work. I also paid through the nose for gold plated childcare so I can outsource if I need to (although at the moment I do drop off 3 days a week and see the kids when they get home for 30 mins chat every day as WFH and do bedtime every day).

It wasn't easy to get here and it definitely has its moments and the imposter syndrome is very very hard to shake off. But it is possible

That said, corporate law is definitely more lucrative and interesting and if i had my time again I would have done that and gone into a really cool corporate GC role with lots of share options and what not. Much more interesting than loans and derivatives...

DH was a trader until he was made redundant last year, at 52 he's unlikely to find anything else so it's down to me to pay the bills. I'm grateful I can.

Wouldn’t most traders have made enough money by age 52 to have investments that produced an income for the rest of their lives? I actually thought many even retired earlier than that, and had SAH wives.

So many of you seemed to make your career choice based on earning potential which is where I went "wrong" ... but surely life is not all about how much money you can earn?

Indeed - all of life is a trade off. This tends to be another of them. More money or more work enjoyment (I know a few people get both).

I’m a high earner (over $150k) but I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. I can assure I didn’t start on that kind of money. I never was able to have children so I haven’t stopped working (and I don’t mean anything negative on that - just giving context). I really enjoy my job.

If your father doesn't know Mr Highup in the bank, you are less likely to get in there.

That is no longer true @MintyMabel. All banks and most reputable companies now have active Corporate Social Responsibility departments, ethics policies and very formal, often anonymised, graduate recruitment processes. They are held to account by shareholders and customers. The days of nepotism are long gone.

I don’t agree with either the YABU or the YANBU.

I am an accountant with background in financial services, organisations that employ loads of accountants. I first earned over £100k in 2005 when I was 35. Very easily done especially in London and financial services.

The days of nepotism are long gone

Of course they are. You keep telling yourself that.

@StarUtopia

Not being goady, but I think I’d struggle to name many people in my high school year who are on under £80k, and that was in a fairly standard rural non-fee paying school.

What a load of bullshit!!

Oh and no, not being goady, just being a dickhead!

OP. Ignore. Most people I know earn between £30-£40k. All with degrees.

Ha ha ha.

Loving the irony of insisting that someone else's personal experience is "bullshit", because it doesn't match up with your personal experience.

I think a lot of this very much depends on whether you are in the private sector or the public sector and where. For example, the private sector clearly pays more in London but arguably you get a better deal if you work in the public sector in other parts of the UK.

Its also not about working hard or being career-driven but also about areas you're particularly interested in. And that's fine. I think a big difference is that many jobs that used to pay ok e.g. NHS/universities etc have been on a pay freeze and now lag behind. Whereas the private sector has soared together with London house prices. The magic combination is if you enjoy your job and get paid a lot to do it. I know a lot of people working in schools, museums, academia and charities who love their jobs but dont get paid much and a lot of people who went into the city and seem to do it mainly for the money. Great if you can do both - or some people have to make the choice one way or the other. All of the people I know are smart when to top four unis and have multiple degrees.

What might be useful is for girls to be told not only that they can do these jobs, but also why you might enjoy them. Personally, I definitely knew how to get them but all I heard is that people did them for the money. Seeing as I wanted to do a job that I actually enjoyed, I did something else. But am sure that lots of people actually love doing them and we should also promote that.

Like others, I put in the long hours at the early and mid stages of my career. All nighters / lost weekends / holidays cancelled. Now I am paid what I am because someone can ask me a complex question and I can answer it. I am paid to make judgment calls that may have significant consequences. It’s no longer about the hours.

Finance
Law

Already starting salaries are £40k with bonuses and rises every year.

However, I hate the assumption that more money means 'good'. It's just a different job which happens to make a lot of money, therefore they pay more.

Is it recruitment?

Is it recruitment?

Head hunting?

DH friends work in international banking and are on 200k sort of salaries, the rest are academics mainly Professors as is he and on anything between 60 to 100k. My ex colleagues are academic librarians and I am also friends with a couple of sort of middle managers and a couple of well qualified senior nurses and all around the 50k mark. My family are mainly on NMW or low wages and do things like work in Residential homes and cafes. So we have close friends and relatives across the entire earning spectrum.

I am not sure in all areas the private sector has soared eg legal aid lawyers in many areas will earn less than nurses. Some jobs like my son has £22k (delivery driver full time PAYE) have not really soared - in fact some pulbic setor jobs have had inflation rises whereas some private sector jobs have had pay cuts including 20% pay cut fo the same hours or else youa re redundant kind of thing.

Some office jobs or women with a rich husband who keeps them means they are on the internet more. Eg my delivery driver son cannot go on line in the day as he is driving so we tend to see on MN perhaps better off women.

Some jobs have transparent pay eg my consultant doctor sibling's were you can look up NHS consultant in their 50s with silver merit award anyone could look up although very large private earnings can make the NHS salary de minimis on top of the large NHS salary in some cases particularly in areas where people can afford private healthcare. Similarly the pay of trainee solicitors and pay for the first 3 years (never mind ins some cases equity partner pay) is public for many firms and you can view on line.

This family since the 1890s has done well when it did well at education (on my father's side) and from the 1920s on my mother's side. Passing exams and having skills no one else has tend to increase pay. Of course there is always someone earning a lot more than all of us not that it matters - you don't make yourself happy by being jealous and envy is one of the 7 deadly sins. I always say the most important thing for me is I never seem to be ill or sad (seen my GP for 7 minutes in 15 years. You cannot put a price on that).

@MintyMabel

Wrong to suggest people who aren’t high earners made the wrong choices. More likely the choices that need to be made aren’t available to them. If your family can’t afford for you to go to university, you don’t go. If your father doesn't know Mr Highup in the bank, you are less likely to get in there. If your parents weren’t able to fight with the school to get you the support you needed, your future is already decided.

You need to be very careful when talking about choices.

Em not really. I joined a bank grad scheme roughly 15 years ago, my parents didn’t even understand what my new job was! Neither do I remember any of the other grads being connected/rich..

That is no longer true @MintyMabel. All banks and most reputable companies now have active Corporate Social Responsibility departments, ethics policies and very formal, often anonymised, graduate recruitment processes. They are held to account by shareholders and customers. The days of nepotism are long gone.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

You really believe that. It is alive and well in a whole lot of reputable companies. Sure they have policies and procedures but don’t kid yourself that it doesn’t happen. It absolutely still does.

@Ijustwantsomebees I am an in-house lawyer and
I earn what I do because the large company I work for has a team of lawyers I am now in charge of. The company place a value on industry knowledge but the legal specialism is commercial contracts - pretty common and transferable. As a company we negotiate and process a lot of contracts. My team look after contract negotiation and are hooked into progress monitoring and payment of suppliers.

The going rate for a qualified lawyer in the team is about £60k once they are a couple years in the job. One left recently and went to a bank to do commercial contracts - they paid better than we did.

I'm outside London but my company is international. So my salary is great for outside London but I worry that if I lost my job I would struggle to find something locally and would either have to drop salary or go to London which as it's too far to commute too would mean leaving my family during the week.

The days of nepotism are long gone
That is true. I've been in financial services for 40 years and have never known anyone get a job because of who they knew. Not a single time. It's a rumour people peddle to justify why they've not got that job.

@Toptotoeunicolour

The days of nepotism are long gone That is true. I've been in financial services for 40 years and have never known anyone get a job because of who they knew. Not a single time. It's a rumour people peddle to justify why they've not got that job.

The old boy network is still alive and kicking. Its members just cover their tracks better.

@Toptotoeunicolour

The days of nepotism are long gone That is true. I've been in financial services for 40 years and have never known anyone get a job because of who they knew. Not a single time. It's a rumour people peddle to justify why they've not got that job.

Absolutely agree and this reflects my experience.

@Toptotoeunicolour

The days of nepotism are long gone That is true. I've been in financial services for 40 years and have never known anyone get a job because of who they knew. Not a single time. It's a rumour people peddle to justify why they've not got that job.

I have also been in that industry for a lot of years and unfortunately seen it to be true

Not in grad schemes, but lots of senior management getting their children intern roles / work experience. It was a standing joke that the entire admin and reception staff was made up of the friends and family of one of them.

@vinyldetective you are confusing two things. If someone has a family member in a particular role they may well be better placed to understand how to get the right qualifications, what to talk about at interview, maybe even have an inherited aptitude for a particular profession. But very few companies will employ someone crap just because of who their Dad/Uncle/godfather is.

So the best they managed to get was admin/reception jobs. Hardly using nepotism to get the 100k plus roles is it?

Friends and family is one thing but I doubt very much anyone ever got a job or even got accepted onto a degree course because of one week's worth of frankly utterly useless friends and family work experience. Getting a proper paid job is a different matter, there are assessments to go through for soft skills and technical aptitude. You don't get anywhere if you don't get through those. HR take their job very seriously when it comes to hiring the right people and being seen as fair.