Please tell me where all these cushy, well paid jobs are...and how I can get one!

[malificent7]

Working in health care ...love it but high stress, poor pay. Not getting any younger.

Someone on the work thread said they know lots of people in cushy, well paid jobs. Posting here for traffic...where are they?!
Disn't have to be interesting or worthy...just cushy and well-paid!

Well, we all have different ideas of 'cushy'.

My mate earns £65k driving arctics up and down the motorway delivering chocolate to depots. No difficult/tight manoeuvring - all main roads and huge depots.

Technically he's on 4on/4off but he does 5/3 with the fifth day at double pay. Works eight hours a day and has a three day weekend every week and earns £65k.

As PPs have said there are cushy and well paid jobs but they aren’t advertised. They are usually people who have built a reputation doing something for a company for a long time who then go freelance or cut their hours to suit family life etc.

This. My job is arguably "cushy" but its backed by years and years of experience and expertise that very few people have. What to me is not too demanding is to other people quite stressful, so i can demand a high pay.

Tech, Tech, Tech

@cakehoover123 has covered it with software development or IT related roles. I work with teams who develop software but have a role in the process around ensuring the software is ready to be used (Change and Release Management).

Roles are flexible (I've been into the office 3 times over the last year), I work around my home commitments as the emphasis is on delivery and not hours worked, the pay is >100k and I don't feel stressed in it but, as others have said, this is subjective. Like others have said there are times you may need to put a bit of extra in but it's all balanced out. Mostly male dominated but I'm seeing more women in the field now.

However, as mentioned by pps some years of general dogsbody and graft happened before this stage.

I also flit between organisational change roles (again in IT transformation programmes) which I think was recommended above but you'd have to be adept at sniffing out the cushy ones which you can't always tell at interview. I recall starring day 1 of a role and meeting my boss and around lunchtime she said she was driving back home to beat the traffic and would see me whenever. It was complete WFH but I had no idea. Happy days (for me).

IT recruitment
"HR Manager"
"Cyber Security Manager"
"Software product delivery lead"

These are all jobs where the amount of work and skill is negligible and the pay is great.

The last one, there is such demand that with a bit of luck, you can get in there and all you have to do is fake it hard for the first 6 months and make a good impression and then you are GOLDEN. Anything wrong - you can just blame it on others.

My best friend is doing that, as a contractor. He demands 650 quid per day, pays 20% tax and is travelling the world almost as much as he is at home.
He bought his third house now for investment.

• He still asks me for help when he needs to program the boiler...

I would have a nervous breakdown if I was told I had to do that, no matter how much training I had.

Just proves the point that we all define cushy differently.

i work in IT industry. Need qualification and lots and lots of experience to be where i am now. I earn 80k now and pretty happy about it. But i know people who earn six or even seven figures in my industry. ‘cushy’ job aren’t advertised. Usuallya we are scouted by agent.

Indeed.

FWIW, I used to be in bid management and drive trucks too now. It's no more stressful for me than driving a car nowadays. I'm far more chilled than when I was always on the phone/in meetings/giving presentations online.

I think my job is cushy, I work in an analytical role 3 days a week, mostly from home, one in the office. Not much stress, can go to all school events if need be and do pick ups from school, and do work after. It's well paid but not very high salary (between 50k to 60k, depending on bonus for full time, but I get paid pro rata).

No such thing exists, unless you want to catch flies and be some onlooker at work, be in an environment where you’ve just been forgotten about.

No real idea whether I done the right thing with a wfh shift work job at 25k as opposed to a 20k Monday to Friday role in person in equally nice surroundings same industry. Pretty gutted but I tell myself I went on to do something partially useful no matter happens.

I’ve even even got drawn into querying whether we’d only earn half a month’s pay, completely forgot this was the most I’d ever earnt! why should it have bothered me ahh but I completely forgot.

I think perspective is important here. From the outside, my husband's work set up looks pretty cushy. He is very well paid, has some great flexibilities and enjoys his work. It's just a snapshot in time though. They don't seem the years of really hard graft that brought him to this point. Likewise, I have a very nice seeming job. We're both very happy with our work and live a lovely life together. However, I also worked very hard and have made significant choices leading to where I am now. A proactive approach and heavy focus on what your values are and how you can best achieve them is important, along with a willingness to make changes when necessary. Luck also plays a part too...but you've got to be alert and proactive to harness luck.

Think about what you really want, identify your key targets and investigate how you could use your health care experience in a different setting. Goodbluck6

I think being a subject matter expert is a good path to a cushy job.

If you can solve problems quickly based on your experience and knowledge then you can add a huge amount of value (and be well paid) without expending much energy or time (cushy).

My DH and I both have what you’d probably describe as well-paid cushy jobs, but when we were training/at the junior levels they could not have been less cushy, they were bloody awful.

Erm i think if they existed we would would be doing them, but let me know if you find out.

My sisters friend is a life coach, people for some reason pay her a ridiculous amount of money for her to talk to them. She nets many thousand a month!

Well yeah, at least I'm honest. I worked for 15 years as a band 5 and nearly destroyed my physical and mental health so I'll take my cushy office role while it's there. I'm not a martyr.
As I mentioned, I fully believe the front line staff should be paid more than I am. but they aren't so I'm looking after me and my family. All power to those who can hack it for longer, they're stronger than me

I was about to say this! No one walks into a well paid cushy job. I have a well paid job (£55k for 30 hrs a week) and some days are cushy! But other days I’m pulling my hair out. You have to take the rough with the smooth. But it took me 15 years to get here.

Ooh ooh I know the answer to this one. You have to be bad at you job and work in a sector that’s almost impossible to be sacked from (thinking local authority, NHS here) - then you just get promoted out of the role or department you are messing up. Apparently the only way to get rid of a ‘problem’

… on a more serious note the answer is ‘know your worth’. Never accept the advertised rate and negotiate the salary and benefits you want. My son recently got another £15k on top of an already increased (from previous role) job offer - just by asking for what he knew others would pay. Same with my daughter (was a public sector role) but said she wanted to start on the top of the advertised scale. When they said ‘no’ and furthest their policy would allow them to go to was mid-point, she asked them to reconsider and gave reasons why (e.g previous salary, professional development she had paid for and they would benefit from and extra travel expectations)

You can try and get a training in Data Governance. They offer very good pay as it’s a shortage occupation. Most Data Governance Analysts starts earning from 50k upwards and they are mostly hybrid roles. You can check gov.uk -skills bootcamp - pick your location- digital. There you have all sort of IT related roles you can do, you can take it from there or go with a private trainer instead. Good luck

100% this. I requalified starting at age 27 and after a lot of hard work, cost of post graduate courses and working damn hard with the added work of having a young family (a lot of late night studying, sweat and tears) I finally got what you are looking for in my early 40s. It doesn't land in your lap, you have to want it and work hard for it.

Apparently #lazygirljob is trending on Tiktok. According to my young relatives, check it out 🤣

This. I've literally been dealing with one of these muppets today, and it absolutely is an affliction of the pale, male and stale. Its very frustrating for those of us who have worked long and hard to get where we are.

I've been working more than 30 years and had some dreadful shitty jobs at the beginning, but particularly in the last 10, I've been really focused on picking up NED positions, broadening my experience alongside the day job through volunteering and networking, and adding to my doctoral level qualifications to get the the highest level of professional recognition. This means that I can now command a day rate of about 2k.

People who say, "focus on what you find easy and others are impressed with" are absolutely right, as are those who say you should move around, to get experience and to move up the ladder. A lot of my work is now easy, and I can produce it quicker than people would expect, partly from breadth of experience and partly from playing to my strengths.

I'm now living what others would consider a cushy life, work comes from recommendations, I don't have to hustle and people seek me out, the foundations I put in place mean I find it fairly easy, and no one blinks when I charge them an absolute fortune for my time. As a result I only work a couple of days a week, but getting here wasn't cushy, in 10 years I probably worked about 20 years of hours....

Perhaps it’s other people’s perceptions of other people’s jobs. You don’t know until you’re doing the job yourself.

these things do not happen by chance and are usually meant to be...or whatever. surely not everyone just decides and lands a job that pays 150 ooo a year

@Nordicrain which professional qualifications are these though?
Post graduate niche ones? A trade?
Vocational?

I'm always drawn to these threads as I really want to improve my own situation but find a lot of the replies a bit vague.