Is anyone here a high earner and DOESN’T work stupid hours?

[Llamasally]

If yes, what do you do? How do you avoid working long hours? Are you a high performer /successful/up for promotion?

I’m curious, as so far my experience is that they go unavoidably hand in hand, but I feel this is wrong and you should be rewarded on your achievements, skills, performance- not willingness to give 100% of yourself or to be always ‘on’. When considering promotion opportunities on the horizon I find this the scariest thing tbh. I’m not prepared to give up my life, am I being unrealistic??

By high earner I’m talking six figures - just because that’s how I would personally categorise - not because other salaries are not high enough etc)

[pinkscrunchy]

I'm a partner in a city law firm (M&A). Put in ridiculous hours when I was an associate and sacrificed a lot of family time with two young children (regretfully). Now the work is demanding, but not silly late every night and I generally can arrange weekends free.

[WorkWorkAngelica]

I need to know what @fruitandflowers does too! My DH works in finance for a large company and although he earns approx £250k he dreams of doing something bigger and better and having more control over what he does. He's finding it hard to leave the security of what he has. His job is 8.30 - 6ish with a lot of checking the markets out of hours (for his own interest) and a late night/weekend once a week or so. Not unmanageable especially currently as WFH.

I don't earn 6 figures, just £72k but in the public sector so in general the hours, flexibility and support are very good and family friendly and there's no clawing my way to the top or anything.

[Hyperion100]

Before anyone falls in to a sprial of depression about how little they earn in comparison to the salaries on this thread....these are not normal salaries.

[ShirleyPhallus]

Yes, me. Actually most of my group of friends now have all pretty much standard hour jobs but are on decent money (£80/90/100k plus bonuses etc)

Just usual city jobs really - actuaries, law, marketing, risk etc. Usually doing it in-house where the rest of the business also works usual hours.

[Titsywoo]

DH works 40 hours a week for 6 figures but he had to work ridiculous hours for 10 years to get to that point.

[Onairjunkie]

@WorkWorkAngelica

I need to know what *@fruitandflowers* does too! My DH works in finance for a large company and although he earns approx £250k he dreams of doing something bigger and better and having more control over what he does. He's finding it hard to leave the security of what he has. His job is 8.30 - 6ish with a lot of checking the markets out of hours (for his own interest) and a late night/weekend once a week or so. Not unmanageable especially currently as WFH.

I don't earn 6 figures, just £72k but in the public sector so in general the hours, flexibility and support are very good and family friendly and there's no clawing my way to the top or anything.

I think they mentioned ‘stock’ so I imagine trader/investment banker. Serious bonus money in that sector, too.

[notalwaysalondoner]

I'd say both DH and I are - but there is a lot of stress, partly because we are both focused on keeping our hours done.

We're both 30ish and our jobs are in London. I earn ~£160k including bonus. I'm a management consultant and typically work 8am-630pm. However, it's a stressful job due to switching projects and teams and clients every 8-12 weeks, constantly feeling on the back foot that the clients know more than I do, and being surrounded by others who happily work 8am-11pm or later Monday-Friday. I work maybe one evening a fortnight later than that but that's normally waiting for one of my reports to send me a document, I then review it at 9-10pm then send it on to the client, so I'm not working solidly all evening. I very rarely work on the weekend, I've only worked more than 1-2 hours once ever.

DH is very senior in a small fintech company/start up of around 50 people. He also earns £160k but has a lot of share options. His job is probably even more stressful than mine. He also typically works 8am-7pm. He has a lot less strict boundaries than me though about working outside of that - he'll often check emails at 7am or 10pm or on the weekend. He doesn't mind though - but it's him choosing to do this (because he's so senior) not someone else making him work late. It definitely feels that for what we're paid our hours are pretty good - but the stress offsets that. Neither of them are jobs we can just leave at the door.

[WorkWorkAngelica]

I think they mentioned ‘stock’ so I imagine trader/investment banker. Serious bonus money in that sector, too

I presume something along those lines. DH is a fund manager and earns more than the traders in his office, and there are no real investment bank opportunities here (don't think he fancies that anyway). I think he'd quite like to play around with cryptocurrency all day in his pants and make millions that way... 🤔

[PseuDenim]

Work in property, 40 years old with a family, am on circa £110k but could probably earn more if I moved to a different company. However where I am is v chilled and flexible and I have never worked outside my contracted hours of 8.30-5.30, except where evening or overseas events occur (this is maybe 2/3 times a year).

I have been in the industry for 15 years though and worked my way up.

[Juno231]

OH and I are early 30s and earn around 105k each - he works 9-6 and I work 9-5. He's in investment banking and I'm in asset management.

[fruitandflowers]

I am the regional CEO for a big fast growing company (one you have definitely heard of). I have a lot of equity and my long term incentive plans are starting to vest which just gives me more and more liquid stock and/or cash each year as our stock price keeps going up.

I say, coast as a relative thing. I am not sure many of you would necessarily agree it’s coasting! My definition of work life balance is that my core hours are fundamentally 830-6pm ish. I put my kids to bed every night. But I am constantly “on”, I will do late calls / work a weekend / catch up on emails if required. In practice I don’t need to do so that much because I know what I’m doing and am in control of my own schedule. But I am paid to be responsible for my business & its outcomes and if things aren’t going well I am absolutely on the hook for that.

I could definitely get paid more by going for a group CEO role or into eg a PE-backed turnaround situation where you get some danger money, but both of those would
be significantly more stressful and require longer hours/more long haul travel (when covid normalises) so I am happy where I am right now.

[WorkWorkAngelica]

That sounds amazing. I love hearing about jobs I don't really have the first clue about. There are so many opportunities out there really, it's just getting yourself into the right place to grab them.

I went to law school and became a lawyer, didn't really think outside the box.

[wheresmymojo]

I definitely can't help with this one - I left my six figure job last year and took a massive pay cut to do something I really enjoy that is 9-5pm and we are skint but happy and chilled!

[wheresmymojo]

@Lillyrosegrace778

Have you thought of contracting or consulting? I’m not a high earner by your definition myself but I know people who don’t have to give it all to get good money as contractors. The hours tend to be stable and work is a business transaction not taking over your life. The downside is no holiday or sick pay and sometimes job insecurity. Also you get less training and development.

I was a contractor and worked massively long hours. The market has also dried up due to IR35 tax reforms.

[wheresmymojo]

@SaltAndVinegarSandwiches

Depends what counts as high earner and crazy hours. I used to work in finance and DH still does. Hours were mainly 9-5 sometimes 6. Occasional odd hour or two working from home at the weekend. Base salary was £150k with a bonus of around £200k or more.

What sort of finance role?

[Llamasally]

This is really fascinating. I wonder if it is a company culture thing, rather than a salary level issue - looking at some of these salaries vs hours maybe I need to think about going elsewhere for future promotions!

[Llamasally]

Yes a friend who consults gives me the impression it has recently become more difficult/less lucrative. We have also seen a few we work with take in house roles lately.

[Hawse]

@Hyperion100

Before anyone falls in to a sprial of depression about how little they earn in comparison to the salaries on this thread....these are not normal salaries.

This, This, This!! Not normal salaries at all for the UK.

Also, I think its worth pointing out that a lower salary in the civil service, can definitely net as much as some of these much higher salaries in terms of benefits (be they flexible working, holiday entitlement, maternity leave, but especially the pension). I think my husband worked it out a while ago, that you'd need a 20-30k+ pay increase once leaving the civil service (plus other entitlements) to make it even worth it as the pension is so good. So, a Grade 6 in the CS is similar to perhaps a 90-100k elsewhere. I know plenty magic circle laywers who left because they were working insane hours, moved to the CS, and now have an insanely pleasant time of it, and its worth it to them. So I think that would fit in the realm of 1) higher earner, and 2) pleasant life.

[Marcydarcy7867]

I’m also going to say that CS offers great work and decent hours. But the pay is truly crap. Even with benefits I’d say it’s half what you’d get in the private sector. Plus the private sector is much better at work/life balance these days.

[Marcydarcy7867]

A grade 6 lawyer is paid £64k in London...

[Marcydarcy7867]

Whereas a 10 year PQE at a private firm would be on £150k plus

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

Dh and I.
My salary would be 6 figs including bonus if I worked 5/5. Atm I only work 4/5.

I work 9-5 and rarely do any extra. Although actually during our one busy month of the year I will do a bit extra in the evenings. I get good annual leave and work mostly from home. I work in a field that comes under the accountancy umbrella and I'm a chartered accountant, sort of middle management level. My bosses boss reports to the CFO, iyswim. I've got young kids and am a solid "good" performer but not angling for promotion at all.

DH earns something like 170k all in. He does tend to work a bit longer than me (sort of 9-6, then often does an extra hour in the evening when busy). But doesnt work on weekends or holidays. He is in an investment advisory capacity, has 3 different chartered qualifications.

In both cases we have highly specialised skills and experience that means we are paid for our knowledge and decision making/judgement capability. In addition to the fact that our expertise means we can often answer a question or solve a problem very quickly that someone less expert would need to go away and spend time to research/figure out. We deal in big numbers money wise so can add a lot of pound value so to speak.

[gabsdot]

My DH has a well paid job 110K (Euro) He's a mid level manager in a large global company. He manages 12 people.
He works a fairly standard 40 hour week. Never any weekends and if he works in the evening it's because he took a long lunch or started late.
His company are very into employee wellbeing. There isn't a culture of working a lot of unpaid overtime.

[PegasusReturns]

Receipt of stock as part of a remuneration package is fairly common in listed companies.

As part of your bonus cycle you’re typical awarded cash and then a stock allocation. The stock allocation is typically the largest part of your overall package.

So for example you might be awarded £1m over four years. You’ll get nothing for a year and then every year for the following three years an equal portion of the stock will vest. At that point you can hang on to it or cash it in.

It serves two purposes: one you’re invested in ensuring the company performs because your £1m stock then rises and two you find it very difficult to leave because each year brings the vesting of another tranche of stock, as consecutive year plans vest concurrently.

If you are going to work for a listed company you should always negotiate hard on stock options.

[shreddednips]

It depends on what you mean by high-paying. I only work part time but would earn 60k plus if I scaled up to full time. I very rarely work outside of my 15 hours and have a good work-life balance.

I'm a freelance copywriter, so I have plenty of control over what I do and when I work. However, as other posters have said, I had to put in years of work on worse money working ridiculous hours to build up a good reputation and be able to pick and choose.