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.

Yes, there are tens of thousands of jobs that pay that, and MN skews wealthy.

However, the hours and location make a big difference. I'm a single mum on a large salary in London, but realised that if I could move back to the much cheaper area of the UK where my family live, I could have the same or better life on £40k (still an above average salary I know, but much more realistically achievable in many professions). Sadly not on the cards due to my ex, but it would be a dream.

With the six figure salary comes needing a nanny (because of unpredictable hours), which is the huge expense, and needing to live near Central London.

I totally appreciate how lucky I am so this is not a poor little me post - just to say that this salary is not out of reach and the people on it in London may not be living such a different life to a middle-range public servant in the north

It depends so much on where you live as well.

I went to a very competitive grammar school. My school friends are mostly in professional type jobs. I still would be surprised if many of them earn over maybe 50k unless they went to London. The company I work for has a good handful of people on salaries that are very high by local standards because they have very specific skills. But the Director of Finance for example earns about £45k despite managing a multi million pound budget and being a qualified accountant with many years experience. I often see accountancy mentioned as a job where you'd be earning 50k within a couple of years of qualifying but where I live that's just not the case. It commands a good salary, certainly, but it's not what people on Mumsnet would class as a highly paid job. I have 20 years work experience and some professional qualifications and I earn a pittance because that's just what those jobs pay where I live.

The barrier to high earning is often the cost of getting the professional qualifications.

Lawyer, private not legal aid, high street firm, 11 years qualified, £50k. Law is not always as highly paid as people think.

The actual leader of my county council doesn't earn more than £100K- where and what are all these super-maxed out occupations?

County council jobs are public sector, which are often paid lower than a similar job in the private sector, so someone running a large (county council-sized) company will be earning a lot more than that.

Bear in mind that people might also be describing their whole package as “£100k”, which will include their company’s pension contributions.

I managed to earn 6 figures three years in a row.

My job was an IT job managing relationships with other IT companies all over EMEA. It was well paid but.....

• I flew out of the UK every Sunday afternoon.
• I arrived back in the UK most Friday afternoons or even Saturday mornings.
• I spent what little was left of my weekends sorting laundry, house stuff, getting ready to head off again
• I had very little life outside work and barely saw friends or family
• Obviously no kids
• I was very tired.

So yes, there are jobs that pay a lot, but for me at least, it wasn't sustainable. I paid off most of my mortgage then took a paycut and rejoined normal life.

Pharmaceutical and Medical device companies pay even project managers above 100k. If you are in one of the hard sciences, law, medicine or banking it would be more uncommon to make under 100k. Most middle aged sales VPs I know make over 100k regardless of industry.

Pretty easy to get to £75k+ basic with at least £50k a year commission (by the age of around 30) if you are a high performing sales person in SAAS/tech/recruitment

In London, obviously! Should have said that

My husband has just retired. A self employed bathroom installer who could have earned over £100,000 if he worked every week, but choose to work 3 weeks out of 4 and have a couple of weeks holiday.

I’m not a six figure person, but I am well paid. DH is on 6 figures. We both work extremely hard and always have done. Our jobs are both professional and stressful. One of the reasons why I don’t earn 6 figures is that I am public sector, so I have greater security and will have a better pension. DH is far less secure and is (yet again) under threat of redundancy due to Covid. We have both continued to work throughout, setting up systems at home, and doing long hours (DD is a teen and was very well engaged with school initially, and sport over summer). We never totally switch off - check phones and emails at least daily on holidays (if computers and projects haven’t travelled with us). Very often work over weekends. But I know that what I do makes a positive difference to many people - and so do the projects DH works on. And that’s the reason why we do it.

The actual leader of my county council doesn't earn more than £100K
What does a county council have to do with anything?
Your salary comparison points are pretty weird.

I work in the public sector in a fairly senior role, our divisional 'chief executive' without being too outing doesn't earn 100k , it depends very much on the industry.

I do have a great pension and a very generous amount of annual leave and flexibility though, there are benefits to public sector working

Public sector jobs are pretty badly paid particularly at senior levels OP. People don't like to know the leader of the council earns 200k, or gives themself big pay increases. I'm surprised it's under 100 though.

I get 50k leading a small team in the civil service. I'd get 75k if I was in charge of a team of 50 people rather than the 5 I actually manage. Hence why I don't go for the two promotions it would take me to get to that level - it's not worth the extra responsibility. Similar roles in the private sector seem to be about 60k and 100k respectively so more of a gap.

Yes why do salaries get compared to what politicians earn? Politics is notoriously underpaid (hence the second and third jobs and the fact certain types of people are the main ones to go into it)

Also worth noting that once a high earner does not guarantee that you will always be a high earner. I know people who were earning big money in civil engineering for example. But have gone through long periods of being out of work because when the economy crashes, the big projects grind to a halt. It's sometimes a risk with that type of job. You could earn much less doing something else, or different types of projects, but in return you might have greater job security.

Don't forget the factor about active users of MN and lurkers. MN is a very high traffic site. This means in absolute terms that there are a lot of people who post. But there will be even more people - many many more - who lurk. There might be a correlation between being a higher earner and being more likely to actually post than just to lurk (this is a guess). So if it seems like there are an above average number of higher earners on MN - it may just be that the higher earners are noisier people!

I think the leader of my local council gets circa £70k (political role) and the CEO gets circa £140k (non political role)

MN is extremely London based in my opinion so people earn high salaries but then pay high rent/mortgage.
I live in the Midlands and most people I know even in professional jobs earn around £28k which I think is national average. But then you can buy a decent three bed semi around here for about £200k. Not sure you can do that in London.

It isn't always just about your main income. Lots have investments including property, side businesses etc.

Bit sexist to think women can't be in well-paid jobs, isn't it?

I always see these posts and don’t think it’s true. Whenever you see the “how much do you earn” threads they’re full of “I earn £28k as a dental assistant” type roles.

I think the higher earning ones just catch peoples eyes more. That said, it’s really silly to talk about high salaries on MN because even if you’ve got higher outgoings - mortgage, pension and not to mention all the tax paying, people think you’ve got money to splurge on diamonds every month and there are rather a lot of green-eyed comments.

But as someone else said I do also think MN is more middle class, so if the higher earners are going to be anywhere it is here

Even high-up public servants and charity bosses get those sorts of salary.

You’d need to be Permanent Secretary or CEO level to be on over £100k. For context MPs earn £82k.

I don’t earn anywhere near that much however my husband is on just shy of six figures - he is a Finance Director. He worked (bloody hard!) on his own, buying all the text books himself (not through uni or anything) and studying relentlessly to get CIMA qualified and has worked his way up since 2004 from Accounts Assistant to Director - his eye is on Chief Financial Officer next (he’s 38, for reference).

I think you definitely have to have the drive and want to get to the high up positions that pay the money, and know that unless you’re extremely lucky it’s not just going to fall into your lap. It’s taken years of hard work, and working for some total knobheads to get to where he is now.

I work part time and over the years so many people have (jokingly) said that I only married him for his money - I have to remind them that when we got together he was a pizza delivery boy! So it can happen - you just have to want it and be willing to put in the work.