To ask if you don't have a degree and earn a good salary...

[atcrossroad]

What do you do and how did you get into it?

No degree, in HR earning £70k (it's taken me 10 years of experience to get to this salary) and I completed the HR qualification at night college when I started out (paid for by the company I worked at)

Also work in HR and earn £70k.

Sales.

Hit the higher tax bracket when working 15-ish days a month, but generally choose to work about half that and still earn decently well.

I am noticing all the jobs are falling into management type business roles, finance, tech or trades.

Of course there will always be the odd one that doesn't fit the trend but I doubt you will find many nursery nurses for example on here.

No degree. Contractor in IT (usually government IT transformation programmes).
Worked as a PA to start with, volunteered on projects whilst in PA role for large consultancy, employers paid for my project management qualifications, worked my way up and hopped jobs as I gained experience in perm roles. After my son was born I never went back to perm role as I knew I wanted to have a shot at raking it in in order to buy a house.
I now earn 160k after tax (2 roles).
The roles I have done Business Change consultant, BA, Project Manager, Agile Delivery Manager, Change Manager, Head of Change, Release and Deployment.
Contracting pays well but you dont enjoy the benefits of permanent employment. My last perm role was 90K per annum.

Hope that's helpful.

I'm 1 year into a new career in web development, and earn £55k working flexibly from home. It's my dream come true. I started learning about web dev during the first lock down, and used free resources online to learn enough to get this job. I do have a degree, but it is totally unrelated and had nothing to do with getting this job.

Chartered accountant. Did A levels, joined an audit firm and did AAT then ACA.

DH has a degree, also ACA, and we earn pretty much the same amount.

Same here.

Marketing. I did a marketing degree which has proved pretty useless. A lot of people I work with didn’t go to uni, they got an entry level marketing role and worked their way up.

I’ve never been asked about my degree during an interview, or asked to produce my degree certificate. Actual, tangible marketing experience is preferred over a degree.

I’m 31 and earn £70k.

My DH works in IT and earns similar. He got mostly Ds and Es in his GCSEs and didn’t go to uni.

Relative has no degree. In finance/tech and earns well into 6 figures.

Cost engineer/controller

Fell into it when I moved to another city and a job was going on a construction project, 28 years ago. You don’t need a degree, you take care of budget tracking, change management, forecasting, engineering progress, construction progress, productivity. Can be home office or site based. Very interesting as there are different roles.

i just finished a degree in business management purely because I had difficulty getting a job in the US. 8 yrs ago without a degree Us115k. Hired a Yr ago before I completed on US$150k. About to send my certificate and ask for a pay rise.

EA at an investment bank- have been a financial assistant for over 15years- good solid cv, enough movement for progression, enough years to show dedication!

15yrs who in Uk £40k. For inflation payrises only at say 3% a Yr it would be £60k now

My husband is on £60k with no degree. Worked his way up. I know that’s not a huge salary but we’re in the North East so it stretches quite far!

They're male dominated because women haven't considered them as a job.

Left school with crap A levels, did a CIPD HR level 5 course in the evenings after work when I was 21 all funded by myself. Got myself a HR Admin role and worked my way up to an HR manager role by 26. Promoted last year aged 32 to Head of HR managing the whole HR function for a large company on £72k a year. Sometimes I feel like I have imposter syndrome but then I remember how much hard work I put in!

Also my partner is a digger driver and left school at 16 with not a qualification to his name and earns £240 a day, self employed.

Not me, but my best friend earns £75k, no degree or a levels. Works in IT and worked her way up. She always says how she was lucky as she was in the right place when people left, resulting in regular promotions. She's a hard worker though and very reliable which I think is probably a big contributor.

My husband has a degree but this is completely unrelated to his job. He works in recruitment and earns six figures. He has taken very strategic steps in his career though and has always had a detailed plan of where he’s heading.

I have two degrees, going to be three, and don’t even earn 30k. Will go up eventually though, not massively mind you.

Relative of mine earns 6 figures in the journalism industry, not a qualification to her name. Not what you know but who you know!

I'm in insurance and work for one of the big global broking houses.
Earn £63k a year plus bonus. I started out doing insurance claims in a call centre and worked my way up and switched to commercial insurance.
I have completed by insurance qualifications though paid for by work.

I work in HR and I was simply in the right place at the right time.

Health and Safety.

no degree but learning on job mixed with part time study at 30+

Package circa £100k

I’m a contractor in Content Management/ Content design and mainly work on large public sector projects. No degree and no qualifications in my field - just experience. I earn between £300 and £480 per day and tend to work on contracts between 6 and 18months long. Downside is no paid holiday or sick days and no job security as once your contract is over you’re looking for another job to get lined up in time.

You need to make good contacts with the agencies that specialise in contracting but I’m hoping to always stay in this sector as the money is too good to go back to a regular perm position where I’d earn around £40k average. If you specialise in other areas or more niche IT you can earn waaaaay more per day though. I’m fairly cheap as contractor rates go.

My sister only has Gcses. Now earns at least 45K as a manager in her particular industry.