To ask what your high-paying jobs are?

[patienceandprudence]

My DD is in uni doing History. We’re working class through and through, and while she we were chatting about jobs she said that more than anything she’d like to earn a good amount. I’ve no idea what to suggest and DD only came up with a role in the Civil Service.

I always see people on here with high-paying jobs. What could she do with a History degree?

Advertising - you can earn well, not the 6 figures you can get from management consulting for example (I'm on £80k) but you don't need to sell your soul and live at the office. It's creative, you need strong interpersonal skills and work hard but no 2 days are the same!

DH works in pharmaceuticals as a clinical director and earns 170K. it's certainly possible outside London, we are in a town just outside Edinburgh. He does have a PhD though, and works about 16 hours a day and travels constantly. It's taken a good lot of years to get to the level he is at.
Initial degree was in biology, PhD in toxicology.

I'm an academic and I earn six figures. Not in the UK though.

Corporate comms in the City. Just over £100k a year including bonus.

My DH earns just over 100k in a technical IT role at the age of 36 (outside of London). He didn't go to a brilliant uni and after losing his mum unexpectedly at the start of his final year he ended up with a 2:2. He got there by taking a low paying graduate scheme role in the IT service desk of a large company. He had to help a lot of very senior execs with IT issues and they helped push him along into more technical roles because he was helpful and they knew his name. Never in a million years would he have thought he could do his job when leaving uni but they've trained him with each move. He does some occasional late finishes for emergencies but usually works fewer hours that I do in my admin role.

I’m a lawyer. Well trodden path for History grads but it’s still v elitist and the highly paid roles are dominated by Oxbridge etc. The First will be key. And not all lawyers are paid super well, there’s an element of selling your soul to work in the City which is the big ££

I know quite a lot of highly paid people but please please please remind your daughter that it’s far more important to find something she enjoys. Don’t just chase the money - if ultimately her heart is in history/academia then a lot of the (admittedly highly paid) jobs on this thread will probably bore her to tears.

I work in tech but,

Law
HR
Software engineering
Project management in tech
Recruitment
Consultancy ( big 4 have loads of grad schemes)
Accountancy - can go into it with social science degree - know people who have

[quote TheProvincialLady]@canyoutoleratethis

I was a career changer and also took 6 years out of work to be a SAHM. I took a temporary admin role in an NHS project management. office as I wanted to try out the NHS/project management (having had a tiny amount of previous PM experience). I was promoted within 4 months and had another promotion to a substantive role within the year, after I did a PM qualification. Then another, then another and then I changed organisation and into a more senior role. I have had another promotion in the year I have been here and another is on the cards. The whole process took 5 years for me, from £20k to £65k and I’m happy with that as I have also had a lot of flexibility and work life balance. Less so now.

The NHS graduate scheme seems to be a good spring board for many.[/quote]
That’s really helpful, thanks! I’m currently a SAHM and fancy a career change when I do return to the workplace, so I’m exploring all sorts of options and NHS PM had caught my eye. You’ve clearly done great in the field, and progressed well. Presumably your PM qualification helped - can I ask, how long was the course, and did your employer help finance it/support you as you trained?

@canyoutoleratethis thank you 😊 I did the dreaded Prince2 (practitioner) as that’s what my local NHS organisations use. I self funded but got a really good deal. I think it cost me £700, all online self learning. Took me a few weeks to do in my spare time.

@MauveMavis

Where does she want to be in the UK? What does high earning mean to her?

Law outside City doesn't pay that well (my brother is a history grad. solicitor). My SIL is a GP and earns much better than him.

Law outside London does pay well if you are at a good firm.

@FifiRebel

I am a history graduate turned Civil Servant - my starting salary was £27k, £53k at 23 and I am now on £75k at 31

Given I know the pay bands for the civil service and how long it takes to move from graduate upwards....you my friend...are not being truthful.

Senior civil servant.

If you are ever interested in what a civil servant earns, ask their grade. Then Google it. You'll then get the pay bands. All released under FOI (except rather specialist parts)

[quote nobucketlist]@galacticpixels
I know lots of people working in different roles in tech companies with humanities degrees. Even a lot of the software developers didn't study computer science in uni and instead did 1 or 2 year conversion courses.

can you recommend any conversion courses for tech or do you mean Masters?
Thanks [/quote]
You don't even need 1-2 years. 3 month bootcamps are popular because they give you the exact skills and tech stack that employers want. Employers don't always want a database expert or a cryptography type, they need someone who can built Javascript applications in React. The bootcamps teach React, the employers get their React devs and everyone's happy.

Hiring is mental in tech right now. Companies are desperate for devs and they can't be found, and the bootcampers finishing 12-16 week courses are straight into junior roles.

Given I know the pay bands for the civil service and how long it takes to move from graduate upwards....you my friend...are not being truthful. Senior civil servant.

As you're a senior civil servant you'll know how much diversity there is across the 400,000+ workers then. I entered as an S grade and was a G7 within 18 months not yet 30s. I know G6s in their 20s (just look at DIT) it really isn't that unfeasible that someone could be a SCS1 in their 30s, especially if they have a specialism (I do, I didn't enter under any type of scheme). But it's not very common admittedly.

@YouJustDoYou

Do six-figure jobs exist outside of London without starting your own business?

Pilot. Plumber (my ex bil is a plumber and is on almost as my pilot relative). Lawyer. IT (you can earn thousands in IT if you're on-call).

My DH is a pilot. You absolutely do not walk into a high-paying role as a pilot. Especially now! He's military, lots of people leave the military to become civilian pilots. Funny old thing, an awful lot of them are coming back to the military as they can't get a job.

the most elite unis don't have vocational degrees.

In one sense they offer the most vocational degrees - I’m not aware of mainstream universities beyond Oxbridge offering courses in Christian ministry!

Not to mention engineering, chemical engineering, manufacturing engineering, architecture, medicine, veterinary medicine, management, law, and computer science, of course.

@user26549

Given I know the pay bands for the civil service and how long it takes to move from graduate upwards....you my friend...are not being truthful. Senior civil servant.

As you're a senior civil servant you'll know how much diversity there is across the 400,000+ workers then. I entered as an S grade and was a G7 within 18 months not yet 30s. I know G6s in their 20s (just look at DIT) it really isn't that unfeasible that someone could be a SCS1 in their 30s, especially if they have a specialism (I do, I didn't enter under any type of scheme). But it's not very common admittedly.

I do...and it's not common. It's the wage band at 23 which gives it away....

I do...and it's not common. It's the wage band at 23 which gives it away....

A 23 year old graduate couldn't be a H grade? Or do you mean because of the time that's lapsed, could it have been an S grade band 10 years ago? The bands seem to vary so much across departments your confidence is confusing me!

Presumably if the poster was a graduate, 23 would be 2 years maximum after starting in the civil service. Is it a likely career path to have been promoted to a grade that earns £53k I suppose. I wouldn't say impossible in a technical role, is a history graduate that? Even on fast track or a graduate scheme that projectory would be challenging.

I did 2 politics degrees and now I'm a consultant in a huge firm. Been here under 2 years and earn US $85K. Consultancies seem to like hiring analysts from random backgrounds. My job has nothing to do with my degree.

Oh wait sorry I misread it and thought the poster was on £27k at 23, but see they're saying £53k which is presumably G7 (or G6 actually if it was a while ago) I can understand the scepticism now. I'd love to hear how she managed it!

I’m a copywriter and freelance editor. I love my job, but it doesn’t exactly make me flush.

My husband, however, is a Big Law partner in NYC. It varies from firm to firm, but you will earn $700k-$15m as an equity partner at a NYC law firm. The upper figure is rare, but more common than you might expect. And it doesn’t just take smarts and graduating Harvard or Yale Law—it takes a certain kind of person, and one who doesn’t mind regular tongue lashings from clients and partners, cancelled vacations, missed birthdays etc. along the way.

@user265499

Oh wait sorry I misread it and thought the poster was on £27k at 23, but see they're saying £53k which is presumably G7 (or G6 actually if it was a while ago) I can understand the scepticism now. I'd love to hear how she managed it!

That's my point. If you are earning 53k at 23, you got through a lot of grades to get there from a graduate joining at 21 or 22. Not even fast stream can manage that.

Hedge fund manager? I know nothing about it but have read they make hundreds of thousands, if not millions!

This is worth reading:

"The median salary for full-time work was also higher year on year, £31,461 for full-time work and £11,234 for part-time work.The median salary in the UK is a better number to compare your wage against, as it is less suspectible to being skewed by a few people earning a considerable amount of money. The median sits directly in the centre of all the wages, a true "middlepoint" against which you can judge your own earnings, rather than the average which is affected by the 10% who earn over £62,589+ per year"

People seem to all be earning huge salaries on here, whilst possible, it's also easy to make it up.

I suppose the advise I would give to your daughter is "expectation management". Not all your job is fun and large parts of it are boring. However, if you want to earn more you are more likely to sacrifice your time. It's takes a lot of experience to earn good money and have reasonable hours and expectations. Mainly because you've learnt where you add value and where you can say no.

If you want to get ahead, get a commission in the army or navy (i.e be an officer), get practical experience for 5 + years, then move to finance or accounting or law. But having an edge, experience of leading people can add real value. There's other places you can get this experience as well. But don't work so much you don't actually enjoy your life. No one dies wishing they'd worked more.