Why do you think mumsnet has a more wealthy user base than average or do you think it’s full of bullshitters?

[Lurkinginthedarkness]

I’ve been reading mumsnet threads regularly for a while now and have noticed the userbase seems to be far wealthy than the general population, based on the income threads and also other little things that give that feel.
Obviously I’m not saying I think everyone is wealthier than average on here I’m personally a broke loser and I’m sure there’s others like me, but I’ve been blown away by the sheer amount of people saying they earn 60, 70, 80 or even 100k like it’s average.

I personally don’t think it’s full of bullshitters as there are other hints like the fact the spelling and grammar used on here is typically far superior to other sites like facebook and obviously you’re unlucky to have a brilliant job if you’re SPAG isn’t spot on.

Anyway I like mumsnet and have nothing against people being better off than me I’m just musing what do you think it is about mumsnet that attracts more wealthier people typically?

Im not sure certificates make any difference, is it this thread (cant be bothered to scroll back) where one poster is incredulous that people live on 30k type jobs, or less as a long term level and asks 'what happened at school'

Doesnt have the intelligence or imagination to understand the workforce and how jobs are created and distributed, how achievement and intelligence levels average out, how earnings average out across the population, what would happen if no one did these jobs - the whole country went to university and did white collar/graduate jobs and became high earners. Who does she think would be available to be drivers and carers and shop assistants?

And doesnt understand that there are many who may have functional barriers to either achievement or learning and working.

Equally, like another poster said, she works a basic NMW job which means she gets time with her family and little stress from work and that is wholly suitable for her life. Im absolutely in support of that.

When I read people being confused or surprised by that, I realise that despite being big earners, they're not very clever.

Based on written English, I think your average Mumsnetter is quite smart. Whether you answer the door or not is down to your personality I would have thought, not intellect?

I think a lot of it is cultural, by which I mean a view that 'other people' are a problem which I think got worse over the covid times. Also there is a current narrative about risk, worry, fear. I dont know how much that is real in real life but on here its quite prominent.

I’m not going to disagree with you, my job is minimum wage and I don’t have a levels let alone a phd. There are also clever dyslexic people.

Grammar and income aside I do think mumsnet has smarter people on average than other sites, I recall mind numbing arguments on facebook about 5 year olds being transgender. Mumsnet is the only place where that’s acknowledged to be bullshit without veering into any religious fundamentalism. You’re not going to agree with everyone on here but at least there’s not a general consensus that giving a nine year old puberty blockers to change gender is a good idea. Common sense

I’d think there’s a broad spectrum, more in the middle range, fewer at both ends.

Though why people feel the need to brag on here about what they or their dh earns, I really don’t know. It’s so frightfully vulgar, dahling.

You've obviously taken in ironing?

I definitely agree that the demograph of MN is the more educated, middle class type. I say that as I originally started off in netmums, the difference being quite stark!
There is definitely artistic license with some posters though and they have been caught out.

Clever has nothing to do with class. I have to explain a quite complex thing to all types of people and often the older working class women are far sharper on the uptake than upper middle class men.

I find that many Facebook debates are all "lol hun - hugs" etc, so I prefer to hang out here!

For mums who planned to ttc, it might be a lot higher than 5%. Median earners are less likely to have children. Younger mums might be more likely to interact on forums like tiktok. Older mums who post long posts on a forum are more likely to be higher earning. Just look at the number of posters here who have their first kid in their 40s.

That was me

But it is. The constant benchmarking by the middle is very tiring. You never see that on forums where people are much wealthier.

This is also for @Ooihuko

We finally have some hard data:

For the taxes paid in 2025, there was a jump of 12%, to 284,000, in the number of women paying additional rate taxes. The threshold is earnings of £125,000. This represents about 1.7% of the female workforce.

Also, the 2021 census reported only 8% of households with gross earnings of £100K or more. Of course that takes men into account. I am sure this figure has improved since the pandemic but, as MumsNetters frequently moan, growth (under both main political parties) has not been good.

Neither of these figures quite tells us how many women earn at least £100K pa, but they come close. With just under 1.7% of women on £125K+, do we really think that 3.3% of women have salaries clustered between £100K and £124,999? It fails the smell test.

MumsNet has about 8M unique users per month. The true 5% figure would be around 400,000 on £100,000 or more, personally.

Each of us can assess the likelihood of that for herself using whatever signifiers she prefers. Really, why should it matter? It is a pretty feeble way to measure your worth.

Maybe because in social company it's a bit off putting to others to listen to people talk about what they have and how much they earn, especially if they have a lot more than the people they are talking to.
On a forum, it doesn't really matter if the other posters think they are a crashing bore or a fantasist.

They are what many people do for their entire life. Good solid honest work.
I take it you're happy to be wheeled round the hospital by the porter though, and have a cleaner perhaps, and use supermarkets and the staff therein?

But it implies that after 10 years doing that you've not gained any skills and experience that justify you being more valuable?

To me the whole point is that with time you should know a job inside out & thus progress to where you employer can put you to better use coordinating a whole team of people doing that job, or training others, or supervising etc. Or you'd simply be faster. That experience and skill would then be worth more than the 18 year old who left school last week and has only been doing the job 5 mins.

Its weird to think you'd never progress beyond unskilled/low experience work through your whole life?

Who does she think would be available to be drivers and carers and shop assistants?

Younger, less experienced workers. Id expect these roles to have a higher proportion of 18-30 year olds. I'd expect more over 30s to have progressed to supervisory or managing roles, team leaders etc.

I would assume most people have the capacity to be in a role requiring experience during their peak earning period from 30-50, and that during this stage they would earn above NMW.

In an ideal world, unfortunately practicalities get in the way.
Many people (usually women) have to juggle childcare around work. This limits many women from moving upwards because they have to dedicate a lot of time into being there for their kids.
Not everyone can afford childcare or has family or friends who can help out, especially during the long school holidays.

My CEO earns over £2,000,000 + bonus.

If that was for me, I am a scientist. I was annoyed at PP’s facile claim that 5% of women make £100K ( which she then rounded up generously). She also dropped her own salary into the mix.

I thought she did women a great disservice by ignoring the roles of sexism, the motherhood tax, etc. I am not in the habit of questioning MumsNetters about their reports of their own lives so I assume her profession is focused on creative or verbal, rather than analytical, ability. She has not been back.

My own friendship circle encompasses people of hugely varying financial means and I couldn’t care less about that side of things.

(Perhaps you weren’t writing for me, as I am not sure in what sense I am ‘middle’? Although I confess here to lacking a title of nobility)

Sure, but these are data points. Eight million unique MumsNet users per month. 284,000 women in the UK paying additional rate taxes in 2025.

I am not underestimating. We have a long way to go. @Thundertoast is right, the tech industry is a high paying sector. Statistically it is male dominated.

CEO where I work earns approximately a million a MONTH! I’m 3 years qualified and earn 50k…

This.

Definitely loads of bullshitter. But definitely a lot of wealthier people - I think a lot are probably married to money, and that's why they have time to always be on Mumsnet, but some well-off consultants etc as well.

It does skew upper-middle class, which is a bracket I also fall into.

Theres a huge lack of understand here about the wider demographic of workers

Firstly, how many very young porters do you see, or cleaners in offices? They tend to be much older, in our office probably in their 40s and 50s. I can tell during brief interactions that perhaps they may not have huge cognitive abilities. The work is part time in any case, an hour here, a session there, ideal for somone who might only want to or be able to work part time. These jobs arent being done by motivated and enthusiastic school leavers with their eye on supervising.

And on that note, how many supervisors or managers do you think there are for ever 20 cleaners or porters or supermarket staff? 1, perhaps 2 depending on the set up? You can be as competent, experienced, knowledgeable as you like but 19 out of that 20 looking to be the next manager are going to be disappointed.

Being a supervisor or manager has a completely different skill set to coming in every day, rotating stock, wiping bums, pushing trolleys, its stressful, you need people management skills, which I have found over my career cant really be taught, you can upskill to some degree in that area but you've either got it or you havent. its not for everyone, its draining and more timely. People may not enjoy that or want it.

Many workers may have either undiagnosed or diagnosed learning difficulties, dyspraxia, dyslexia, just lower than average cognition and nothing specific. They're not going to want or be able to get mor and more qualifications or study to achieve something, and thats ok

I really take issue with this idea that someone isnt valuable because they're doing a low skill job, these jobs are valuable and necessary to society, its really prejudice and snobbery about someone working on the shop floor and how they should or could work harder, work smarter, achieve more. Well they have achieved what they want and can and thats ok.

Some of the threads on here are an eye opener about that, countless angst about a child dropping out of college and getting bar work or shop work and its like the child is dying or something the way its spoken about.

OP, when people are researching / googling independent schools, you very often see google listings for a MN thread in which that school has been discussed. So, I suspect many people find MN this way - via the Education Boards. That was how I found MN. Then I found AIBU and waste time on there!

Also, on threads about high earners or some such, it's obviously going to be self selecting because people only respond to threads that resonate with them, or that they feel they have a personal and relevant perspective on.

There will be plenty of high earning women on MN. Why wouldn't there be? It's the internet! Similarly, there will be many women married to very high earning men.

From my perspective, I'd say I barely relate to 80% of threads on here. But that doesn't lead me to assume they are made up! Just different people across different demographics and areas of the country - as it should be.

The average salary in London is just over 50k, and there are a shit load of people in London. So saying that a salary of 50k on mumsnet seems high seems naive.
Quite often people are turned off from comments/threads they can't associate with (private schools, well paid careers, ski holidays) and so de-select MN as a site of interest this then skews the user base