Under 40 and on £100k+

[muffinhead4]

Talking to my brother who is 35 about work. He is on over £100k and has been for a few years (he works in IT sector) He thinks its a normal wage for his age and is shocked i am on £60k at my age (37) I work in finance.
We both work in London. Am i really behind like my brother says?
I would love to be on £100k but wouldn't know which direction to turn to.
Anyone else on £100k under 40? what do you do for work?

The reality is that you dont necessarily get paid more because you work hard. Its just like buying products, the prices are determined by demand and supply. If you have sought after skills that others dont have, then obviously you will be in demand.

@BobbidyBibbidyBob I reckon you will earn that again. You've the experience to command that salary now. I used to think similarly but so far (7 years or so) it's been a steady increase.
Always good to save though. But don't pressure yourself.

I'd say it's relatively common for IT / tech, either sales role or other senior roles.

@SaySomethingMan www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/111214/quants-what-they-do-and-how-theyve-evolved.asp
This is an article on what quants do.
They earn a lot. I think one of my friends had a starting salary of 100k as a quant.

I’m in accountancy and know several who have made it to partner by 40 and so will be earning in excess of £100k. Probably associate directors and directors in London will earn over £100k too.

I don’t think it’s the norm but I also don’t think it’s unusual!

It's really not uncommon for IT contractors to be on day rates equating to 100k plus salaries.

I’m the poor one in my group of friends but those under 30 and on £100k+ are nearly all lawyers, IT, or accountants/finance. Of those who are 40ish, there are a couple of consultants.

Anywhere else and my salary would be really good.

They definitely don’t, I did one that started at 25k base

@3WildOnes thanks very much for sharing this. It sounds like very interesting ( i love stats and am an amateur coder! haha ). I had no idea a role like this existed.
I love how tech is woven into everything in such different ways and evolving

I know several companies in the north where the grad scheme starts at £40k. Are you calling me a liar?

Of the worst order!

(joking of course)

no I meant to say they all don’t.. I got one at 25k… classic case of thought it and didn’t type it

I've just left a job as a team manager of an Adolescent Safeguarding Team and I was in 52k a year.
I am 45. These wages are astonishing.

It's so depressing reading this!
I used to manage a busy child protection social work team and earned under 45k. I have 20 years experience as a qualified social worker in child protection.
Most of my friends are experienced and well qualified professionals in health, education and social work. All of us have degrees and many have masters. Nobody earns more than 50k. We also work bloody hard.
It's all wrong somehow!

£100k pa. means nothing if you live a £120k lifestyle.

You certainly can't judge the decency of a person by how much they earn.

I'm on £25k p.a. in my 50s in the north..I have a good work life balance with little work stress and have a comfortable if not luxurious lifestyle.

London seems to be a trap as far as money is concerned..whatever someone earns it never seems enough.

This is depressing.

If it helps @muffinhead4 I am fully qualified and earn a lot less than you!

It might be normal for his age in the industry that he works in, but definitely not normal across the board. He's either being stupid, or just trying to be obnoxious.

My friends are all in their early 30s, and they're all on around 30-40K. And I even think that is probably a stretch for the national average.

Just to add some facts:

The following is for full time salaries, 2022 ASHE tables from the ONS.

Age~~Med Salary~~90th centile salary
20s~~~27.5k~~~~~~44.2k
30s~~~34.3k~~~~~~60.7k
40s~~~37.0k~~~~~~71.1k

So I think it's pretty clear it's not "normal", as fewer than 10% of people in their thirties earn over 60.7k. I find it's a useful reality check if you mainly have very high earning circles of friends to keep an eye on these tables as otherwise it can skew ones perception of normality.

For those who see themselves as well qualified, senior and not earning enough - did you think the sector you trained in was going to deliver a bigger salary or was it something you haven't thought about till now. Did it not matter then and it does matter now?
At school our careers teacher refused to share salary information with us when we were choosing our careers - back then there was no such thing as the internet - so we had no choice but to choose our careers in complete ignorance of the salary benefits it would deliver..
Dc's school ran an experiment where they were all randomly assigned jobs and they had to plan their lifestyle based on their salary. The kids who were assigned childcare assistants were the worst off. DD was assigned civil engineer - she paid for her friend who was assigned hairdresser to go on holidays but her friend couldn't afford it. It was a real eye-opener for them.

Dh chose to enter into consultancy as it was seen as the trendy option at the time - it has delivered a healthy salary but not everyone can go the distance.

This is so so important! Nail on the head here!

my school was a private school, there was no other choice than to go to university, literally nothing was presented so I didn’t even realise it existed. There was no career coaching, just application to Uni. You had to really fight for a year out, which my parents didn’t support so wasn’t allowed to not apply, in ambivalence I picked the subjects that I was ok at and sort of liked and that was that.

uni didn’t really do careers coaching either, I remember going to see them and it being the most useless experience. So I just ended up staying in Uni, for m and doctoral level which yeah was fun and I’ve got more qualifications than you can shake a stick at degree wise but in the world of employment, it’s not particularly useful. I’m now early 30s and 40k, similar salary to if I’d stayed in academia but I’m in product in finance, definitely good salaries do exist in this area but it would be rare to see a 30 year old on 75k +

For those who see themselves as well qualified, senior and not earning enough - did you think the sector you trained in was going to deliver a bigger salary or was it something you haven't thought about till now. Did it not matter then and it does matter now?

I think how much difference the sector you work in makes is really not made clear. IT has been mentioned a lot on this thread. There is no one in IT at my (large) company that earns more than 100K other than the most senior directors. People could literally move to another company, do the same job and substantially increase (in some cases double) their salary.

So why do people continue to work for the company? I think it's partly that the company offers good work/life balance and is seen as caring for its employees. People like what the company does (many have come from financial services and cite they didn't like the company ethos and the fact that it was centred around making money). There are generous employee pension contributions and annual leave. It's based out of London/expensive areas so cheaper to live here (not such an issue with widespread wfh these days). It attracts people who have had better paid careers elsewhere and now want something that suits their life better. But we do also see lots of people move on quite quickly as they want more money.

For me, it suited while my children were younger, but I'm now frustrated that I'm underpaid compared to sector averages. (Comments on this thread saying jobs like mine commonly attract over 100K - I earn nowhere near that - don't help). Thinking about moving on.

Are you prepared for vastly different working culture or are you expecting to carrying on as usual but just getting paid more?

@redskydelight When you say IT, do you mean you work in an IT company, or do you mean tech support guy in any large company? I can't believe in IT/ tech/ cybersecurity etc companies there wouldn't be several people earning more than 100K+, for example sales (Regional sales managers/ Account manager, any field based sales people). Or if there are, then they definitely should look for a new gig if they are any good.

I mean IT department in a large company.
We provide IT services for our company so we don't have sales managers etc.

We do have the full gamut of IT jobs including cybersecurity, developers, enterprise architecture, project managers etc as well as all the operational support type functions.

The good people quite often do tend to leave. Or they stay because they like the company and don't need the money.

Are you prepared for vastly different working culture or are you expecting to carrying on as usual but just getting paid more?

Obviously I'm prepared for the different working culture ... (And I haven't worked in the same company my entire working life so well aware of the differences). Weighing up whether more money is worth it!

@redskydelight I think people mentioning IT in the thread mean working for an actual IT/ tech company and earning good money. Even in these IT companies the people working in "actual IT" (for example day to day tech support for employees) probably earn the least. With the caveat, that I would say salaries are generally better so for example HR people in IT/ tech companies would be better paid than many other places.