to ask what the "stereotypical 6 figure MN mum" does?

[TigerJoy]

And how can the rest of us get a job like that?!

We don't tell people how much we earn or what we sold our homes for

People can see your home value on Zoopla

@ComtesseDeSpair I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the people talking about the people they know.

NHS consultant (6 figure only including on call/overtime pay).
State school attendee and only 1 of 2 in my year who went to med school, FWIW.

High level management in oil and gas/moving to renewables. I was lucky to enter the industry at the right time, rather than hard-working. Two kids only, DD born when I was 34 and DS at 37.

I work at an international organisation as a diplomat

I work in retail buying. Absolutely nothing to do with my degree. I am quite analytical and I work on the financial side. Late 30s, been earning over 100k for about 3 years, around 80k for 3-4 years prior. I don’t work a lot of hours but I am very good at what I do, my job is just a really good match for my strengths and personal interests. I had a year out when I had one DC. Work full time.

Friends that earn over 100k, software devs, Amazon, doctors, lawyers. Lots abroad where sake jobs pay a lot better. UK salaries are really crap and cost of living is really high.

DH moved up through the ranks in one industry, into a good wage but not 6 figures. Then he did some consultancy for a more wide reaching job title (PAYE not for himself) and then has gone into banking, although not actually banking IYSWIM, much later in life and now on 6 figures plus insane bonuses. It’s v related to what he did when he was working his way up in original industry and this has been a learning curve but he’s quick on his feet in that regard. I am quick to pick up new stuff but there’s no way I could manage the pressure of what he does. Should say it’s pretty niche at this level and took him a long while to make the right move.

I never really got much higher than 52k (in 2015) and that was in a lucrative industry but the arse fell out of it and I couldn’t stay.

I now work in charity sector for not great money, and fixed term contracts, but I make a difference and I care about it.

*edited to add detail

Some will be City lawyers. A lot of the bigger firms start af £125k on qualification 3 years post law degree. Chunky annual increases and bonuses soon ramp up too.

I’m not in the £100k club but I am a freelance writer, I’ve been doing it for about 5 years. I’d only been doing it a year or so when my little one arrived and have managed to continue building it up (and thankfully can do more now thanks to nursery and nearly school!)

This year I’m projected to earn £65-70k working 3 days per week (although it was 2.5 for 9 months of that).

Downside is that I now can’t imagine how I’d be able to keep this up with a second child, so might be semi-forced into one-and-done or losing a lot of the business I’ve worked so hard for.

Insurance broker - live in Scotland.

This exactly. I find this recurring trope that it’s all made up absolutely bizarre. What on earth would you gain from pretending to be much richer than you are to people you will never meet?

I think it’s very telling that women who claim to be well paid are assumed to be fantasists because, well, obviously it’s not possible for a woman to earn that much money.

It is possible, absolutely. It’s fairly uncommon and it’s not necessarily what everyone should want and it certainly doesn’t define a good career. But don’t pull people down by insisting that they must be liars.

For women to be able to progress in society they need to be able to see that progress by others like them is possible. Telling them they are all liars is so diminishing and counterproductive. And frankly it just makes some of you sound jealous.

In my case, it did start at school and then university and a city law firm. So was earning £100k in my 20s (in the 90s). For my first maternity leave, I went back when my dc was 5 months old - full time. My sister had a similar path although was an accountant, moved into a bank and earns way more than that now.

I'm no longer a lawyer, but do earn 6 figures as a CEO. Had I stayed in my first job, I'd be earning well over a million now!

I think for all the people who are earning loads because they've set up their own business, there'll be far more who've gone the traditional route of being a lawyer/banker/accountant/IT person (or whatever). It's boring but its about good exam results, a degree and working your arse off to start with at least (in probably not a very exciting job).

Media. Definitely didn’t go into it for the money!!

certain areas of law, finance, tech, property development, pharmaceutical research, certain areas of medicine (e.g., plastic surgeons) etc…

Having RTFT but just wanted to comment that not all 'hard work' is equal.

For some people, they've genuinely spent 10+ years doing 70+ hour weeks, and/or been doing very challenging qualifications whilst working and/or been in inherently stressful jobs and/or having to do a huge amount of reading/staying current with their subject and/or a lot of out-of-hours travelling and/or networking.

This will have taken huge amounts of energy, focus, tenacity, being aware of what to say to whom, and no doubt having a thick skin and the ability to grit one's teeth and power through. And potentially overcome a breakdown or two.

I know people who've 'worked hard' but it hasn't looked like this.

Local comp
Red brick uni
Post grad vocational qualification.
Straight into training in legal profession.
Qualified after a year.
Self-employed so had to have large gap between children. Could only afford 4 months mat leave with child 1 and 6 months with child 2.
Spent about a decade taking virtually no time off at all.
Have taken 1 sick day in over 20 years. Worked through having covid twice.
Now try and manage my time to be off when the kids are, but diary is unpredictable. Still pull very late nights a few times a year.

A full time first year consultant outside of London in the NHS (no private work) earns £93. Add oncall/overtime and it's around £100k.

Oil & Gas industry as an engineer. Boo hiss

Why would they be jealous? They are all married to "high earners" whose careers they altruisticly facilitated by not working.🤣

Financial service sales and partner is in IT for a top 4 bank

I don't but work with people (women) who do:

Clever
Oxbridge or similar
Some did a stint in Whitehall/law/banking
Now I think they earn £150+ plus £300k+ bonus.
They're the kind of people who can turn their hand at anything.
Intense and taxing work, lots of foreign travel.

I am in admin and earn £60k + £30k bonus (so I'm nearly at the mumsnet mythical salary!)

It would be interesting to see if anyone here works for the big four. I'm sure their starting salary is something like £80k?

Tell your children to study: maths, economics and politics!

I didn’t go to university and due to family issues didn’t even get many GCSEs.

I started work in a supermarket at 16, transferred to their head office providing 1st line tech support, all training on the job. Did various jobs in IT at the same company. Took a 10 year break to have the DC and went back into a 1st line support role at a different company.
Took advantage of every training opportunity and learnt a very niche area. I now contract and can earn £750 a day

I loved being a merchandiser. Bloody pandemic. My company closed down March 2020 and I've retrained but I do miss it.

I'm retraining in Financial Services. You can make what you like as a mortgage adviser, man or woman, but the highest earner at my firm is available to clients pretty much 24/7 and I'm not doing that.

There are some high up women in compliance at our network but they're all over 50, grown up kids.

Mumsanetta · Today 17:02

Genuine question - how many times in your career have you had to sleep under your desk because you didn’t have time to go home? How many weekends and nights have you worked? How many times have you had to fly home early from holiday or cancel your holiday because of work demands?

All the time when younger (Media), how I have any friends left is beyond me. Fairly well paid now. Still stressful, still some weekends, but the sleeping at the office and all-nighters - not any more.