Public sector vs high pay city job

[Vixen44]

I've just been offered a civil service job. It's outside London on £50k. I'm also far in the interview process for a similar role in a financial services company in the city which I'm guessing would be £90k (plus potentially a bonus).

It's a significant difference in money but then trade off with longer hours, 4 days in the office vs 2 and I'm scared about the stress level. I calculated living in a commutable distance (I.e. door to door under 1hour) to the city one would be £1000 more in rent.

I have two young kids (age 2 and 4). So I don't want to be completely absent. DH is self employed and works from home so he is around. But he would need to scale back his work somewhat to do the drop offs and pickups.

I don't know if I'm crazy to pass on the higher paid job?
I know on the flip side that the civil service pension is good but I'm struggling to calculate how much difference that actually makes in the long term.

It’s not comical. You know OP isn’t doing those roles. Do you think she’s a marine biologist with an alternative position in the city?

both are”boring”. One is more highly paid

The OP hasn't confirmed the role though even financial within civil service has multiple levels including treasury dept analytics etc etc.

The concept that someone's role is boring is different horses for different courses. But generally when someone mentions the civil service there is a already formed opinion of what that is. Reality is very different!

The CS role could be awful or great - impossible to tell without more data. It can get truly awful and can also be truly great. It really depends on the work and culture of the team - some are dire. Also agree with comments above about difficulties with promotion (most depts are shrinking) and also that you will end up 60 per cent in office. None of this means you shouldn’t do it but eyes open…

DH is considerably hands on already. And with CS job, he'll still be doing at least half of the drop offs and pick ups.
With a city job, he's effectively doing 100%. I'd be off at 7.30am and not back home until 6.30-7 on a good day.

Anyway, I took the CS job!

Re boredom, I'm actually more excited about the CS job. It's just HR so I'm no marine biologist or spy but it's nice to be contributing to something tangible.

To close it out, I've taken the CS job. I had a long chat with DH. He said he'll support me ofc if I choose finance but being frank, he doesn't think I should take the city job either. I was in finance way before kids too and he saw what I went through in terms of stress and doesn't think it would be healthy for me to go back.
And I do fear it too. It's not to say another industry or CS won't be hard but it's worth a try.
And worst case, I can go back to the private sector in a few years when the kids are older.

Much better idea and in your old age, you’ll thank yourself when you have a pension that’s better than the majority of the population

Not sure this is true. My DH works in finance, as do two of his siblings. DH has done a mix of public and private sector over 20yrs and public sector would have redundancies every year, due to funding levels. His private sector roles were lower stable (and on average lower paid). One of his sisters has always worked private sector and only faced redundancy once in 20yrs. His brother has always in in public sector and been made redundant three times and is more highly paid and high stess than all of them. It’s a real mix and completely company dependent.

For most of our lives we know our children as adults. We support them through big transitions in their lives - new jobs, marriage, becoming parents to our grandkids. We only know them as little children for a few years out of the (hopefully) 50-60 years we have with them.

Don’t throw this away for money unless you need it desperately and your family will go hungry otherwise. Working overtime and commuting every day will mean that you will barely see your children during the week. Is it really worth it.

You can always change your job in 5+ years when your children are bigger. Once they’re teenagers they won’t want to spend too much time with you anyway. Cherish those early years because they are never coming back

I mean, you had no choice but to take the CS job - given you didn’t have an offer yet for the finance job. It’s not like you had both offers simultaneously to toss up/turn down!

In terms of stress, I would not say it’s a public vs private thing where private is guaranteed to be worse.

Public sector can be stressful because quite often, it’s a slow pace and your colleagues will be inept. As HR, it’s very likely your colleagues will keep you busy where you’ll be constantly firefighting their mess as opposed to making meaningful change. CS often has legal issues and media stigma too, so it’s not unusual to have midnight emails for media issues going out the next morning etc or ministerial attention to contentious matters. Not likely if you’re not in an important position - but if you’re advising directors, SCS etc work life balance isn’t guaranteed to be flexible. Pretty much anyone properly senior in CS, works over their regular hours and doesn’t claim flexi just like private.

Flexi is more reserved for junior grades but the expectation is that you suck it up, the higher up you are regardless of you being able to take it.