If you earn 100k plus, what is your occupation?

[CJ2010]

I've posted this here as it is a bit U, but i am curious to know what jobs pay mega bucks.

I've just been looking on a jobs website at admin jobs, most are paying on average 20-25k (in London). With the cost of living as it it, that sort of money will not go far at all.

I've been a SAHM for a while now and have begun looking for work. I'm considering retraining, but only in something that pays well!

So members of the 100k club please spill the beans and let me know your secrets!

angel as long as you are happy, that's all that matters.

Xenia is right. Many women automatically become the SAHP, many times without conscious or deliberate choice. The expectation in society is that women are the SAHP and any other arrangement that deviates from this is viewed by others (mainly males, but not exclusively so) as abnormal in some way. There are posts on here about shared responsibility, SAHDs etc.

My point is that this expectation of the woman being the SAHP is so entrenched in uk society that it is easy for a woman to sleepwalk into it, without making the deliberate decision to be a permanent SAHP. Career is often not considered.

I find it a shame as there are brilliant and talented women out there who have fabulous skills that could be used to amazing reward for UK PLC. But they are not in the workplace and not all of them made a conscious choice to SAH considering all implications for themselves and others.

OneLieIn The argument you are making is fine. However, Isn't it insulting to assume that women who have made the choice to become a SAH parent have not given the decision much thought? I went back to work after DS1 was born. I took redundancy last year as my company was moving location and the new location would not have worked for us as a family (immediate family and friends are all in the area we are now in). I got the job I have now almost straightaway. I knew that I didn't want to stay at home (I've always liked having my own money and the independence that came with it) but I also know I didn't want a FT job. But I wanted to stay employable. I gave the whole situation a lot of thought. But I was also very lucky I found the job I am in now. Ok, I don't earn £100k but I enjoy going to work and the life I have now.

A lot of friends I have who are SAH mums have done other amazing things that I cannot do like start their own business. Similarly, I also know mothers who want to do nothing more than be a full-time mums. Then again, I have a very good friend who made the decision before she even had her DC2 that she was going back to work after 6 months as she acknowledges a big part of her life is her career. It's all about choices. But almost all the mums I know are perfectly intelligent and I am sure have given the decisions they have made a lot of thought!

I did not want to sidetrack this into why it is always the women eaqrning the pin money and doing dross domestic stuff at home whilst Mr Big Bucks gets his underpants washed and doesn't do much domestically whilst earning the £100k+ but of course it's not a personal it's a political decision and every woman moving on to the mommy track and dashing her earning potential for ever does other women down and damages the prospects of her daughters. We've done all this endless times on other threads and I can't be bothered to do it again here.

Back on the topic it is very useful for women to see what women do to earn £100k a year. I think threads like this are helpful. They raise expectations and show that you don't really have to be that special to earn a lot. You just need to plan well, work hard and pick something that is quite well paid

OK, so for another spin on it, how many women on this thread that are earning 100K+ have had 3+ years out of the work place as a SAHM? I'm guessing not that many.

Or if you want to be there for the first few years of the lives of 3DC you are looking at about 10 years out. Anybody on here done that and gone on to earn mega bucks?

[I know there are a few on the thread who built up their careers pre DC to a stage where they can, post DC, command a level of flexibility, but what I'm talking about isn't that, I'm talking about total SAHMdom for a number of years - anybody?]

I think that question is a bit skewed, though pickledsiblings - in my (admittedly limited) experience, the people who make it to the top have real passion for what they do. They don't take ten years out of work, not just because they fear that their career will die if they do but because they want to be at work because they love it.

Fair point emsyj but surely it is possible to love what you do yet still want to be a SAHM for the first few years of your DC's lives, is it not? And why does 'moving on to the mommy track' have to = 'dashing her earning potential forever' (to quote Xenia)?

I would also point out, alongside emsyj's very valid point about having a genuine passion for what you do (at least, in 90% of the high-earner households that I'm aware of)... no father would stand a chance of taking 10 years out of work and expect to attain the same level of career had that not happened.

It's not a woman-only thing.

If you take 10 years out of a career to do anything except activities which enhance your employability, you're weakening your own position. It can be looking after children, volunteering in the local community, caring for an elderly relative, being a housewife, or learning to play an instrument - it doesn't matter. I don't need to emphasize this is especially relevant in my own industry/area of expertise (IT), more so than many other careers.

So that becomes less of an aspect which is particular to women, and more about external signs of commitment to your career.

Clearly, there is a medical need for women to take some time off work to have children, but beyond that initial phase, I don't agree that it makes sense in most cases for the woman to take many years out. In some, yes. In most, no. Each family will have a different optimal working setup, but at the moment this is skewed still by that nod to the nuclear family setup that was the norm a few decades ago. I passionately believe that we need to sever the link between mother as primary care-giver, to allow fathers to have that equal footing in the home.

That's something that not many... I'm not sure what to call it... non-100k career women seem willing to accept, on the whole. Which is something I've always struggled with.

pickledsiblings - no, that's not realistic, for the reasons I've outlined above. It doesn't matter whether you're doing something as worthy as raising children, or fannying around with your allotment for 10 years - that's 10 years (or 5 years, or whatever) of experience and contacts you haven't been there to gain/make.

That haunts all careers, not just the careers of women. If you have a problem with that, your issue isn't really about women in the workplace, it's broader than that - your problem here is with capitalism and the patriarchal structure of society (and thus the workplace).

(I wouldn't say my 2 maternity leaves have harmed my career, as I was back at work at 3 months and 4 months respectively. Clearly that's in a different league to taking 10 years out. For me - it's the other stuff, like emergency childcare stuff, and willingness to travel, that has the potential to hold me back, if it was a problem. Fortunately with DH's job, it is not.)

"surely it is possible to love what you do yet still want to be a SAHM for the first few years of your DC's lives"

Yes, I suppose for some people it is - but there is a difference between enjoying your job and liking it (loving it, even) and being very driven and passionate, which IMO is the characteristic of many of those who reach the top of their profession.

Also, there is the issue that if you take 10 years out of many jobs, you lose technical skill. If you were a lawyer (by example - just because this is what I have experience of) you would have to do ongoing CPD work and pay for your practising certificate each year to keep your qualification for that long (not sure, but have a vague idea that after 7 years or something you have to start again to qualify?? Could be totally wrong though...) Even if you did that, you would have lost your contacts, may well have lost the thread of the relevant legislation in the area/case law etc. You just wouldn't be the same lawyer after 10 years out - and you would need to play catch-up for quite a long time I would think.

emsyj, if you tried to take 10 years out of an IT career, you might as well throw yourself in with the inexperienced graduates, in terms of how you'd be treated in terms of value. I just had a little smile to myself - couldn't help it - when I imagined if I'd taken leave in 2002 and tried to get back into my career path now. It's scary how much things have changed since then. I would be genuinely amazed and impressed to find anyone in a job like mine who has managed to stage such a comeback - in all my years, I've never seen such a thing.

DH could easily have been commanding 100K had he stayed with Clifford Chance (magic circle firm). Except he hated it. He hates Commercial/Civil law.

He took ten years out (during his twenties) to do a job he loved, but there is no money in that and he fancied a change back to law. He knows he could be in a different position but equally he is pleased that he did something he enjoyed instead of just carrying on with the rat race. Sometimes money isn't everything!

Ten years out? Ten years out? You would never in a million years walk into a job with the same degree of seniority. I have a friend who qualified at the same time that I did. She took two years out. She reckons it has cost her four times that in lost seniority. I earn about twice what she does now, and she's cleverer than I am. It's that career break. Hugely limiting.

Another nurse here and Am quite surprised at the number of people here earning £100k+. Now at 7yrs qualified with significant extended roles I am a nurse practitioner and earn.... Wait for it.... £29k pro rata. I was chuffed that I earn now working very PT what I did when I first qualified. I'm almost at the top of my payscale and unless move into management will never get more rises.

Would love to earn more but am a bit that my profession has such a lowly value.

Ten years out is impossible - the pace of technological change is so fast in this industry that you would be starting at the bottom rung again as far as relevant knowledge is concerned. I have a good friend who, even though she was senior in the industry when she left her role 3 years ago, is struggling to get back in now. The belief that you can take time out when your children are small and just waltz back into a comparable role when they are older is just a pipedream. The reality is that its impossible in most industries.

More women need to recognise that when they say "I'm going to be at home with the children when they are small and resume my career later" what they are actually saying is "I'm going to give up the position I've worked for until now, and start at the bottom again later, assuming I can even get a role competing amongst child-free graduates who are willing and able to work 18 hour days to climb the ladder"

You can't just press pause in most jobs and expect to be able to press play at a later date when it suits you. It would be wonderful if you could, but the reality is you just cant. Even in countries where both parents take extended leave, the reality is that a lot of those professional parents use the time to do MBAs, for example, or other professional qualifications, to further their career prospects. Woe betide those who don't.

As to whether this is right or fair - think about it in the context of my industry. 10 years ago, internet penetration was low and Google was only just in its infancy, so you probably would have little to no experience of search marketing strategies, and very little experience in digital marketing. facebook and twitter didn't exist, so you wouldn't really know anything about how to use social sites to develop brands. I could go on, but you get the picture - this stuff is the very basics of the industry now, the ABC baby-steps, and you just wouldn't know how to take those steps if you've spent the last 10 years exclusively raising children and being a SAHM. Never mind that your colleagues have all moved on and up, if they are around at all.

I'm sure mine isn't the only industry where this is true.

So, by telling our daughters to work hard/smart, aim high and covet 100K+ salaries we are inadvertantly telling them to not harbour ideas of being a SAHM to their DC during their preschool years.

I think it's important to be clear about what the take home message of this fascinating (well done OP and All who have contributed) thread is.

Definitely. Staying at home with chidlren is boring and it benefits chidlren if mothers work so no way would I recommend they stay hnome. it's lose lose all the way but obviously I love they are all their own people and will make their own choices. No woman who adores her work and children becomes a housewife! Let's not get on to that on this thread.

As for the nurses there wa snothing to stop them at 14 deciding to become top doctors if they wanted to make more money. they all know that but of course most people couldn't in a million years get the A level results etc needed so they don't have that choice or they don't want to put the work in .

I don't think nurses are that badly paid (sorry). The lawyers earning over £100k are the ones working in huge firms or those who are equity partners in large regionals (with the attendant hours and stress). They are not the majority. Most bog-standard solicitors in high street firms are earning £20-40k, which is perfectly achievable for nurses too. Certainly a very close friend of mine who is a nurse was earning more than me (comparing full time salary with full time salary) when I was working at a niche small firm before I went self-employed. We are the same age, went to school together etc. She works a regular 9-5 day as a ward manager and was earning just over £35k as compared with my £32.5k as a 6 year PQE solicitor in a small firm.

PS It's fairly common for nurses to retrain as solicitors - I know at least 3 who have done so. One hated it so much she went back to nursing within 6 months of qualification, one is now working very part time in a tiny firm and very probably earning less than she did as a nurse, the other is a partner in a large regional.

Xenia, it's OK saying lets not get into that on here, you stop it with the sweeping statements then. Wanting to be at home during the preschool years is not/ should not be the same as signing up for a life of housewifery and drudgery. It is possible to keep up with skills and developments in policy etc whilst at home. If SAHMs were automatically given an interview when they attempted to return to the workplace, that would be a start but as it is, many very capable women don't ever get that far after taking time out regardless of whether or not they have made an effort to keep up to date.

"I passionately believe that we need to sever the link between mother as primary care-giver, to allow fathers to have that equal footing in the home.

That's something that not many... I'm not sure what to call it... non-100k career women seem willing to accept, on the whole. Which is something I've always struggled with."

Some families value the mother as primary care-giver and don't appreciate anyone else suggesting that they are wrong to do so; worse still, that there should be political intervention to prevent mothers from being primary care-givers. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about having a parent at home FT providing the family can afford to do so, with whatever financial means it has as its disposal.

The really wrong thing is to imply that there is a single ideal family/societal model of all adults working FT throughout their productive adult life. The professionalisation of all human relationships, including caring relationships, is not a force for good.

Jajas - Xenia has to use superlative insults because her messages are so empty as to draw no attention whatsoever unless she does so.

The "thick" argument is cheap and rude (and lets Xenia down - she who spent so much on private education to ensure her children speak with her preferred accent and to acquire socially-desirable skills is herself rather short on social graces); the the "letting down the sisters" argument is hilarious, as if we all had to aspire to be suburban home-based solicitor single mothers.

pickledsiblings the work involved in keeping up to date in my industry would mean that the SAHM is actually far from a SAHM. You are talking hours of work every week just to stay on top of things - who is looking after the children when you are attending conferences (where a lot of new innovations are shared, where a lot of networking happens), meeting developers, producers etc? Seems to me that its not doable in my industry. People kid themselves they can stay up to date, but there is a difference between observing the change from the sidelines (which is what you would be doing at home) vs living and breathing the experience on projects.

I've never ever come across a single woman who has managed a few years out and come back in at a senior level. Nor for that matter have I met a man who's done it. Its not unknown for people to jack in their jobs to go "travellling" even at a mid-range level (often men in late 20s) only to come back after 3 years to find that the world and their peers have moved on to more senior posts and their colleagues at the same level are now 23yo hotshots fresh out of uni. That's a bitter pill to swallow for some people. But the reality is a period of fun and time out carries a cost, no matter how well-intentioned the reason for the break.

I said it before - you can't just press pause and expect the world to welcome you back at the same position in many industries.

I also am not sure why a SAHM returning to work should be guaranteed an interview - surely only if their CV merits it? I have employed returning to work mothers - I have 4 within sight of my desk now. But all of them came back within 3 years, and those who were off for more than a year or so came back at a lower salary and level than when they left. Only one of them has now exceeded the salary they were at before they left - and that's because her partner is a SAHD, so she works her butt off to succeed.

The others are good solid performers, but turn down any work that means foreign travel, and duck out of crisis late hours at work on the basis that they need to get home for the kids - they are stuck in the mindset that looking after the kids is their job, as it was when they were SAHMs, instead of dividing the task with their partners. And this is in a country where they nearly alwyas have live-in home help. They also don't work after the kids have gone to bed - because they are making dinner and ministering to their husbands (very traditional set ups here)

That's fine, they still have great value to me and the business, but they are not the top performers in the team. And they know that, its a choice they made - they have to live with that choice.

Life is all about choices, and what choices work best for you and your family. Can you have it all with no sacrifice? Not in my experience. Do I regret the choices I made - hell no? My DD is only home from school for 90 mins before I get home most days - I take her to school, have never missed a performance or event at school, and I'm home in plenty of time to spend a good couple of hours with her before she goes to bed. I then work after she's in bed if I need to. Those are my choices and I'm happy with them.

I agree with TheBossofMe - if you want to earn a lot of money you have to do a lot of work (particularly in the early years) and be highly flexible on availability as to when and where you do that work. If you prioritise the constraints of home, partner and/or children (or any other activity, for that matter) ahead of working flexibility, you will undoubtedly see others make more professional headway than you. That's the way of the world.

Which is why it has always worked very well for many families to have one adult pursuing an all-guns-blazing-career and another adult prioritising home life and children.

Clearly being succint is not one of the skills that has helped get me where I am - sorry about the essay!