To ask women for the steps you took to get to 100k

[madasawethen]

If you're a woman making 100k or over, what steps did you take to get there.

Job title(it can be general like manager, solicitor)
Training
How long it took?
Any tips or advice for others who want to get there?

I'm 45 and just landed finance job I've wanted for ages. I'm on 20K now. I want to earn 100K someday, but is it likely to happen? I want to be positive about my career.

Sounds like an uncommon path. What’s the job and what sort of firm are you in? What are your qualifications? Have you career changed form something you excelled at?

@RainCoffeeBook what do you think the best code for a good career is? I have started learning HTML and CSS but wondering if Java or something like python might be a better option 🤔

Consultant (in supply chain) for the past 9 years. My role has always been home based (no UK office) but I initially travelled globally, extremely regularly, and worked very long hours but now mostly working at home and much less travel and shorter hours.

I was previously supply director for Europe in a very large multinational (2 years). Prior to that role I was a senior manager in the same multinational (3 years) and before that, a manager in a different multinational for a few years.

I worked in operations management for years before those roles and got into it because I worked on the shop floor of a factory to pay my way through university (BSc Hons in maths/IT) part time.

My family background was certainly not an indicator of how my career would go. I was the first in my family - even extended family - to get a degree, and no one was in any sort of senior role.

I worked in sales, I was terrible, but I found that I was useful in backoffice functions (operations, program management for IT and legal, internal comms). I maxed out my salary at about £75K in those roles (I was probably 32 or so).

I set up a couple of start-ups, sold them both (two over 10 years).

When I was working for a start-up I owned, I earned anything between £20K a year (which was tough, living in London, with a child in nursery) to £150K a year.

Set myself up as a consultant when I was about 42 (I created a third company for consulting) - charged a day rate of £750-1000. Definitely the best money I ever earned.

I took on a long term role (still consultancy) just before Covid - was brought 'in house' when lockdown came. Was placed on the leadership team of the company a year in - the company merged with a larger competitor late 2021, and I currently sit in an SVP (senior vice president) role, in a backoffice function (operations) and earn approx. £140-160K depending on my bonus.

I have a bog-standard Bachelor's degree in a related field, but that's more luck than judgement.

It hasn't come easy, I've put in the hours, I've had to learn and grow, pretty much constantly, I've never felt comfortable in my role, but I am ambitious, I push, and I know my strengths (joining the dots of requirements across functions, facilitating better relationships between conflicting areas of the business), and I know my weaknesses. That has helped.

Just read back a couple of pages... the 'get into tech' advice is good. That's how I did it.

It's worth remembering that when a start-up gets series funding (Series B or C) they often suddenly have a windfall of $20m to $200m investment - and a huge requirement to scale-up their team (often from 50 to 200 or something) - and at that point they are willing to pay top-dollar for good talent.

I'm not British born, I was 28 when I came to UK , with very limited English. I've run cleaning business for over ten years, then started work at the bank as cashier , then contact centre and now finance. I'm very happy I finally work in area I wanted to, just wondering is it ever possible to have serious career and money for someone like me?

Director/ Business owner, creative industry

2:1 design Degree, London as agency work and 20 years of building a business around family and life.

But finally can draw 100k+ when the profits allow, and grown is looking like this will continue to be the case.

As long and nobody unleashes another pandemic.

I work in Finance.

I took a flight across the Atlantic at 22 years old to try to find a good job in a bank, and after quite a few months looking (working in a clothes shop to live along the way) did get one.

I had to work my way up, dealing with all the sort of things that any woman in a professional environment does, and had my setbacks, but I’m now back in Europe and being paid a very good wage.

This is a great thread, I'm going to send to my 16 year old friends daughter who asks me Q like this.

Asking for wage is a bit crass

Not it is absolutely not! Not on a thread like this. If you don’t want to share that is your prerogative but woman need to know their worth, including what remuneration might look like.

I wince at all the threads on MN where it is implied/explicitly stated that posters make up salaries - there are 1000s of women earning great money. When I started out I had no idea about RSUs, stock options, sign on bonuses, LTIs, relocation and/or housing allowances. I had no idea how valuable my skill set is and how to capitalise on it.

If threads like this help even one women think that there are more options out there then great!

One of the women on my team has a history not dissimilar. She was an immigrant and managed to get herself a job as a cashier in a bank. She wanted to move up to Head Office but was told it just wasn’t possible. She did though and know she works in a support function for an investment bank earning about 65k. She’s in her mid 40s so quite a bit of time for earnings growth if she wants it.

I've honestly felt like me lack of degree has been holding me back, but reading these comments makes me feel like my 7 years at a strategic level counts for more than I recognize.
I'm at a point where the job I was offered is nowhere near what I'm actually doing and I was told yesterday that my role is now changing to essentially a sales one.
I need to recognise my self worth and back myself, until then I guess I take the new sales one and see how I can manipulated that to my advantage in the mean time

I agree that we should speak about salary more, down to theblast penny. The reason its considerd crass to talk about money is the reason for the gender pay gap. When I look back now, I realise that no-one spoke to me about their salaries in my early to mid career because they knew they were all being paid more than me for doing the same job, badly (all men, I've only ever worked in teams of men in IT). The young, friendly, keen to please woman was an easy target for the managers to shave a bit of their staff budget, knowing I wouldn't query it.

It shouldn't be crass to talk about salary, it should be normal so that women k ow they are not being underpaid.

I love your list!

To be honest I simply travelled. A lot of my friends who stayed local to where they trained have remained on lower grades for many years. ( I originally qualified as a mental health nurse) I moved was promoted very quickly. Was able to get more qualifications and move into an area of work which I hadn’t considered before and have had three promotions in 4 yrs. My role is still within health but not as a ‘nurse’ although I do need the qualification and I earn just under 100k

You can learn basic coding online for free, check out Free Code Camp and that's basically a typical bootcamp curriculum. It's quite difficult to sit at home on your own, though, which is why the classroom model is popular.

Then apply for junior roles. There's so much demand that they're happy to interview self taught and bootcamp-taught devs, and often the bootcamps have connections with local tech companies to place graduates. Starting salary 25 to 30k and you can expect to rise fast, if you enjoy it and can be quite self driven.

Getting into analysis and UX is a different route and you'd need to look into it, but I've seen career switchers in both .

Not really true though. I'm sure plenty of us had disinterested parents and went to shit schools. My mum worked in a shop and my dad was a builder. She wanted me to work in a shop too. She didn't know of any other jobs. Even in 2000 she was still wondering why I didn't just get a nice job in M&S. Went to a crap school and a Poly.

Free Code Camp is a great place to start as it's a free website with a full JS/React curriculum. Trying for free without any setup requires is super important as honestly, it can be very marmite and some people write three lines of code and realise they hate it.

After that look up Coding Bootcamp in your nearest city. Look for React ones. Anything jQuery or WordPress is too old fashioned or limiting to be successful for the newcomer. They're about 6 grand but often scholarships and discounts for women, marginalised groups and those in financial need.

Ask the bootcamp which companies they frequently place with. They'll usually have pipelines already set up to place graduates after the course.

Some of the top tier tattooists charge 200 an hour now, and when one visited from overseas... 500 an hour. I mean, they're world class but, yikes! Probably some are even higher.

@Lovelystuff sounds like you’re going about it the right way with learning the basics of HTML and CSS. I would definitely say Java and JavaScript are still very sought after too.

I’ve worked with a lot of developers over the years, and DH is one. Generally what is relevant now won’t be relevant in five years’ time. It’s a great job with high earning potential and a good amount of flexibility, but it does require continual learning, probably more so than in many other roles.

DH is forever doing courses in the evenings to keep his skills up to date. There are a lot of devs out there only working with very basic or ‘old school’ languages/libraries and they’re not the ones who can command the highest salaries. So my advice would be to do some research into what are the most sought after skills right now by looking at loads of jobs (React or Python might be worth a look) and try to find a junior role that will train you up in it, as well as give you the time for individual training time (e.g. DH gets one afternoon a week for learning/courses that his company pays for).

It depends if you prefer back end or front end. I will say that it's harder to break into back end as they tend to prefer computer science degrees there, but I have seen it happen occasionally. Most coming into it self taught or bootcamp so front end - HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Node, maybe some SQL covered in bootcamp, and then a lot of React. Very popular in the UK. But JavaScript is the fundamental at the base of it all.

But if backend is more your thing there are sites where you can learn that too.

Statistically it is true though. The poorer your background the worse your social mobility is.

I agree it's perhaps not massively constructive to the orignal question, and people for sure overcome it, but of course it has an impact. It's quite ignorant to deny the impact of privilege even if you (or someone else) anecdotally wasn't affected.

A magic circle law firm is one if the top 3 or 4 law firms in the UK. They and some of the top US law firms in London pay eye watering salaries in exchange for your soul. NQ salaries are now over £150k. Many work 7 days a week, 12 plus hours a day. Never take full annual leave.

Another lawyer here. Partner in a top 100
commercial law firm outside London.

I am late 30s.

I did a performing arts degree at an RG uni (got a first).

Speak 2 languages at native level.

Did law conversion.

Worked my socks off for 10 plus years to get to 100k, now earn more.

Said yes to everything.

Got on with people, never made a fuss.

Good at bringing in business, building relationships, selling services.

Care about other people around me, help others to develop.

You need a lot of stamina and resilience to get to where I am, and even more to stay there.

Questioning whether it's worth it tbh.