How is your work life balance?

[JulianCasa]

I’m having to work 2-3 hours a night, 4-5 nights a week. I do 40/45 hours actually physically at my job too. It’s not a flexible wfh type job.

I know I need to get out. But I’m wondering if I’ll be out of the frying pan and into the fire or whether other jobs have better work life balance.

So, please tell me what you do and if you have a good work life balance? I am on £40k but I’d actually happily drop down £10k as I’m not actually living my life and it’s not worth it.

I moved to a civil service job and I only need to work the hours I am contracted to do, and if I work more, I can take the time off in lieu.

After years of a supposedly four day a week job but in a culture where people worked 6/7 days most weeks and a lot of evenings, this is eye opening. I took a pay cut. Middle manager pay grades.

I do find “working to fill up the hours” means people do a lot less (even given the hours, some are literally clock watching and don’t care what they do in the time) vs “working til the job is done” when people were driven by a sense of achievement/getting stuff done.

Although my hourly rate sounded ok, a professional job which took years to qualify for, when I worked out the actual hourly rate taking account of the unpaid overtime that was completely the norm, I was on below minimum wage. So I left after some months and retrained for an allied healthcare professional role in the NHS. There can be apprenticeships, it’s not well-paid but the days go quickly, I like helping people, and I leave it at the door. And the hourly rate improves with time, there’s the option of private work and it’s better than what I had. Might not be right thing for you, but I hear you on work/life balance.

I also moved to the Civil Service but there's no clock watching in my team. We're busy without being stressed.

And come 5pm the whole building is empty - even senior management are gone.

I work in school finance. I work 37 hours a week and don't have to do anything extra outside of those hours. The job is very poorly paid and very inflexible though and I really don't enjoy it. I much prefer previous roles working for the council with flexi time, the opportunity to wfh and a more relaxed environment.

I'm contracted 08 30 - 16 30. I don't get a paid lunch break but I never, ever have an opportunity to take it. I don't leave until at least 17 00 on most days and often I work an hour or so at night just to keep on top of things. I've worked out that I barely get minimum wage.

I have applied elsewhere and am awaiting a start date.

I do an admin job at a university that would pay £30k per year if I was full time. I have great work life balance. I leave work and don't need to think about it until the next day. The work's interesting and varied.
Obviously a lot of people will want to earn more than that, but it suits me.

My work life balance is awful but I have a lot of flexibility. So I need to work 80 hours a week but I can decide when. So I often get up at 4am to squeeze some time in before DC wake.

My dh is a civil servant and it's very chilled but productive. It's a brilliant work culture.

My work-life balance is amazing - I run my own business and work about 25-30 hours a week.

I work 8-430. Sometimes have late meetings once a month till 530. I work as a trainer. I occasionally have to prep for a new course but have time when not teaching to do it. If I work past 430 I can take toil. It's great. I'm on mid £60s.
Downside is i travel at least once a month for up to a week. But I do love what I do.

I work a lot but love my job.

I try not to think about work life balance…work is part of life. We spend hours every week at work - try to find something that makes it a meaningful and positive part of life, rather than a time you feel you aren’t living.

Mine is really good tbh, I even appreciate my commute time now I’m in the office a couple of days a week - it’s time I can sit on the train on my own with my headphones in and zone out.
I do 7 hour days, always take my full lunch hour whether home or in the office, am paid well, generous leave allowance, nice colleagues, wfh 3 days a week so it’s a nice mix.
As soon as my laptop is off I don’t think about work at all. I enjoy my job, it’s not a calling, it’s not my dream profession but what it gives me is an excellent work/life balance. I’m very grateful.

I’m on a very high salary but WFH nearly 100% of the time. I’m very much paid for quality of output rather than hours worked so have been able to create a very good work/life balance considering the level I’m at.

No problem with nursery/school pick ups, doctors appointments or other ad hoc tasks.

I don’t work evenings or weekends either. I feel very fortunate to have finally reached such a position.

I'm in a unicorn job right now in the civil service, £72k (plus very good pension), no line management, WFH, own my diary, work flexi so if I work more I get the time back. It's not a stressful role, I only go over my hours to earn days off. It is very unusual though, I'm a specialist, most people at my grade are working much more demanding roles, my previous grade was more stressful.

I'm very bored though and not being stretched, the next step up is director level which means loss of flexitime so I'm holding out until youngest is in secondary school.

I brought in just under 140k in the last financial year, work about 40yrs a week, 4 days from home. Very good at what I do and a leader in a ftse100 company (just below national board).
Don't target a salary decrease for flexibility that's insane. Target the right job that offers what you're after relative to your skill set.

I work in senior management for a tech company... Not an instant move for all BUT our entire company is v v chill and no one works more than 40 hours (except the software engineers who will, self-driven, work every hour of every day to fix or build something, and then take all the extra hours back in lieu which we're fine with). Really flexible, so I work my hours around school runs/life.

I oversee the HR and Finance teams, many of whom are on 40k-ish for admin roles with no management title/responsibilities. Hybrid working means we try and get in the office twice a week. Tech often has all kinds of non-tech roles (HR/Finance/Ops/Sales/Marketing) and in my experience are open to people with varied backgrounds. It's also often fun to work in because there's plenty of money bouncing around so there's less stress over trying something and failing/not meeting goals etc.

That being said, you have to pick the right one! Some, especially some start ups, can have a toxic culture so you need to do plenty of research on Glassdoor/LinkedIn (reach out to people who have recently left for the bigger picture!). But overall it's a great industry to work in :)

I work for a private medium sized company. 8.30-5 x 3 days a week.

I wake up every night worried about work. I often stay late and I check my emails on the days I have off.

Despite working part time I would say the mental load is so bad that I do not have a good work life balance :(

I am job hunting!

Terrible. I work a FT job (often with OT) and have a PT job in addition. I did over 60 hours last week and I know I'm well on my way to burnout. I miss my DC and I'm just miserable. I can't see a way out 😢

I work in a finance team in a big company. We have two busy periods a year lasting 3 weeks each time, when i may log on for an hour or two of an evening a few times. This is offset by quiet summer periods where the company gives friday afternoons off.

Apart from that I largely do 9- 5.30.

Another civil servant here. I am contracted to work 36 hours a week, and I do a nine day fortnight with every other Friday off.

The work can go through quiet and busy periods so I do sometimes work long days but I can claim that back as time off in lieu. But generally I work the hours I’m contracted to.

I don’t have set hours and no core hours. Generally people are available by about 10am and until 4pm. I can easily take an hour or two for lunch if I’ve got something to do - like getting a hair cut.

I WFH 4 days a week and in the office one day.

I get 42.5 days leave in total (including bank holidays).

It’s a great work life balance.

Really good! Im a TA and work 30 hours a week, the week feels pretty busy but no work to bring home and get all the holidays off to spend time with my children 😀

Mine is up and down. I could WFH more often but I don’t like it. I don’t have the space or decent tech set up whereas my work office is comfortable and I have a lot of screens. I earn about £55k and depending on the time of year and what’s going on I could work a 50+ hour week or a normal 37.5 one. I don’t usually take a proper lunch break but I can be flexible if I have appointments. I don’t check emails I am usually dealing with staffing issues out of hours. I have a lot of responsibility and my day is usually chaotic, stressful and back to back demands on the spot I have to combine all of the deadlines with dropping everything to deal with something else on the spot so it takes a lot of mental energy. I have needed an assistant for about 6 months so I’ve been doing 2 jobs in one. I finally have an assistant now but have to train them which is yet another job

Pretty bad. WFH, it's flexible and I control my diary. Always able to do school events etc. BUT my team is at the mercy of external deadlines, it's stressful and I am always working late, often very late, which makes home life non existent sometimes. Don't want to lose the flexibility but I worked out that with the amount of unpaid overtime I do, I effectively get zero annual leave.

Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life

I generally work reasonable hours. But, even when I work longer, I don't mind as my job is so interesting

I feel I'm reasonably well paid for the hours I work. Like some others here, my work is rather niche / specialised

Similar here. Ostensibly work Mon-Fri 9-5. Never had to work evenings or weekends. Once work is done phone/email goes off until next morning. Reality is Friday afternoons are also dead. WFH 3-4 days a week. 50k

Social worker. There are never enough hours. Frequently four hours at weekends and an hour or so at night.