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.

IT sector, finance and legal are big payers. I’m in IT, over £100k.

We are on mumsnet a lot probs because we’ve pretty much been agile working for a longtime, so on Mumsnet when travelling or WFH.

1 in ten earns more than 51k
1 in 100 earns more than 120k

Indeed Harriet this is maybe why I’m a lower paid lawyer no attention to detail!

To be fair if I had stayed working at a firm, I would be an lots more now. But I couldn’t hack it. And I definitely couldn’t have hacked London. I’m in scotland

I don't think some people understand how much shit you take to earn a lot of money

God, I do understand which is why I’d never want some of the jobs people do on here to get their £100-150,000 salary.

Who wants to have to cancel dinner with friends as they suddenly have to work? Who takes their laptop on holiday as they can’t get away from the office? Who wants to be constantly on their phone during a family day out? All necessary I’m sure when on high salaries but I’d rather switch off at 6pm Friday night and worry about work again when I wake up on Monday morning.

I'm not qualified to do a job that would pay that much. My degree is in education and I worked as a teacher for a few years. I don't think I ever earned much more than £30k, but while I was working I started building a business online on the side for some extra money. When my son was born I decided to go full time online so that I could stay at home with him (at that stage I'd already exceeded what I was earning as a teacher).

From there I've built it into a six figure business, but not without a lot of time and effort, and years of learning plus trial and error. Now I'm in a position to choose my work hours and take time off whenever I want without it affecting my income.

Personally, I'd prefer my kids to go into business than have a job, but it's their choice of course. Business is harder in the beginning and you have to make a lot of sacrifices and probably even work longer hours than a job, but if you can make it work you have more freedom in the long run.

That’s why I left private practice. It seemed to me a miserable existence for many. Judos is you can get to the top and stay sane and healthy. I just couldn’t.

Would rather have an ok salary and life

My DH is on six figures plus. He worked v hard to get there.

diamond that’s amazing. Did you turn a hint into a job?

Hobby, not hint

@CakeRequired “
Exactly my point. grin The one person I know who does actually earn over 100k works in London all day and then essentially most of their evening too every night. Then most weekends as well, even just taking calls. There's barely any time in their day to eat, nevermind reply to numerous posts on mumsnet.”

Surely you understand the one person you know is likely not representative? I would say half my social circle earn over 100k and do not work all hours. I earn 70k with salary going up every day and I work flexible hours which means I can take a mumsnet break whenever I want and still get my job done! My DB earns €150k and we go for a walk 3 days a week around 6 after work!

Haha should be salary going up every year!

Every day sounds nice! To be fair if a portion of your salary is stock compensation then it may well go up every day

[quote daytripper28]@julietteb18 [shocked]

Is your DH head of a large school?

You'll be able to retire at 40 if you're saving all your pennies[/quote]
It's a school that was going to be shut down due to results so a new team was brought in with extra government funding, can't remember the scheme, but he's one of the heads, yes. Although he sometimes doesn't get in til 10pm and leaves at 6am.

We have no children and both plan on going part time when we have kids, if we are lucky enough to conceive (I have endo). We have a fancy house in SE and we will plough money into it, then probably try to lay off a bit.

I grew up in poverty so I am just trying to make the most of this fortunate position.

I volunteer a lot though and I hope other high earners try to, it's important.

Don’t agree with either of your voting choices so haven’t voted.

It's definitely location biased. I live in the South East and know of lots of people (not close friends) who must be on very high salaries. But then the house prices are stupid here too, so a lot of the high salary goes on the very high mortgage.

I'll admit, it does annoy me when you have posts like "DH and I both earn upwards of 100k but we're in London so it's not that much really"

This is usually in response to posts where people think a 6 figure salary salary means you're massively wealthy, huge house in London, private plane kind of level. When I was earning NMW, I also could not even imagine what I would do with such a huge amount of money, surely I would be literally swimming in it. Actually it gives me a comfortable middle class lifestyle - don't need to check prices at the supermarket or worry about heating bill, sure. But shopping in Dior I am not.

To those who don't understand how one can earn over £100k and have the time to write posts on mumsnet, here is the answer.
I am in my 40s, I have been doing the same job for 20 years and can therefore work very efficiently to a top industry standard. I don't need to prove myself anymore and therefore have a lot of flexibility. Today I earn multiples of £100k (close to 7 figures) - I am just ripping off the benefits of the time I invested during my first 15 years. All the long hours, the sleepless nights, the stress, the holidays being cut off are paying off now. In my industry females are a rarity so the pay off is being disproportionate today as companies try and address the gender pay gap. I am so glad I carried on working when I was tempted to quit when times were more challenging.

Consultancy firm here. Earnings nearer 80k, however if I was willing to work away from home more often would be over 100k.

DH however works in education 43k so I think household income overall is relevant. We pool our finances.

DH is a very high earner.

It’s great to have money but you pay for it in other ways. He’s missed out on building strong relationships with our children despite his best attempts. His job, while corporate, carried a lot of social responsibility and he couldn’t not do the hours. We aren’t driven by money at all although obviously it’s great to have and a lot of problems can be solved by throwing cash at them.

@LongPauseNoAnswer

I have a high income by owning a business. It’s not just jobs that have the potential to earn big. There is literally no limit on what I can earn because someone else isn’t setting an arbitrary amount to pay me.

This is also my experience. I quit my average salary job so that i could be available for my DSS's when they were late primary and wanted to go to the park after school. Started off only needing to match my old salary so fairly low key and could wfh. 10 years on i have 2 homes with no mortgage my DH works with me (his input massively increased our capacity and profits) and we are now semi retired before 50. Its the limits that a "job" puts on your life / holidays / potential earning that is the problem. I would advise anyone who can should aim for independence if possible.

I live in the North East, I am female, don't have a University Education, I am late 40's I have a high income as I own several business'. It was down to ability, work ethic and taking huge risks and every opportunity that was put in front of me. I also think that I have been extremely lucky and fortunate too.

@Brainwave89

So I think there are opportunities out there, notably in the UK these tend to be finance, IT. legal or technical. There is no magic to this. It requires lots of hard work, achieving good qualifications (for me a degree, qualification as an accountant then an MBA), working hard in my field and a willingness to move around (roles and geographically including international mobility). This lifestyle is not for everyone, at this level my employer owns a bit of my sole and I can get queries at the weekend, and work late into the evening where it is needed. Good life though, socially, and I love the work, and I would not change it. Family wise, as for many women, it is always difficult to juggle, but my family have always been supportive.

Yep, exactly. There is no magic to it. For me the key was being available when the right opportunity came up and being willing to move around. Admittedly a bit of luck comes in handy and some sacrifice is almost inevitable.

I have a Masters degree in a STEM subject and work in IT. I knew it had the potential for high earnings when I went into it. My first job had distinctly average pay but I took a leap of faith by quitting when voluntary redundancy was offered. I was then willing and able to make the move for a new job abroad which led to the high paying post I have now.

Lawyer here, live in London and earn over £100k, which is commonplace in my field. Have a lot of friends who work in finance and earn similar amounts. Living in the city I have v high outgoings to match, so it’s all relative.

Financial services. I earn over £100k school hours. I'm bloody good at what I do and rather lazy hence the mumsnetting in the middle of the day I'm very well qualified and I'm not afraid of pushing to the front. I work in a very male environment.

I talked about how hard I worked because most of the mums I knew when I was having my children quit work or worked very part-time and I sometimes felt like I was crazy carrying on working as hard as I did in my job. I definitely agree with you that most hard workers out there are not properly paid and no amount of hard work will enable some ppl to achieve high incomes due to the jobs that they’re in or the challenges they’ve faced in their lives (and continue to face). I’ve also had a lot of challenges myself as a working mother (and many other discrimination-attracting factors which I won’t go into as could be outing) but I have been tremendously fortunate to get to where I am and I fully recognise that. At the same time, it’s important for young people (women especially) to know what’s possible if you keep at it. Many women with huge potential in lucrative jobs drop out or don’t try to progress because they don’t think they can or they think the impact on their family life will be too much. I felt the same but I had to keep going for personal reasons at the time. I’m so glad I did because now I can see that I was totally wrong in my assumptions during my 20s and in the early part of my career.

I know people who are high earners - some I met through MN!

Corporate lawyer - has a lunch break, meets me for lunch, maintains a life-work balance.

Project Manager in finance - lots of competition and pressure to get a job and remain in post but is certainly not working all weekend and evening, clocks off at the end of the day. She did stop the very high earning running back and forth to the States when she had kids.

One running a Business with her DH - has tense moments, sometimes they work round the clock, at other times they take complete breaks or take it easy - the busy period is seasonal so they are fully aware and able to manage the year-round workload.

One is married to a partner in a law firm dealing with a very specialised international area of law - he takes home over £1m in a good year, has holidays, weekends free usually.

My neighbour is an electrician, worked up from domestic jobs to big contracts for restaurant chains - now earns over £250k a year. He is out all hours, he was under huge pressure during lockdown because he was worried about the future of his workforce - still is. He knows he is set up OK, kids are leaving home, but he worries about his responsibilities.